Christabelle Noronha

B. Muthuraman, the managing director of Tata Steel, is a natural-born mentor and a doggedly determined achiever. Little wonder, then, that he cuts such a fine leadership figure

There are leaders who talk, leaders who explain, and then there are those that inspire. You don't have to be a nuclear physicist to figure out which breed stands apart, but what critical quality differentiates the masters from the pretenders in the leadership business? In B. Muthuraman's book, the most important attribute a leader can possess is the ability to be teacher, coach and guide, the beacon that lights the path to wisdom.

The managing director of Tata Steel is a natural-born mentor, and he plays his part in a manner that makes it almost invisible. That's in keeping with a leadership style where the emphasis is on deeds more than words, on quiet resolve and stellar achievement rather than bombast and manufactured mythology. The virtues are of an ancient vintage and so are some of Mr Muthuraman's habits: he continues to write letters in long hand, he takes time out to reflect all alone, and he loves a game as old as the hills.

The Tata Steel chieftain has a fondness for golf that he carries far beyond the rolling greens. Like a whole lot of golf addicts, he believes the sport teaches you everything you need to know about life. To sum up it in one easy lesson: when you hit a bad shot, concentrate on the next one; the name of the game is perseverance. "When you do not meet your objective the first time, you need to immediately think about how you're going to make good your losses," he says.

But golf is not the only sport Mr Muthuraman has drawn lessons on tenacity from. "I was representing IIT, Madras, at a university cricket match when, as luck would have it, I got hit on my chin in the first over itself. I broke a tooth, lost consciousness and got carted off to hospital on a stretcher. I recovered soon enough, but my father was not about to offer me any sympathy. He said, 'You can now go back and play; your team is still batting.' Of course, I went back — and we won the match."

Mr Muthuraman has long since moved from pads and bats to putts and clubs. His golf mates swear the Tata Steel boss gets better when the terrain gets rougher. "I have a decent handicap for someone who started just 10 years ago and then plays only once a week," he says.

The early years of school presented a different kind of handicap for Mr Muthuraman because he joined only after he turned five — his father was a civilian in the army and had varied postings. He was the youngest in class, at least two years behind the others in age. When he was in the eighth standard he scored "an abysmal eight marks" in the subject and had to stay out of his father's sight to escape retribution. But this was a temporary setback in an otherwise excellent academic career, the high point of which was topping his class in the board examination.

At the Madras Christian College, which he joined after his school years, Mr Muthuraman was among the students from the vernacular medium background who traditionally fared badly at Shakespeare. But he reversed the trend by emerging with the highest marks in English literature at the university examination. His love of the English language has endured, and he remains an avid diarist and letter writer.

Mr Muthuraman's tryst with the Indian Institute of Technology entrance examination was a more tiring than trying experience. He arrived some 30 minutes late for the entrance test and then had to cope with supervisors who objected to him using his father's full name, Balasubramaniam, instead of the initial 'B' on his identity card. "If you find me ineligible, you can disqualify me after the test," he stubbornly reasoned with the authorities. They did not have to and the boy who almost missed out figured among the top 150 of the 1,000 people selected into the country's premier engineering institute that year.

As a professional, Mr Muthuraman has developed a routine of making new year resolutions. What makes him different from other resolution makers is that he keeps them — literally and figuratively. He carries the sheet of paper on which he writes out his promises to himself, and he regularly reviews these to mark the progress he has made.

The resolution to practice rather than preach is, perhaps, the one he pays most attention to. Mr Muthuraman has proved time and again that a can-do spirit allied to never-say-die fortitude can make it possible to surmount even the most difficult of challenges. Freeing Tata Steel's finest from the fear of failure is of vital importance. "Only then can they go straight for the biggest idea and not give up till they make it a reality."

A telling example of Mr Muthuraman's commitment to persevering in the face of seemingly impossible odds played out recently when Tata Steel was struggling to set up a manufacturing unit in Orissa. "We were up against the entire system, but we didn't give in and finally the project came through. It was one of our biggest achievements." This kind of dogged determination is part of the managing director's DNA, and he has had it for as long as he can remember.

Mr Muthuraman says the only real way to know a person's character is to make him or her take a 'degree of difficulty' test. "When the chips are down, mere knowledge or even ability does not come to your rescue," he says. "It's only by standing up for your principles and convictions that you tide over the rough patches."

To spread this gospel of persistence, Mr Muthuraman liberally hands out — to Tata Steel employees and to anyone else who may be interested — a quote from Patanjali, the father of yoga: "When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds… Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed." So perfect is the fit, these words could have flowed from Mr Muthuraman's pen.

Uploaded on May 13, 2005