Developing Leadership: India at the Crossroads

Abstract

I n 1991, India faced one of its worst economic crises. With the country barely able to finance three weeks' worth of essential imports, an ambitious programme of liberalization and economic reforms was launched for the first time in the history of independent India. Since then, the country's virtually stagnant economy has taken long strides forward. From a growth rate of 1.5 per cent from the fifties through the seventies of the last century, India now boasts the second highest growth rate in the world after China. Though estimates vary, India's GDP is projected as growing at a fast clip of over 8 per cent. The burgeoning double-digit growth of Indian businesses at home and abroad is complemented by non-Indian multinationals establishing operations in India. The world eyes India as a highly attractive investment destination both in terms of opportunities for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Foreign Institutional Investment (FII). Among the Top Five destinations for FDI in 2010-2012 (China, India, Brazil, USA, Russian Federation), India is in second position after China (UNCTAD, 2010). Lured by the growing Indian middle class (now estimated to be about 300 million and the fastest growing segment of the population), leading international businesses are scrambling to grab the largest possible market share. A telling statistic is that today, 44 per cent of the Top 100 Fortune 500 companies are operating in India (The Boyden Report: India, 2007). Surely, the country has put the economic crisis behind itself and is well on its way to becoming one of the economic superpowers of the 21st century. But is this really the case? We assert that although India's liberalization programme has been underway for two decades, the country is sitting atop another kind of crisis, albeit a less apparent one. While on the one hand, there are exciting opportunities to grow, on the other hand, the country is facing a leadership talent crisis of immense proportions. This is because the landscape today is very different from that in 1991. Political and socioeconomic forces are more turbulent than before. The blistering pace of technological innovation and the integrated nature of global business call for immensely creative and powerful solutions and highly talented leadership. But there is a worrisome gap between the needed and the available leadership talent. We view the leadership talent crisis as compounded by three factors.

Experience-centric leadership development process: challenges and way forward for organisations in India

“…Given these key findings, it is desirable that organisations in India should "provide their managers with many tracks of experience to run on, and that managers must take the initiative to select and run on tracks that are most suitable for their own development" [Wilson and Hoole, (2011), p.5].…”