Book Review: Quest for Exceptional Leadership: Mirage to Reality

There has been an upsurge of literature on the economic and political aspects of prevailing post 2007–2008 economic crisis, mostly lamenting the failure of business and political leaders of today. Indian business and thought leader Ravi Chaudhry makes a valuable addition to this stream through his book, Quest for Exceptional Leadership: Mirage to Reality. Though the book by Ravi Chaudhry, like some other recent contributions in the area, indulges in the critique (which has become a fad) it still stands out from the rest primarily because it comes out with a very compelling and realistic vision for future and also has a well articulated action plan for the same. The book does not end up merely howling over the past but spurs the future leaders, supported by a well framed action plan, to get out of the rot and carve out a better world. The author tries to diagnose the root causes (in the earlier part of the book) leading to the present state of degeneration of business environment, defunct government machinery, unholy alliance between state and corporate, loss of faith in regulatory bodies and emergence of opportunistic leadership. A lot of blame is accrued to the current CEOs of large corporate bodies who have created a culture of short-term vision, blatant display of greed and self service, scant regard for ethics or social responsibilities. The author has well recognised and depicted the growing disenchantment of people with the current crop of leaders. The common man has come to accept that business objectives and social priorities are like two tracks of a railway line which never meet. The latter sections of the book prescribe a comprehensive plan to evolve a new breed of leadership which will help usher in a new social milieu. The Leaders of Future also called ‘The Exceptional Leaders’ may remove the disillusions and bitterness prevailing among common people with their value based leadership practices. The author presents a captivating picture of future leaders, enterprises and society at large. The exceptional leadership, if practised sincerely, may help create a society wherein CEOs will accept and discharge individual social responsibilities with devotion, where government will act for the collective good of all, where the ecosystem, nature and community welfare will not be sacrificed for greed of corporate, where leaders will be more humane and life will see more joy, peace and contentment. The book gives a fascinating description of the evolution from good leadership to exceptional leadership which the author reckons will be a fulfilling personal journey as well as a step towards the creation of a more humane business ethos.

The book has three parts with 12 chapters in total and an epilogue. The author has beautifully woven the core themes across the chapters and though there are so many concepts and frameworks discussed throughout, at no point do they seem disjointed or out of place. The themes flow out of each other and interconnections among various chapters are well synchronised, giving the book a coherent and articulate shape. Part I of the book, Mirage of Exceptional Leadership comprises three chapters, wherein the author depicts the present context of crisis of leadership in business and political domains and the consequent loss of credibility of leaders. Part II of the book, Mirage to Reality, runs into four chapters which describe the ways and means to transform the mirage of exceptional leadership into reality of exceptional leadership. Part III of the book, Reality of Exceptional Leadership, develops an ‘ideal type’ of leader of future listing some attributes most desirable to become exceptional leaders. There is an ‘Epilogue’ at the end which is an urgent appeal for action to bring a paradigm shift in leadership phenomenon wherein the author enthuses one and all to march on the journey towards exceptional leadership which he promises will be very personal journey leading to personal fulfilment as well as social transformation.

