There are two ways of living. Live a moderate life and never get advised to cut on whites (like salt, sugar, etc.), smoking, drinking or lead a fast life and finally get strongly advised to get rid of all the habits. Every body knows this, but only a few practice. Majority of the people fall in the latter category. The same is true with leadership. Either all the time you make sure that you act with leadership and management paradigms and keep a balance, or get so much obsessed with growth and the bottomline that you forget your long term interests and obligations and act only with management paradigms. It is because of this situation that Tom Peters has to say, "American companies are over managed and underlead. A revolution is brewing". The scenario in Indian industry needs no comments. Perhaps we have reached a stage in India where we need an emphasis withdrawal. The withdrawal is distressing, frustrating, but there is no way out. Indian industry has to learn to lead a moderate life, i.e., to keep a balance between leading and managing. We need to passionately nurture our core ideologies as shown by companies like Merck, Walt Disney, Sony, Hewlett Packard, Ford in respect of employees, customers, society and product excellence. The bottomline will automatically improve. This will set standards for other companies to follow and will improve competitiveness.

Saurabh Kant Singh
Manager - HRD
Tata Liebert, Mumbai

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