Leaders must inspire to excel and not intimidate:Tata official

It is the duty of leaders to inspire people to excel, and not to intimidate, a senior Tata Group executive said on Friday. Speaking at the World Hindu Economic Forum, Banmali Agrawala, the president for infrastructure, defence and aerospace, also said taking all the people along is also necessary for leaders.

"As leaders, it is our duty to drive people to excel by inspiring them, and not intimidating them," he said. "Businesses will have to generate adequate profits to reinvest in innovation and growth. Equally important is the need to take people along," Agrawala said in the address.

He also stressed that it is important to acknowledge the work is done by the loyal and committed people across all the levels in an organisation. "Leadership is not about collecting the dream team from all over the world, but it is about extracting the best from the existing team and workforce," he said.

Referring to India by the sankritised name, Agrawala said India can be the centre of frugal innovation for the world and develop low-cost solutions for solving the problems at the bottom. "Intellectual and analytical ability of the Bharatiya Yuvak (Indian Youth) is second to none...Bharat is a storehouse of innovation ability," he said.

He, however, rued that much of the time, this strength is exploited by multinationals, who use the Indian prowess to develop solutions for cheap and make large sums of money through it. While welcoming the efforts on skilling, he said care should also be taken to re-skill the existing workforce which will help them to be relevant to the needs of the world..