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Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd. - Amit Chatterjee

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119 pages

English

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You don't need an MBA or have a job with a top company to be a good manager. Amit Chatterjee in his provocative and contemplative book explains how managers can excel beyond expectations. He urges managers to act of their own volition and shows how to transcend from being managers to leaders. Through illustrations and useful graphs, the author offers purposeful practices for leadership. Ascent provides a Growth Mantra for managers and how they can emerge as leader-managers through investment in complexity and volition. It is a must-read for all those managers who want to grow and become effective leaders.

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Gestion et management

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Publié par	Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd.
Date de parution	11 août 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9788184006445
Langue	English

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Extrait

Amit Chatterjee

ASCENT
A Practising Manager s Growth Mantra
RANDOM HOUSE INDIA
Contents
Dedication
Foreword
Do the following statements sound familiar?
Preface
Introduction
Part 1: The Semantics of Managerial identity

1: The Manager
2: The Manager-Leader Divide
3: Developing Leaders-Paradox or a Dilemma?
Part 2: The Manager s Premise

1: The Barons and the Knowledge Workers
2: The LCD Syndrome
3: Making a Point
Part 3: The Science for Managers

1: Managers: Professionals Under Pressure
2: The Motivation Arena
3: The Volitional Arena
4: The Narcissist
Part 4: The Leader s Arena

1: Stress and Leadership
2: Risk, Leadership, and Management
3: Strategy and Leadership
4: Conflict and Leadership
5: The Followers
6: Redundancy and the Growth Engine
Part 5: The Synthesis