The book starts by presenting a broad overview of the current crisis of leadership in business and political spheres. Chapter 1, Reinventing Davos, dwells on this crisis and the realities of present context which are adversely affecting business and social life. The present predicament is largely attributed to the failure of business (read capitalism) which is the most dominant institution of the world since the second half of twentieth century. The success of the idea of capitalism, supposed to facilitate free trade and individual enterprises, depends a lot on a consensus of overarching meaning and values which unfortunately has eroded. The increasing interests of politicians in business affairs, money power and corruption coming to reign and growing apathy towards responsibility to the people has turned the once lofty ideal of capitalism into a malaise of crony capitalism. Though GDP figures have grown and wealth has been created, poverty does not diminish. Most of the profits get appropriated by a few who keep feeding their insatiable greed. The author calls this kind of greed as ‘corruption of mind’. The gravity of the situation can be fathomed from the fact that corruption is also being justified by many as a pragmatic option for progress and the need of the hour. It is being accepted as normal and a part of life. Corporate greed for short-term targets have made the CEOs so oblivious of long-term consequences that they seem little concerned about environmental and social responsibilities or business ethics. Corporate social responsibility is now just a public relations exercise and corporate leaders are busy mastering the accounting games to make sure that their wrong deeds are not detected or in some instances even creatively projected as socially responsible action. What has helped the corporate culture degrade to such extent is the support from equally corrupt leaders in political field. This unholy alliance of business and politics is proving fatal. Overall, the author has identified seven prime realities of prevailing business world which has led to current institutional decay and moral downslide. These are: business–politics nexus, short-term thinking of corporate leaders, corporate social responsibility turning into a public relations exercise, corruption of the mind, information overload, leaders blinded by power and misdirected GDP growth. Becoming aware of this reality is the first step towards change. The best minds of the world need to raise the questions and discover new answers. They cannot afford to be insensitive and indifferent. There is a need for moving beyond Davos and Doha round of dialogues and launching a fresh new world forum to tackle the prevailing situation—World Socio Economic Forum (WOSEF). This proposed global body would help reconcile and address the economic and social predicaments faced by humanity today. The author aptly puts, it would be a dialogue among humans, of humans, for humans.

In Chapter 2, Seven Allies to Catalyze Change, Ravi Chaudhry argues that if the malicious and unholy alliance of state and business world is to be broken, the citizens and their institutions, which form the ‘silent majority’, will have to rise to the occasion, take up the challenge and be counted as reform agents and change catalysts. The seven key sets of players likely to play a major role in the transformation process are Institutions to Promote Consciousness (IPCs—a new term proposed by the author), consumers, media, educators (in universities, educational institutions and management schools), iconic corporate CEOs as role models, women, independent legislators and former government bureaucrats. The proposed IPCs are promoted on the lines of NGOs, yet distinct from them. These are envisaged as mission-driven, dedicated groups comprised of distinguished persons of wisdom and experience who will be expected to act as thought leaders, igniting the hearts and minds of others towards a new social consciousness. These institutions could also provide the launch pad for initiating the other proposed world level institution—World Socio Economic Forum. Another interesting idea discussed in this chapter is the proposed change of nomenclature for the coveted MBA programmes by the leading B-Schools. The alternate stream suggested is Masters in Business with Conscience (MBC).

In the next chapter, Five Phases of Human Enterprise, the author draws a brief evolutionary map of human enterprise over four distinct phases and the imminent fifth phase. The first phase, which the author has called Strong Fish Eating Weak Fish, marked the period from ancient times till the seventeenth century, a period where brute force and rule of the mighty prevailed in all spheres of life. The second phase of Big Fish Eating Small Fish spanned the era starting from seventeenth century till a few decades after the Second World War, the phase which saw the advent of corporate liberalism and the evolving nexus between the state and the Big Fish in new industrial and agricultural enterprises. The latter decades of twentieth century witnessed the spurt of new technologies, entrepreneurial spirit and rapid-fire inventions, making speed the paramount factor. This defined the third phase of Fast Fish Eating Slow Fish. The dawn of twenty-first century brought the fourth phase of Intelligent Fish Eating Dumb Fish. This phase witnessed the birth of new professionals of knowledge society and also the phenomenon of convergence of technologies. The author anticipates the fifth phase to evolve from now onwards. This phase of Realistic Fish Eating Unrealistic Fish will be a paradigm shift with corporate leaders acknowledging and accepting the necessity of being responsive to society and environment and the need to imbibe and implement the values of sharing and caring. Value based organisations, with sensitivity to world around, will end up as leading enterprises in this phase. Rise of civil society movements, emphasis on inclusive growth and shared freedom, new spirit of entrepreneurship and youth dominated demographic profiles are some visible signs which point towards the fast approaching fifth phase of human enterprise.

