Papularity and Leadership

Question is what is the probability of all successful business leaders having high score on popularity barometer?

In tough business environments like one we are in to, all the times leaders are tested against the ability to make tough decisions in the better interest of the business. Be it asking a unit head to leave or asking management to take pay cut, or it could be deciding to walkout of a deal (Remember Infosys deciding to walk out of GE business when Mr. Murthy was CEO and when it accounted for 40% of its business) leaders are being constantly under situations where they need to make tough calls.

Given kind of media attention, impact on the morality of the employees and the stock market beating for any wrong information; one has to be extra careful on the decisions taken or the communication aspect of the decision (It is told, that Infosys informed stockholders about GE deal upfront and the steps being taken, when the deal with GE episode happened)

Now having understood that the business leaders have to make tough calls, how successful business leaders are still high on popularity chart? Mr. Murthy made so many tough decisions; still we treat him as icon of software industry, Mr. JRD took some tough calls in his lifetime, he is regarded as one of business icons of modern India. There are countless such examples around us, in the past and present.

First, we all appreciate the fact that why this tough decision was made. They all were made in better interest of the business. Secondly what makes a big difference is the approach as how a tough call was executed (I have seen several wrongly executed decisions in the past, which impacted more negatively). Third is all successful leaders handled the person in question or situation with so much of delicacy that the impact was minimized. Empathy makes a big difference.

As it is rightly said, CEOs don’t run the popularity show but make tough calls all the times. But what appears to make a big difference between a successful leader and ordinary is the approach to the situation or person in question.

That’s about leadership!