Leadership Development –

Infosys Experience.

CII Conference – 27th Sep. 2008

 Leadership
Leaders are invisible but an
essential element of any
successful venture

If you look at the history of

any successful company or
country and you will see the
impact of inspired leadership

Leadership can lift a

company/country to
unimaginable heights and
absence of leadership can sink
companies/countries

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 Can I learn to be an effective leader?

The oldest (and perhaps the most meaningless)

debate is “are leaders born or are they made?”

It is meaningless because the truth lies somewhere in between.

In any case, one can (and needs) to learn to be a good leader.

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 Leadership demystified

Leadership in the end is all about your own evolution

as an individual

Gandhi is an outstanding example of an apparent failure

rising to great heights subsequently

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 Leadership Parameters

In a business organization context, there are hard

and soft parameters that a leader needs to master.
Expertise parameters need to be established for
hard skills

Organizations need to adopt a portfolio approach

towards the hard skills of leadership. No single
individual can master all the skills at a high level

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Leadership Development
at Infosys

Beliefs, Approaches and Processes

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 Beliefs
• Leadership Development must drive the creation of a
leadership funnel at different levels of the organization

• Leadership Development must be centred around the

individual

• Leadership Development must be rooted in the organizational

context

• Development can happen through multiple methods – there is

no single magic mantra that will work for everybody or across
time

• Executive commitment is key to leadership development

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 Leadership Development Model

Drive leadership development based on identified leadership requirements

Business Leaders and Leaders of

Business enabling functions

Members who can occupy Tier-1

positions in 3-5 years

Members who can occupy

Tier-2 positions in 3-5 years

Drive development through individual Personal Development

Plans (PDP) - design services specific for each tier and, where
required, for each identified member in this journey

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 Competency
framework
Reworked competency framework last year to
• Consciously align to strategy
• Disaggregate different levels of abstraction and usage

Business Outcomes

eg. Talent Leader:

Creates a culture
Types of Leadership of empowerment
and associated – indicators of performance
behavioral outcomes

Predictor for
eg. Coaching
Practices - Areas to focus on
for development

Predictor for
eg. Empathy
Traits - Indicators of potential
Used for leadership
selection

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 Leaders vs Managers

Leaders Managers
Creates a new order Maintains existing order

Defines Risks De-risks

Opportunity focused Resource focused

Comfort in Ambiguity Comfort in Clarity

Opportunity Centric Constraint Centric

Big picture oriented Detail Oriented

Innovative Adaptive

© Subroto Bagchi (Mind tree Consulting - Essence of Leadership- 2004)

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 Three Sets of
Responsibilities & Skill Sets

% of Time/Value Added
100 Leadership
- Anticipate changes in the larger business environment
- Develop customer driven innovative growth strategies
- Build and sustain an innovation & performance culture

Leadership
Managerial
Technical Managerial
Plan, Organize, Staff, Direct and Control

Technical
0
Proj Engr Mgr Dir VP Pres

© Madan Birla Infosys Leadership Institute 13

 Leadership – The changing Paradigm
Conventional Emerging
Humility Creativity
Tenacity Execution is everything
Ability to go against flow Vision and Innovation
Facilitate Planned Abandonment
Negotiate Create Simultaneity
Articulate Create Content
Understand Business issues Work with more competent people
Detachment / Egolessness Ability to engage

Recognise create and address larger

Tough Expectations constituents
Personal Discipline Balance EQ / IQ
Scalability Network
Ability to take difficult decisions with speed Ability to seek help

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 The Leadership Competencies

•Focus on outcomes
¾Focus on the future
¾Focus on ‘what’ rather than ‘how’
¾Focus on portfolio approach to leadership

•Strategic Leadership is about unique positioning

•Change Leadership is about changing the context
•Talent Leadership is about creating a top quality leadership team that is
globally best in class in that particular area
•Operational Leadership is about achieving high degrees of efficiency and
productivity
•Relationship/Networking leadership is about developing, maintaining and
leveraging long-term internal and external relationships/networks
•Content Leadership is about thought leadership
•Transition Leadership is about acquiring and integrating new lines of business
•Adversity Leadership is about managing crisis
•Entrepreneurial Leadership is about taking ownership for business outcomes

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Thank You

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