Leadership and valuing differences

When I started going to school, we used to live in a small town. There was a garden behind our house. Now that I think of it, I remember it as less of a garden and more of a green patch where in one corner my mother carried on her experiments with growing vegetables and in a shady place below a guava tree, I used to try experiments with garden insects. Once we had caught a few dragonflies and put them in a large bottle. I remember our disappointment when those dragonflies refused to eat the sugar we put in the bottle and eventually died. That was my first lesson in acknowledging “differences” – that dragonflies cannot survive on what my army of red ants (also in a bottle) gleefully lapped up everyday.

Time went by and I left school and went to another small town to live in an engineering college hostel. This was one of the IITs. This was the first time when I was properly exposed to the diversity of the country that is India. Our cooks were from Andhra, my floor-mates were from Bihar, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, you name it. One of my best friends was from a region of the country that was much cooler and drier than the humid, hot, dusty town in West Bengal. It took him a few muscle sprains and a couple of heat strokes to come to the realization that this was a different climate and he needed to modify his jogging routine to suit the region. That was when I started to appreciate what “diversity” means.

I am much older now. I have seen much more of the world. Working in a multinational company, one of the best things I have learnt is to identify a good manager and to make a distinction between a manager and a leader. When we are looking for a manager, we look for someone who will make sure that things get done the right way and efficiency is the key to achieving results. We look for the ability to manage people – not to DO. That means we do not necessarily make the best salesman the manager – because there is a great deal of difference between selling and getting others to sell. However, when we are looking for a leader, being a good manager with a good track record and having all the competence and skills is NOT enough. One of the key qualities we look for is the ability to “Value Differences”. In today’s multinational, multicultural world, leaders in every aspect of life are constantly challenged by different cultures, different ethos, different ways of doing things. In many cases, the senior managers / leaders have to work across boundaries or as an expatriate in the globalised world. Not only do they have to deal with a culturally different workforce, they have to also deal with cultural differences of the customers and other stakeholders. Can they adapt themselves? Can they appreciate the difference? Can they see the value in that difference? Do they play to the strengths of people from a different culture? The answers to these questions determine whether a manager / leader is successful or not.

The Indian Cricket Authorities need to apply the same measurement criteria in selecting the right coach for the Indian Cricket team. Otherwise, as we have seen in last two months, cultural insensitivity can create havoc and split the team.