One of the key crises of business organizations as well as human societies is leadership. Today, more than ever, there is a need for leaders who have concern for balancing business objectives with human needs, building organizations which can be great places to work as well as centers of excellence, and balancing both concern for the wellbeing of others as well as for the advancement of society. Transformational leadership is thus an important subject of study for corporate sector. It is with this background in view that the centre for Transformational Leadership was established in 2003.
The Centre is currently headed by Dr Asha Bhandarker, Hero Honda Chair Professor of Leadership Studies.
Objectives of the Centre:
To understand the leadership phenomenon in the Indian context through research;
To develop new pedagogies to enable leadership development;
To develop cases and case studies of leaders; and
To develop instruments for leadership assessment and measurement.
A) Ongoing Case Studies:
Zensar) ; theme – Zensar Ltd- Transformation Story; traces the journey of the company 2001 to 2007; role of the leader; role of culture building, processes, capability building, customer focus; dynamic repositioning of the organization.
Planned Output Case Study: Teaching Case and Case Study
Team: A Bhandarker and Sumita Rai
B) Ongoing Research Projects:
Name of the Research Project
Funding
1) In Search of a Change Maestros
AICTE
Team: P Singh, Asha Bhandarker, AK Jain, Sumita Rai
This AICTE funded research project is at an advanced stage. 7 case studies have been developed ‘K.M. Birla:
Looking Within, Looking Around and Looking Beyond; ‘M. Damodaran: Renaissance Artiste’; ‘Sajjan Jindal: Romancing Limitless Growth’; ‘K.V. Kamath: Enfolding the Future within the Present’; ‘Sunil Bharti Mittal: Game Changer’; ‘A.M. Naik: Towards Next Orbit’; and ‘Kiran Mazumdar Shaw: Entrepreneurial Path Breaker’. The uniqueness of this work lay in adopting multiple modes of data gathering – structured questionnaires, in-depth interviews and anthropological inquiry, amalgamating into a rich book titled ‘In Search of Change Maestros’ to be published by Sage International in August 2010.
The study had the following objectives:
To study followers’ perception regarding the behavior of selected CEOs in the concerned organizations as well as their perception of the organizational culture;
To assess the match between followers’ perception of CEO style and that of CEOs themselves;
To assess the match between followers’ perception of CEO as well as organizational culture across the seven CEOs and their respective organizations;
To study the impact of CEO style on organization performance, top management, strategic actions, processes, and culture;
To identify the affect level impact of CEO style and image on organization and organizational employees.
Results of the study were based on the Principal Component Analysis of Change Maestro Style Inventory and Organizational Culture Inventory measuring followers’ perception of CEO Style and behavior and that of the organizational culture characteristics. Findings have brought out that the followers across organizations have perceived their CEOs as enabler, direction setter, visionary strategist, role model and credible. The organizational culture has been dominantly described as excellent-centric, having stakeholders’ focus, experimenting, having goal and role clarity; boundary-less communication and de-centralization. From the results of Structural Equation Modeling, it can be concluded that Change Maestro style has a significant impact on culture of an organization.
This book will be extremely useful for those who want to map out their own leadership odyssey with the objective of becoming Change Maestros since it can provide useful milestones, goalposts, directions and new benchmarks.
2) Name of the Research Project
Funding
Meaning of Work - A study of work expectations of youth entering the AIMA corporate sector.
Research Team:
Profs. Pritam Singh, Asha Bhandarker, Sumita Rai, and Ajay K. Jain.
This study aims to identify the values, preferences, attitudes, expectations and priorities of Indian youth entering in the corporate sector. Meaning is central to human life. Traditionally, work has been central to human life and has constituted the basis for meaning and self fulfillment. Different people define work differently.
The current corporate context is witnessing tremendous growth and along with this the tremendous problem of talent retention. Indian industry is witnessing serious problem of high attrition, with the youth hopping jobs at a much higher frequency than ever before. One reason is the availability of better options. Could there be other reasons? Is there a change in the expectations of Gen next?
Clearly, the exposure to global trends through various media and travel are changing the expectations of people from the workplace. Corporate executives are concerned about the priorities and work commitment of the new generation. In fact the concept of generation itself is in need of redefinition since, technology and other influences and their discontinuous impact are leading to a new set of contextual conditions every few years which is creating different work conditions. Change in nature of work is also influencing meaning of work and expectations from the workplace.