1: Evolution of a Leader
2: Growth Management
Part 6: In Reflection

1: Trajectory of a Boss, a Manager, a Leader
2: That s My Way
A Note on the Author
Footnotes
Preface
Introduction
The Manager-Leader Divide
The LCD Syndrome
Making a Point
Managers: Professionals Under Pressure
The Motivation Arena
The Volitional Arena
The Narcissist
Stress and Leadership
Conflict and Leadership
Redundancy and the Growth Engine
Evolution of a Leader
That s My Way
Acknowledgements
Follow Random House
Copyright
To my dear parents
Foreword
H ow should we develop our leaders for the 21 st century? This is a question I am asked almost every week. It is a curiously misguided question-there is only one leader you develop-yourself. Companies and governments don t develop leaders; nor do schools and colleges. Leaders are made when people discover and express their own authority. This is the powerful message of this book, spoken with honest insight by a man who has been there and done it himself. I know-Amit Chatterjee has been a student, colleague, and correspondent of mine for many years and now, with this book, he becomes my teacher too.
Organizations can t develop leaders, but they can make the conditions in which leaders emerge-not always immediately, but a slow-growing impetus can be set in motion; or a pent up readiness can be released by just the right developmental opportunity. There are four ingredients, each of which needs skillful attention: person, perspective, practice and purpose. I ll elaborate a bit on each.
Person: The most potent force is always the person who knows what they want to do and decides to do it. We all grow up more or less adjusted to our social settings, and a good coach or a good friend is one who helps us to recognize the compromises we may no longer want to accept. There is no formula for this, except that it is personal, sometimes unsettling, and necessary.
Perspective: There are few lessons so precious as discovering something new and fresh in your familiar day-to-day world. It transforms mundane activities into a treasuretrove of potential revelations, exciting curiosity and creativity. There are plenty of ways to gain new perspectives-a theory is helpful if it reconfigures the way you see things, but study is not the only way to go at this. Immersing yourself in someone else s world, or inviting another into yours, can be just as challenging. But one thing is for sure: business as usual is very unlikely to give anyone a fresh perspective, so change what you do, how you do it, who you do it with, where you do it.
Practice: I once asked a fitness instructor how best to prepare for a challenging hike carrying a heavy pack up and down mountain tracks. His reply? Carry a heavy pack up and down mountain tracks. People need practice in taking responsibility, nurturing an initiative, and dwelling in the loneliness of command. It s not always best done alone. Two or three people can share the load-in fact most leaders rely on some close associates to help them out, usually the same trusted colleagues over and over. So what should they practise? Well, leadership practices, of course: chairing meetings, representing the organization, negotiating deals, affirming a shared mission, and a myriad other practices that make up the skill-set of a leader. An organization that wants to develop leaders should give plenty of practice in leadership practices.
Purpose: Reminding people of purposes larger than themselves is almost always received as leadership. Leadership is (metaphorically) to stretch outwards and upwards in a way that strengthens the inner and rooted sense of self in the world. The greater fits well into the lesser, because a transcendent purpose can easily find expression in a small and particular act; yet a great enterprise can be ruined by mean and selfish motives. So,the most important aspects of leadership development are to cultivate an expansive spirit, a love of service, and a practical idealism.
Mixing these ingredients isn t so hard, but it s seldom done right. All too often, companies send their high potential staff off to business schools or training adventures where they might get new perspectives and some personal coaching-but when they come back to work there is no plan to help them practice; and less sense of higher purpose. I prefer to see the focus the other way around-encourage people to practise leadership, and then find ways to give them new perspectives and personal attention. That is why I recommend this book: it is unequivocally about purposeful practices of leadership.
Prof. Jonathan Gosling
Professor of Leadership, University of Exeter and Co-founder of IMPM
June 2014
Do the following statements sound familiar? I need to become an engineer. You don t understand, although I like Psychology, I just can t follow that career stream. I want to work for an MNC (multinational company). My friends there have a rocking lifestyle. I need to finish this task by the weekend. My boss expects the report by Monday morning. No, Anthony does not fit. The boss does not like him. Let us propose Ajay for the Team Lead position. We need to get an order intake of 5 million by Sept., if you all want to earn your incentives. Anyone doing less than 90% can look for another job. Just finish the design as per the SOP. You do not need to show off your creativity. We need to meet deadlines and budgets. We need to raise the productivity. Sub-contract; reduce workforce. No, you cannot invest in automation; we are in a low profit commodity market. No, we are not measured by market shares. The main KPI is topline growth. See what adjustments we can make. Talk to the auditors. We can t present the financials as it stands. I can t face the investors with this. Arrange a dinner for me with the partner on Thursday, if you can t manage the chief auditor. We have to achieve a 25% growth in EBIT this quarter and repeat that every quarter... God knows for how many years this has to go on. Well, at least the EMI on the new apartment gets paid. We have to cut our costs by 20% this year. It is a decision from the HO, across all subsidiaries. I need to join the Riverside Club. I know it is expensive. We need to change the school. It is too old fashioned. The school where the Gupta kids are going has a swimming pool, a gym, piano classes, what not. They teach three foreign languages. Sorry, darlings (on phone to kids). Saturday, I have to join the dinner at our club. Okay, we can order the Pizzas you love tonight. Fine, I will get the drumsticks from KFC on my way back. Bye. I need to go to the Bombay Store. Anjali got some fabulous vases from there. Yes baby, we will get some new Games for you too. The Kids section is on the floor below only. Sorry, I could not finish it. The weekend was too tight. Piano lessons for our daughter, then a dash for her tuitions; you know she has her board exams next year. Evening, we had to invite our friends over as it was our turn for the fortnightly party. Sunday was hectic. Shopping, swimming lessons for my son and wife. Of course, I help her with the dinner. I will finish it on the plane tonight. Interesting topic; it would be nice if you can send the article over email to me. No, not on my Gmail; I hardly get time to check my personal mails. You know this email disease in companies. I have 886 unread mails in my inbox. The smartphones have made it easier to read and respond on the go. Sorry, got to take this call. Hello, yeah, am on the way... I tell you, this Doctor At Your Door service in India is a boon for us NRIs; now, my Mom and Dad have no problems. They have to just call this number and a doctor is at their doorstep in 30 mins. I used to be so worried about my parents. Politicians are only worried about the next election. Everybody is looking at money overnight. Forget it! You cannot get Statesmen like Mahatma Gandhi, Shastriji, Sardar Patel, or Netaji Subhash anymore who think about the next generation.
All the above are daily reactions we hear from people we meet, know, and even love-including ourselves. The basic stimuli for all these reactions comes from either striving for some short-term need fulfilment or living up to someone else s expectations.
I believe we would not react as above if we were to think of where we want to reach in the long run. If we were to pause a bit and conjure a vision, use our knowledge and experience. We would instead Decide to lead our life in the way we have Chosen to. We would not then fall prey to short-term motivators or expectations!
Preface
I am no Larry Bossidy, Narayana Murthy, Peter Senge, or Ram Charan. I am a brown, sallow cheeked Made in India Indian, still working for a company where I have been for two decades. In my 32 years in the industry, I worked the last 29 in just 2 companies. Yes, I did play many different roles in these three decades and I am thankful for what I learnt till now as a human being as well as a practising manager. I do not have an MBA and never worked for haloed companies like GE, Unilever, or even Wipro. Few years back,