Part II of the book consists of four chapters, devoted to the processes leading to transition from mirage of exceptional leadership to reality of exceptional leadership. Chapter 4, Emergence of Triple Bottom Line Approach, exposes the shallowness of corporate commitment towards the much revered values imbibed in the concepts of Triple Bottom Line (TBL) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Triple Bottom Line which expects businesses to score well on three fronts—profits, social betterment and ecological responsibility (or Profit, People and Planet)—became a regular and much talked about concept since the 1990s in management literature, among accounting and consulting experts and among champions of social cause. Another related concept to emerge as a fashion was that of CSR which expected a company to be accountable to stakeholders in business operations as well as non-market stakeholders (meaning community and society at large). The author expresses his anguish over failure of corporate bodies in living up to expectations raised by these concepts. The companies have basically used them as ‘defensive ploys’ to project an image among people of being responsible to social and environmental concerns while continuing garnering profits under this garb. These concepts have ended up as rhetorical devices with little substance. He urges CEOs of enterprises from all over the world to take initiative and strive for voluntary, unambiguous commitment to fair and ethical practices in business. The CEOs need to take individual responsibility in this regard. They need to make a paradigm shift by moving from generic corporate accountability observed in CSR towards a specific individual answerability expected in the new proposed concept of Individual Social Responsibility (ISR). The author’s argument for redesign of corporate systems rests on the conscience of CEOs. Sustained development will happen when social accountability norms are taken seriously, when business leaders realise that the means are as important as the ends, when driving philosophy of CSR shifts from aim to do no harm to aim to do positive good and the paramount question to be addressed is not what is the business cycle for social responsibility but what is the social purpose case for business. The author quite appropriately ends the discussion on Triple Bottom Line by emphasising that it is neither about filing and auditing of reports nor about statements of what is being done or planned to be done, rather it is about ‘corporate character’.

Discussion over the next two chapters, Making the Right Choice and Discovering Triple Top Line, pertains to the linkages between Triple Bottom Line and Triple Top Line and ways to achieve both. The author states that corporate leaders are a privileged lot who have so many alternatives to choose from when taking decisions, but most of them are either not aware of the multiple alternatives or are making wrong choices constrained by beaten-track syndrome. Many a times they are misguided by their past experiences, pre-determined thoughts, elitist views and biased media. He has developed a Leadership Matrix of Choice (based on profit–values trade-off) with four approaches guiding decision making. The first approach is a kind of static approach with low focus on profit and indifference to values. This style is generally adopted by self-employed people or small family businessmen who do not harm but do not do positive good either. The second approach puts strong focus on profits but little regard for values. Businesses seeking short-term gains with indifference to society seek this option. They do only positive harm and no positive good. The third group is of NGOs, IPCs (as proposed by the author) and other social organisations who have strong focus on values but little regard for profit. The fourth approach is the ideal way to follow with high sense of values and strong focus on profit as well. They do no harm and aim to do positive good. Ratan Tata of Tata Group, Bill Gates of Microsoft, M. Ibrahim (formerly with Celtel International), N.R. Narayan Murthy of Infosys Technologies and Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathway are some examples given by the author as leaders with this approach.

To further elaborate on leadership choices, there is another framework developed which is based on leadership attitudes. The Five Circles of Leadership Attitudes Framework talks of five attitudes which leaders generally show that impact their decisions. For example, first circle is of ‘passive attitude’ which leads to making no decisions. The second circle of ‘inactive attitude’ is demonstrated by lethargy towards others’ concern, ignoring conscious decision making, authoritarian approach or being guided by partners in decision making. The third cycle of ‘reactive attitude’ makes one react only when forced to do so. The ‘proactive attitude’, on the other hand, enables one to foresee things and anticipate future issues. The fifth circle of ‘interactive attitude’ helps leaders to align strategies as per future issues, work with partners based on trust relations, keep all the stakeholders happy and show true commitment to Triple Bottom Line concept. Drawing from the two frameworks, the author asserts that to meet the contemporary challenges there is no choice but to adopt leadership style which is based on strong focus on both values and profit (from the first framework) and which is guided by interactive attitudes (from the second framework). Overall, he urges the leaders to resist making decisions based on short-term approach for self-gratification and to focus on values as much as on profits while considering various alternatives. Leaders must recognise that social and environmental challenges are not obstacles but opportunities for innovation and business development, and focus on morals and values is only going to enhance their profitability in the long run. Leaders can show their commitment to achieve Triple Bottom Line by adopting such an inclusive and sensitive approach to leadership.