Understanding the meaning of work of the new entrants and those poised to enter the workplace, will immensely aid organizations to create appropriate HR practices and culture. It can also help educational institutions who play a role in influencing and shaping the values and perspectives of youngsters.
Objectives:
Identify the value system and priorities of the young generation;
Understand their aspirations from work and life;
Study current work place perceptions and attitude to work
Preliminary Findings:
Initial work has been done to develop an instrument to assess the meaning people attach to work. 120 young Indian executives participated in the initial phase. Results showed that six significant factors emerged upon factor analysis: Positive energy; 2 Social; 3. Influence; 4 Working together; 5 Learning; 6 Spiritual. The reliabilities ranged between0.59 to 0.87.
Ongoing:
Interviews are being conducted to explore the subject and also develop the final questionnaire.
Status: Instrument Finalization/ Pilot Study
Proposed Output: Book and Paper
3) Meaning in Life:
Initial funding (Times Group)
Asha Bhandarker
Given the greater individual freedom found in the modern world, men and women must necessarily take greater responsibility for their careers and the directions of their lives. Frankl explained that meaning was found through creative activity, other people, or a positive attitude toward unavoidable suffering. By not discovering the meaning in their lives, men and women begin to experience existential frustration. The vacuum of meaninglessness takes hold and existential neurosis sets in. A distinction is also made between distinction between ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’, saying that meaning refers to sense, or coherence, while purpose refers to intention, aim, or function.
Objectives:
To understand the clarity of purpose and goal among people in work organizations;
To assess the causal factors leading to goal clarity - personality, practices of reflection; and
To identify the outcomes of life goal clarity, on their psychological well being and sense of fulfillment.
Progress:
Instrument has been developed and data collection is on;
Research Output:
Case Study of a spiritually sensitive corporate Paper
4) Name of the Research Project
Funding
‘Strategic Innovation in Indian Organizations’
AICTE
Research Team: Profs. Asha Bhandarker, Madhushree Nanda and Pritam Singh
Background:
Companies that succeed in today’s rapidly changing business environment have to build the capability to reinvent themselves continuously, and build new growth curves in fundamentally different markets. It is this process of addressing fundamentally different markets using a radically different business model that researchers term as strategic innovation. Current management research has been focusing on identifying a “genetic code” (Govindarajan and Trimble, 2005) that enables organizations to enable the process of strategic innovation.
This research proposes to identify 5 Indian companies that qualify as strategic innovators by a process of expert panel rankings, and then build detailed case studies that will analyze the structure, processes, culture, and leadership in these companies.
Objective:
To analyze the structure, processes and culture of 5 strategic innovators in India in order to make a blueprint for the “organizational DNA” of strategic innovators
To identify common patterns in the process of strategic innovation in Indian organizations
Research Output
Paper and Book publication
The Centre is being headed by Dr Asha Bhandarker, Hero Honda Chair Professor of Leadership Studies, since 2006.
Publications:
Singh, Bhandarker and AK Jain ‘Meaning of Work In Corporate India: Preliminary Findings’ , in Future of Work: Mastering Change eds- Singh, P, A Bhandarker and J Bhatnagar, Excel Books, 2006, Pp63-74
Punam Sahgal and Anil Pathak ‘Transformational Leaders: Their Socialization, Self-Concept, and Shaping Experiences’ ,International Journal of Leadership Studies, Vol2, Issue 3
Conference Presentation:
Singh, Bhandarker and Jain, ‘In Search of a Leader’ Paper presented at the APROS conference (Asia-Pacific researchers in Organization Studies) hosted at MDI-Gurgaon, December 2007
Scale Development:
The centre has developed the Leadership Styles Questionnaire to assess seven kinds of leadership styles
Workshops Offered:
The centre conducts Board Level and Top Management Team Level workshops on Leadership and Organization Building. Some of the recent clients include Maruti Udyog, UBI, Corporation Bank, SAIL, JSW, Du Pont
Innovative Pedagogies:
The centre has been experimenting and using innovative pedagogies like theatre and outbound to teach Leadership.
