History will be kind to me for I intend to write it,” said Winston Churchill. He proceeded to do just that; the wartime prime minister of the United Kingdom penned a four-volume A History of the English-Speaking Peoples on Britain and its colonies.
Churchill was a racist and a man who enjoyed his tipple. In drinking, he clearly won this round against Viscountess (Nancy) Astor:
Astor: “Winston, you are drunk!”
Churchill: “And you, madam, are ugly. But I shall be sober in the morning.”
In racism, Churchill was responsible for the deaths of more than three million Indians in the Great Bengal Famine of 1942-43. He diverted grain supplies to the allied forces in Europe. “The British lied about their policies claiming that grain was not being exported and massively downsizing the death toll, pretending that there was no famine,” says an archive on the BBC. “The policies of racially-motivated colonial exploitation which were taken to the extreme by the Nazis were in part inspired by the policies of the British in India.”
What is the legacy of Churchill’s “blood, toil, tears and sweat”? It is a country in which Muhammed has become the most popular name for baby boys and chicken tikka masala the national dish.
A leader must be judged not by what he achieves while he is at the helm but by what happens after he leaves. A leading bank is today crippled by non-performing assets (NPAs). When were most of these loans given? While the previous boss — a charismatic and much-admired man — was in charge. A leading Indian business house took over an array of global companies — one of them a metals giant for around £6 billion. Today, the CEO responsible has retired to play ducks and drakes with a motley crew of startups (more good money down the drain). And his successor is selling the company concerned for £1 and getting all the flak.
Such long-serving CEOs give themselves enough time to paper over mistakes of the past. And they pay the piper; they — directly or indirectly — finance leadership studies. So it is necessary to look at the available literature on the subject with a pinch of salt.
In the Chief Executive magazine survey of 40 Best Public Companies for Leaders (2016), Wipro at No. 14 is the only Indian presence. T.K. Kurien is listed as CEO. But a few days after the issue appeared, in January 2016 Abidali Neemuchwala was named as CEO with Kurien being hoisted upstairs as vice-chairman. Besides, just a few years back, chairman Azim Premji had created a hydra-headed monster by appointing Suresh Vaswani and Girish Paranjpe as joint CEOs. And, at the end of the day, everybody knows that Azim calls the shots at Wipro. His son Rishad has already joined the board. He is chief strategy officer.
In the 2015 list, Chief Executive had a little more Indian representation — Anant Gupta of HCL Technologies and Cyrus Mistry of the Tata Group. Mistry was discovered after an elaborate search by a panel which included Mistry himself; no leader was thrown up from the nearly 100 Tata Group companies.
Aon Hewitt Top Global Companies for Leaders has General Electric at the top. It is followed by IBM, Hindustan Unilever, General Mills and ICICI Bank (see box). Hindustan Unilever and ICICI have both generated CEOs for several other companies; they are known as schools for CEOs. So they deserve the ranking. But it is obvious that several different views prevail.
Finally, a word from the Hay Group which was acquired by Korn Ferry late last year. Says its 2014 Best Companies for Leadership survey: “In summary: the Best Companies for Leadership are intentionally developing their leaders by getting crystal clear on the future capabilities they will need to succeed. And they deliberately ensure current and aspiring leaders get the right critical experiences they need to build those capabilities.” Is that the last of the Hay leadership surveys? Well, Korn Ferry may have different leadership ideas and they are the boss now.
