Prelims

Half Title Page

Strategic Leadership Models and Theories: Indian Perspectives

Title Page

Strategic Leadership Models and Theories: Indian Perspectives

By

Som Sekhar Bhattacharyya

National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Mumbai, India

Sumi Jha

National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Mumbai, India

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2018

Copyright © 2018 Emerald Publishing Limited

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78756-260-8 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-78756-259-2 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-78756-261-5 (Epub)

To

Late Meenakshi Jha, Mother of Sumi Jha

and

Late Bibhuti Bhusan Bhattacharyya, Father of Som Sekhar Bhattacharyya

Contents

Preface

Leadership as a concept has been well researched. A metaphor from Koontz’s (1961) ‘The management theory jungle’, establishes that even in leadership theories a jungle has been created. The point of concern though is that the leadership theories’ jungle has been predominantly created by Western minds. With the growth of emerging economies such as that of India, a compelling argument can be put forth stating that an India-centric leadership theory be created. Leadership theories in the business context, thus lack contextual grounding in emerging economies like India.

India requires a special treatment in strategic leadership studies. It is important to understand why a separate leadership study context in India deserves merit. In global cultural studies, India has always been treated as distinct, culturally (House, Javidan, Hanges, & Dorfman, 2002; Huntington, 1993; Ronen & Shenker, 1985). Therefore, leadership practices in India from a cultural point of view requires special treatment. Emerging economy countries carry institutional voids (Khanna & Palepu, 2005). Institutional voids manifest in business practices. Thus, leadership theories in emerging economic context like India require reexamination. Emerging economy countries’ dominant business models vary from those of the developed countries (Arnold & Quelch, 1998; Bhattacharyya, 2011; Dhanaraj & Khanna, 2011; Khanna, Palepu, & Sinha, 2005). Business leaders practising leadership are grounded in these business models. This difference also qualifies for a re-look at leadership theories based on the leadership practices in emerging economies. Technology is altering the way leaders’ social interaction and business operations are being driven. Leadership practices are getting altered because of the presence of ubiquitous, connected information technology platform in mobile devices (Avolio & Kahai, 2003; Avolio, Kahai, & Dodge, 2001; Cascio & Shurygailo, 2003). The presence of technology thus requires a need for reexamination of leadership theories studied.

Indian business like that of other emerging economies has been expanding globally. Indian leaders and Indian leadership will matter more in the future of global business landscape. There have been studies on leadership in India, but these studies have focussed on highlighting facts on Indian leadership practices. In other words, there have been very few attempts towards theoretically analysing Indian leadership practices. This book is unique because it has been based on empirical research (in-depth personal interviews with Indian business leaders) on theories, on both leadership and models on strategic leadership. The authors have analysed the prominent leadership theories. The purpose of this study was to decipher the changing relevance of these theories in the present-day Indian context in terms of primarily locating the divergence of Indian leadership practices with existing leadership theories. Therefore, the objective of the study has been to conduct a thematic analysis of relevance on converging and diverging leadership theories in India from that of the West. This has helped in comprehending aspects in which Indian business leadership theories and models converge or diverge with respect to Western views on leadership.

In the Indian context, for strategic leadership models there have been very limited studies regarding present requirements of leadership characteristics. Furthermore, there have been very few studies in India deliberating the foundations of leadership models at different stages; namely, individual, interpersonal, inter-functional, inter-business and at the industry level. There is also a paucity of research on the process of strategic leadership development in India. The impact of technology on Indian business leadership has also been rarely studied. Finally, strategic leaders’ decision-making process model studies are also limited in the Indian context. Thus, the research objectives of this study were to fill these researchable gaps like on mapping the dynamic characteristics of strategic leaders, studying strategic leadership development stages and comprehension of strategic leadership processes.

The authors undertook a qualitative exploratory research to study 21 leadership theories based on the input of 26 top-level Indian business leaders. The inputs from these leaders were used to prune and expand extant Western leadership theories. Content analysis was used for data analysis. This study further aimed at analysing different strategic leadership models with perspectives from India. The study focussed on the following:

• To outline the dynamic strategic leaders’ characteristics and its evolution from the past to the future.

• To develop foundational pillars of leadership at multiple levels; namely, individual, interpersonal, inter-functional, inter-business and industry level.

• Different strategic leadership stages were mapped from the Indian context.

• The web of belief of strategic leadership development was explored.

• Different web-based technologies and their impact were captured.

• Transcendent strategic leadership was studied.

• Leadership decision-making consisting of paradoxes, trade-offs and compromises were reported.

• Strategic leadership skill evaluation parameters were outlined.

The authors found that India-centric leaders stress mobility, drive for innovation, technology savviness, intense learning focus, boundary less leadership practice, participation and inclusiveness.

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to countless individuals who helped us in the successful completion of this book. These individuals extended support, discussed the topic with us, read, reviewed, allowed us to quote their observations and supported in the editing, proofreading and organizing processes of this book.

Our thanks to the publisher Emerald Publishing for their interest in publishing a research-oriented book on strategic leadership contextually grounded in India.

Our gratitude to all the interview respondents who have provided insightful views on the research topic. Their enthusiastic support in sharing experiences filled with valuable comments helped us draw Indian perspectives on strategic leadership.

Our sincere thanks to director, faculty colleagues, support staff and the library of our institute, that is, National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), without which the seamless progress of the book would not have been possible. We would also like to specially mention Prof. Rajen Gupta for his constant guidance and critical viewpoints which shaped the book for its target audience.

Heartfelt gratitude to all the reviewers of the book whose timely response and valuable comments facilitated the publication of this book.

We thank our parents Mr. Niyanand Jha, father of Sumi Jha, Ms. Swapna Bhattacharyya, mother of Som Sekhar Bhattacharyya for their blessings. We thank our families Suman and Shreya, family members of Sumi Jha, Madhuri and Ananya, family member of Som Sekhar Bhattacharyya for their untiring support and constant encouragement. Last but not the least our thanks and blessings to Vaibhav Gupta, a student at NITIE for creating all the tables and figures, which was a daunting task for us. Finally, thanks to almighty God.

About the Authors

Som Sekhar Bhattacharyya is a member of the Strategic Management Faculty at the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai, India. He has a Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.) degree in Mining Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology-Indian School of Mines (IIT-ISM), Dhanbad, India. He has done his Fellow Programme in Management in the functional specialization of Strategic Management from Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, India. Bhattacharyya has research interests in ‘strategic management’, ‘strategic leadership’, ‘strategic corporate social responsibility’ and ‘qualitative business research’. He has published many research articles and teaching cases in international journals of repute. For his research, he has been awarded with an Emerald Literati Award for Excellence: Outstanding Paper in 2011 and an Emerald Literati Award for Excellence: Highly Commended Paper in 2014. For his teaching, he has received various awards such as the NITIE Best Teacher Award in 2014 and a Business School Award for Best Professor in Strategic Management in India in 2014.

Sumi Jha is an Associate Professor of OB and HR at the National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Mumbai. Her fellowship is on Employee Empowerment. She has conducted several training programmes on Leadership Development, Managerial Skills for Technical Personnel, Managerial Leadership and Team Building, for managers and executives. She has many articles to her credit, written for international and national journals and conferences. Her article published in 2013 ‘Explicating strategic shared leadership process’ has received a Highly Commended Paper of 2013 award from the Emerald Literati Network. Her research interests are competency mapping, cognitive dissonance, shared leadership and organizational health.