To be a great leader, be clear in thoughts and values

Bhagyashree Tarke

"Purpose without values is Hitler and purpose with values is Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King" said Rajeev Peshawaria, CEO of ICLIFF Leadership and Governance Centre, Malaysia, while delivering an address on Wednesday at FAPCCI auditorium on Leadership Development and Business Strategies, organised by the Hyderabad Management Association.

In his book, 'Too many bosses, Too few leaders', published in 2011, Rajeev discusses what leadership is all about, and talks in detail about the different aspects of leadership like energising self, energising co-leaders and energising the entire organisation and proactively shaping the pillars of sustainable growth.

Continuing on the same vein, he opined that leadership has nothing to do with charisma and personality and there is no correlation between power, position and effective leadership. In fact, it's the act of harnessing human energy towards the creation of a better future. The source of this energy comes from clarity of purpose and clarity of values.

Among other things that Rajeev dwelt upon, he said that, 80-90 billion $ is spent on training people every year. In his opinion this is a waste of time and money, as it doesn't fetch the required and expected results. Quoting from studies which have been made globally in over 100 cities spread over 12 years, Rajeev argued forcefully that the findings revealed that only fewer than two per cent emerged as great leaders in corporate lives.

This investment is not working, because people have a formulaic approach towards understanding and developing leadership like, personality+power+skill+best practice+intelligence= leadership. Moreover the returns on such huge investments end up creating more bosses than leaders who enjoy the privileges of their position and make their own future rather than creating a better future for the people around and under them, he said.

In a convincing manner, he also deduced that all great things are created twice, first in the imagination of the leader with and then in reality. Setting Mahatma Gandhi as the perfect example of a true leader that he was, in helping us achieve freedom, he listed out the key qualities of leadership as conviction, determination, empathy, perseverance, clarity of thoughts, emotional drive and the sense of belonging towards the world around them.