Saloni Meghani

TCS chief executive officer S. Ramadorai has made light of a reticent nature to emerge as the prototype of the self-effacing leader

Lee Iacocca and Jack Welch notwithstanding, sheer magnetism has lost its draw as an essential requirement for leadership. Business theorist Jim Collins, for one, has propounded that people who are self-effacing, albeit determined, steer companies more successfully than their high-profile counterparts.

Conducting the research that proved this, Collins was struck by the way in which these 'level five' leaders talked or, rather, didn't talk about themselves. It can't be a coincidence that S. Ramadorai, the chief executive officer of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a pole star on the knowledge horizon, rarely uses the 'I' word.

"Some of us would prefer to have jobs where we don't have to interact with anyone," Mr Ramadorai says with a sheepish grin. "If some people know at the start of their careers that they would become the face of a company, they would rather not join." This disinclination for the limelight has been a long time in the making. Even as a student in New Delhi — and a bright one at that — Mr Ramadorai did not fancy being singled out for a question in class. "School teachers often do that. When they know someone is not going to answer on his or her own, they make it a point to ask just that person. This makes the already-shy student even more uncomfortable."

Mr Ramadorai recalls many early instances when he got the heebie-jeebies at the mere instance of being summoned by his boss, or when asked to make client presentations. After TCS started attracting media attention his big fear was that his boss would put him in the spotlight at a press conference by asking him a question. "When you are worried it shows on your face," he says.

Practice may not always make perfect but, as in Mr Ramadorai's case, it does make things bearable. Parallel to TCS's rise on the visibility chart, its admittedly shy boss has been compelled to break out of his diffident cocoon. "Every year I have become a different person. Now I interact with groups: the media, analysts, everybody."

Mr Ramadorai, who has worked with TCS throughout his career, has developed an empathy for those crafted in the shy mould. "When you go through the transition yourself you can make a difference to a lot of other people who are reticent, introverted or merely different," he explains. "Being different is not something to be unhappy, concerned or worried about. Shyness does not mean you are not competent; being quiet does not mean that you don't know."

Mr Ramadorai makes it a point to keep an eye out for TCS people who are taciturn of temperament. "For a leader it is a challenge to pull out people who, even though they are skilled, find themselves dumbfounded in a group. The worse thing you can do is put them on the defensive and hurt their confidence. The moment people feel they have been put on the mat and have lost their dignity, they stop relating to you and it takes a lot of time to fix this damage."

Mr Ramadorai believes that the calibre of young minds in the knowledge industry is high and the onus to draw them out is on the organisation. To make it worthwhile for these employees, Mr Ramadorai emphasises a culture of lifelong learning to complement the academic knowledge they come equipped with. He believes that TCS should mentor and coach employees such that their potential is stretched to the fullest.

There is a particular ethos at TCS that has made it, for Mr Ramadorai and many others, the one and only company in terms of their careers. "There have been enough opportunities here to learn, to grow and to contribute," says the man who had two big dreams when he started out with the organisation: gaining worldwide exposure and doing his bit for the country. Mr Ramadorai has realised both ambitions in full measure. He has seen a large part of the world — Cambridge, Oxford in the UK, Boston and San Francisco in the US, and Australia and New Zealand down under are some of his favourite places — and has also lent his hand to entrenching the Indian flag on the global technology map.

Helping him accomplish his professional objectives have been the qualities of wilfulness and fearlessness that Collins underlines in effective leaders. Mr Ramadorai's admiration for gumption and grit is evident in his partiality to autobiographies of personalities such as Gandhi, Nehru, Mandela and Clinton, to name a few.

But the biggest influence on Mr Ramadorai's life has been his father, a self-made man who joined the Indian Administrative Service and from whom he inherited a fondness for mathematics. "He paid a lot of attention to hard work and excellence, especially in academics," says the admiring son, who studied at the Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, Delhi University, the Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore) and the University of California (Los Angeles).

All of this sounds like work. What, then, about the rest? Thankfully, C++ is not the only language Mr Ramadorai loves; he has developed a fine ear for the nuances of classical music. Even though his father encouraged him to attend concerts, the booster dose of the liberal arts came from his wife Mala, who has a master's degree in Hindustani classical music. Mr Ramadorai stands guilty, however, of not always managing to make time for her public performances.

The blame for that rests with Mr Ramadorai's workaholic nature. He rises in the early hours of the morning, does not sleep till 11 pm and spends most of his waking hours working. He says this situation has been getting worse, rather than better, over time. Mr Ramadorai could switch off work after office hours earlier in his career, but now — with meetings and phone calls in the car, at lunchtime, and even on Sundays — this has become impossible.

One of his current challenges as the leader at TCS is to light the leadership fire in the company's wide pool of employees. "The processes are so complex in this era. The world has shrunk and there is so much mobility; distances and nationalities don't matter. How does one coordinate? How do you spot leaders? How do you position them and make sure they get the opportunity ?"

The questions are varied and the answers far from easy, and Mr Ramadorai is not about to take the timid approach in the search for the right solutions.

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	Bhaskar Bhat, the managing director of Titan, says that a leader has to be a blend of manager and visionary
	Sunil Sinha, the chief operating officer of Tata Quality Management Systems, on the le adership imperatives for companies facing today's multiple challenges

Uploaded on July 4, 2005