The sixth chapter, Discovering Triple Top Line, touches on some spiritual aspects of leadership which result in true and lasting happiness for leaders themselves and others around. The author contends that sincere and devoted pursuit of Triple Bottom Line would lead to a Triple Top Line for CEOs and people around them. This Top Line includes a life full of joy, peace and contentment. Leaders need to discover their inner wealth and a life-purpose distancing themselves from egoistic and self-indulgent desires. Drawing on the faculties of the body, mind and especially the intellect helps the leader explore his/her inner wealth. This inner wealth has nothing to do with accumulation of material wealth. Beyond a point material wealth results in diminishing returns as far as happiness is concerned. Happiness is also not about achieving success because all successful people are not equally happy. Happiness is a state of mind and has direct correlation with tranquillity of mind. Sustained tranquillity and happiness can be achieved if one becomes conscious of his/her duty towards others and is willing to share his/her fortunes in compassionate ways. Ravi Chaudhry draws from philosophies of ancient Indian scriptures to advise a life of harmony marked with inner peace and poise, harmony with surroundings and unaffected by external or internal turmoil. Also, the wholeness of personality demands synchronised functioning of the objective mind (manas in Sanskrit) and subjective mind (buddhi in Sanskrit). The objective mind reacting to outer world needs to be disciplined by the inwardly focused subjective mind for a detached approach. This results in a selfless personality with inner purification and better capabilities of managing self and others. Subjective mind can be the beacon for great inner wealth. Developing a detached involvement creates boundless energy, lasting peace, contentment and eternal joy. This will enable leaders live and lead in harmony with space around. Such a living has been called ‘Living in Business Class’ by the author.

In Chapter 7, Leadership Lessons from History, Ravi Chaudhry draws on some age-old wisdom from some historical texts of Egypt, India, China, Greece and Italy and tries to find some relevant teachings for the present context. The writings of Ptahhotep (around 2200 BC), a minister of Egyptian King Isesi, exalt the virtues of robust authority, perceptive heart and equitable justice to be sought by leaders. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (around 200 BC) highlights the qualities of non-violence, truthfulness and self-control. Lao-Tzu’s treatise Tao Te Ching (sixth century BC) deliberates Chinese vision of leadership and professes that an outstanding leader must be selfless, unbiased and good facilitator. In the fifth century, Greek philosopher Plato in his writings (Dialogue, Crito and The Republic) underscored community welfare, sound legal framework and justice as ideas to be upheld by leaders. Kautilya’s treatise (Arthashastra, written around 300 BC) on economics and politics emphasises that leaders must be conscientious, work for community welfare and be free of anger, greed and fear. Good leadership, according to Kautilya, also rests on a good organisational framework with strong planning, control of finance, law and order etc. The author also discusses the work of Machiavelli, whose work The Prince (around 1500 AD) is seen as ultimate in pragmatism and opportunist leadership. Machiavelli’s justification of use of power and authority to attain order and his validation of craft, deceit, threat, treachery and violence as accepted means to maintain leadership position is the leading guide for selfish pragmatism and still finds support among many of today’s leaders. The author paints an idealistic picture of leadership in coming era where shared power will be the driving force and leaders will have more role models like Ratan Tata, Narayan Murthy and Verghese Kurien to emulate.

