Tag: skills

Women Leadership : New age imperatives


The International Women’s day celebrated on 8th March every year reminds us of the role of women in society.  It is true that in India and around the world, women have played a stellar role in leadership in family, organisations and society.  History teaches us of brave women who have transformed societies with their selfless leadership.  We in India have the privilege of women playing a pivotal role in all walks of life.  We have had freedom fighters, politicians, a noble laureate, historians, academics and very recently space scientists, who have made our country proud by their outstanding accomplishments.

In my book, leadership is gender agnostic. We need to lead by example and be a role model for our followers.  Leaders inspire change.  How does it matter whether you are a male or a female leader ?  It does not.  I have worked with women and men leaders and have found them equally inspiring to lead.  So, gender does not matter to determine your quality of leadership.  What matters is our ability to understand the needs of a multigenerational workforce and how to keep them engaged and motivated.

What are the new age imperatives, which the women leaders of today are challenged with ?  The first and the foremost challenge for women leaders would be the unconscious bias of others.  Although, I strongly believe that women are equal to men as leaders, there is a unconscious bias especially in the Indian society that women cannot lead in particular circumstances like a battlefield, flying fighter planes or even working in the shop floor of a manufacturing unit.  In my view, the bias is more in our mind than in reality.

Today India can be proud to have women fighter pilots, space scientists, manufacturing managers and even captains in the defence forces.  Thus all the so called male bastions have been shattered by sheer merit and performance.  It is time for the biased Indian male to wake up and realise that women today are not only equal to men but could be even better in many fields purely based on their talent.

The second challenge which women leaders may face in the new age would be the willingness of men and women under them to accept them as leaders.  As I said earlier that having worked under women leaders, I do not find any change between men and women as leaders.  But the feudal mindset of men and women may make them uncomfortable to accept a woman as a leader. This may be experienced by many women leaders and they get over it by their sheer performance and inspiration.

The third imperative could be the balance of work and life.  It is very difficult for women leaders to balance family needs and work needs unless they have an excellent family support.  In the absense of this support mechanism, it could result in strained family relationship or sometimes giving up a challenging career at your peak.  Most women leaders work double of their male counterparts since they have to balance home and work and this is a big ask of them.

As in the photo above, women leaders have equalled men in all aspects of leadership.

Having said that, I would like to restate that in my books, women leaders are as smart as male leaders if not smarter.

It is time to reflect and support them to succeed.

S Ramesh Shankar

Knowledge is for sharing


All of us assimilate knowledge and skills as we grow in life.  Some of us are willing to share it, while others want to conserve it.  In my view, knowledge is for sharing.  Some of us believe that if we share knowledge, we may lose our uniqueness and our mental wealth. I think it is the other way around.  The more you share, the more you learn and the more you grow in life.

Let us first try to understand from the organisation context.  Let us assume we have great people practices in our organisation.  Some of us are reluctant to share our best practices with other organisations thinking that we may lose our competitive edge.  With many years of working in the corporate sector, I can confidently state that no organisation can cut, copy and paste the best of practices of any other.  An organisation culture evolves over years and can never be copied by another organisation just by aping it.

Similarly, the culture of a nation is built over centuries.  No other country can come in, learn and adapt this culture to their society.  It is like you may be able to copy and paste a photo or picture from one source to the other.  But, you can never transfer the beauty of nature in reality by copying photos of nature.

Now let us come down to the family as an institution.  Is it possible to imitate the values of a family by just trying to follow them.  It takes generations to institutionalise values in a family.  Even, if we generously share our values and beliefs, it is not possible just to transplant the same without evolving our own values.

Just like organisations and institutions, individuals are also worried about sharing knowledge and skills.  Let us imagine the world’s best batsmen trying to teach batting to any of us.  Even if he is willing to spend his lifetime sharing his knowledge and skills, we can not expect to become the world’s best batsman without putting in hard work and honing our own skills.  If knowledge sharing could lead to knowledge assimilation so easily, the world would have geniuses all around.  

Knowledge is for sharing.  The more we share knowledge and skills, the more we evolve and grow as an individual.  Let us look at the geniuses around us.  Whether it is a sports person or a musician or a scientist,  they are always willing to share their knowledge and skills with others.  The more they share, the more they learn and the more they are respected in society.

Like in the photo above, I met with a group of young talents in my organization, who were more than willing to share knowledge and skills with one another.

So, let us share whatever knowledge we have from today.  We will gain more than we are likely to lose.  Try it.

S Ramesh Shankar