The last section or Part III of the book, Reality of Exceptional Leadership, tries to come out with an ideal type of leader having the most desirable attributes of exceptional leadership and also provides a road map to reach there. The first chapter in this section, Tripod of Exceptional Leadership, identifies the core characteristics which are elemental prerequisites for leadership. These are: basic intelligence, energy and drive, professional will pragmatic vision, transactional skills and perseverance. But the process of transformation into an exceptional leader requires another set of traits called the traits of conscience. This Tripod has three simple pillars—wholeness (intellectual dimension which aims at truth), compassion (moral dimension, which aims at goodness) and transparency (aesthetic dimension which aims at beauty). Together, the three traits add up to the spiritual dimension which aims at unity. The next three chapters are devoted to discussions on these three traits. Chapter 9 discusses the first trait of Exceptional Leadership which is ‘Wholeness’. The author defines it as an approach to life that enables the business leaders to be in total harmony with the world around and act in such a way that their organisational goals are not discrepant from universal goals. The first pillar of wholeness expects leaders to have a holistic perspective, sincere sensitivity and participative orientation. The author calls it an all-inclusive, comprehensive, multi-perceptive 720-degree view. The effort must not be to justify or defend one’s assumptions but to be inquisitive and able to learn all the time. One must drop the telling, selling and persuading styles and adopt reflective and dialogue based approach. Suspension of one’s judgement, identifying one’s hidden assumptions and listening to other viewpoints can help see the holistic reality. Leaders who attain this kind of viewpoint are in total sync with the surroundings and take decisions from a state of balance taking care of all concerned. They have a sense of responsibility and their actions give them deep contentment and joy. The author makes a point at the end that achieving such a state is not beyond any common person as the DNA of wholeness is present in each individual.

The second pillar of the Tripod of Exceptional Leadership is ‘Compassion’. The author has referred to the Sanskrit word for the term which is Karuna. It means a sense of shared suffering, feeling of genuine kindness to those who suffer, considering others’ sufferings as one’s own with a desire to reduce it. The core tenets of Buddhism, Christianity and Indian Vedantic philosophy rest on the premise of compassion. They all advocate letting go one’s ego and desires and empathise with people in distress and need. The author cautions that true compassion is not about being religious but being good human beings with true understanding. Those aspiring to be leaders need to be truly compassionate. They are expected to have unconditional love and concern for fellow beings, a sense of responsibility, sincere kindness, humility and genuine wholeness of personality. Truly compassionate leaders see the human race as a family and compassion in them is a natural occurrence. According to the author, genuine compassion practised by CEOs creates a lasting impression of the organisation among customers, employees and other stakeholders, an impression which even lavish expenditure on advertisements and brand building practices would not be able to achieve, and which helps the business achieve sustained profitability. Compassion is linked with the first pillar of the tripod ‘wholeness’, in the sense that to develop compassion one must have the holistic perspective to see the interdependence among all beings. To develop compassion one must discard self-centredness and live a life of constant awareness, alertness and virtuous intent.

The third and last pillar of the Tripod of Exceptional Leadership is ‘Transparency’. With the rising incidents of corporate frauds, commercial bribery and regulatory deficiencies, transparency has to be of paramount concern for leaders of future. Ravi Chaudhry has differentiated between contrived transparency and genuine transparency and advises the CEOs to adopt genuine, proactive transparency and refrain from forced, contrived transparency. When someone is putting cosmetic efforts to be transparent it is contrived, while genuine transparency happens by imbibing the virtues of wholeness and compassion—the first two pillars of the tripod. One just need to work on these two pillars and transparency is achieved automatically without separate effort. The three pillars of the tripod are fundamentally interrelated. Talking of transparent management, the author goes back to one of his central themes, individual responsibility of the CEOs, and argues that concepts like corporate and organisational transparency are esoteric and meaningless if the head of the company does not take it on himself/herself to express transparency in attitudes, thoughts and behaviours while managing business processes. If business world wants to fight the menaces of corruption and bribery (to stem the so-called corruption eruption) which are becoming commonplace and unfortunately being recognised as realistic ways to survive and enter the easy markets, the CEOs will have to step ahead to establish a clean corporate culture based on strong personal value system and ethical conduct. Exceptional leaders are expected to show true character and higher levels of values based on their personal beliefs and introspection rather than fear of compliance. The author asserts that openness in work environment will lead to trust and respect for each other within the organisation and outside of it and pave the way for socially conscious business.

In the last chapter of the book, Exceptional Leadership Practice, the author elucidates how exceptional leadership actually works. One major requirement for this kind of leadership to materialise is the inner longing for it on part of the corporate CEOs and other leaders. The awareness about inner wealth and the Tripod of wholeness, compassion and transparency is the first step towards it. But this realisation must come from within. Since these attributes are already within everyone, it is natural to miss it. Ravi Chaudhry puts it aptly that the process of becoming an exceptional leader is difficult because it is so easy. Everyone has all the requisites already inside them. It is just a matter of realisation and expressing the latent potentials. The process of evolving into such a leader is not esoteric but well within the grasp of anyone who aspires for it. When fully evolved and functional, the breed of future leaders will transform the business and social world.

The author comes up with another framework in this chapter which he has called the ‘W-H Framework’ (‘What You Do’ – ‘How You Do It’ Matrix). This framework describes four situations based on leader’s choice/decision related to whether one does ‘wrong things’ or ‘right things’ with ‘low efficiency’ or ‘high efficiency’. First situation is of Slow Demise, when wrong things are done with low efficiency. When right things are done with low efficiency it results into Slow Progress. When right things are done with high efficiency it results in Rapid Progress which is the situation leaders should aspire for. The fourth is perhaps the worst when wrong things are done with high efficiency leading to Rapid Demise. A large number of corporate groups are languishing in scenarios of either slow demise or of rapid demise. Internalising and practicing the traits given in the Tripod of exceptional leadership can help leaders make choices leading to rapid progress. While making decisions the leader is expected to have a perspective which is broad enough to view the impact on all those going to be affected by those decisions. According to the author, the exceptional leadership in practice expects a ‘720-degree view’ in action which means 360-degree view from leader’s perspective and 360-degree view from perspective of all others who are going to be affected by the impact of leaders’ decisions and actions. He calls this as ‘integrality at work’ or wholeness in action. When leadership choices are based on these principles, the Triple Bottom Line (profit, people and planet) will become the natural anchor of decision making and the Triple Top Line (joy, peace and contentment) will be the result that will lead to ‘integral wealth creation’. The resultant state of prosperity, when exceptional leadership is in practice, will not be lop-sided (like existing scenario) but will be encompassing material wealth, community wealth, nature’s wealth and inner wealth.

The book ends with an inspiring epilogue titled ‘Transforming our Destiny’ where Ravi Chaudhry gives a clarion call to aspiring leaders to be part of the new ‘Conscious Evolution’ in order to shape a positive future for themselves and for humanity at large. This evolution is nothing but manifestation of the unity of life and oneness of humanity. Leaders of future will make possible the convergence of business objectives and society’s needs, which currently seem like never meeting railway tracks—a mirage. The author hopes the book will act as a worthy companion and an effective blue print for those taking the challenge of traversing the path.

The book is definite value addition in the domains of leadership and business ethics in particular and political economy, socio-economic change and change management in general. The author has built many conceptual frameworks that are enriched by support of examples from various fields of contemporary life as well as historical periods. There is a wise amalgamation of today’s thoughts with wisdom of past. The various frameworks built by the author can serve as useful guide for decision makers. The book is especially meant for CEOs and business leaders. If they adhere to the principles Ravi Chaudhry prescribes in the book and strive for the vision he shares, they may change the face of the business world for the better. The ideas discussed in the book will certainly provoke the CEOs and business leaders to reorient their perspectives and reconsider their action plan for future. The book can certainly be recommended to Business Schools for facilitating discussions on leadership and business ethics related topics. This book is a must for those involved in framing policies and strategising for future—whether in business, government, NGOs or other social institutions. Management consultants, business advisors, research scholars and students all will find the thoughts of Ravi Chaudhry insightful and inspiring and will find something to take away from the book. The persuasive appeal towards the vision shared in the book has been eloquently expressed by the author and is likely to create a lasting impression on the reader. The author proclaims the book to be a practical guide leading to a new way of thinking and doing things and succeeds to a great extent in that regard.