Leaders should not necessarily be guided by the majority's whims. They must take to heart the dictum that all progress depends on the unreasonable man

According to my good friend, Prof. C.K. Prahalad of Core Competence fame, the Third World is just a state of mind rather than any lack of resource. I could not agree more with him. As a 'Weberian', I am convinced that economic development in a society is closely linked to its social ethos and culture. Today, countries like Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong have clearly and definitively proved that the only raw materials required for economic progress are: leadership, aspirations, imagination, meritocracy, openness to learn from others, focus on benchmarking on a global scale, hard work and discipline. Thus, our biggest challenge, today, is to create a culture that is conducive to economic development. In fact, both my wife and I-who are engineers by training-are convinced that the toughest science to learn is not automata theory, astrophysics or rocket science but development economics. We had a fleeting sense of victory when our daughter, Akshata, agreed to study economics for her undergraduate degree, but, eventually lost the war when she became a valuation analyst!

Every nation that has brought about a big change has had a visionary leader leading this change from the front. Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Lee Luan Yew, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela are a few names that come to my mind. In sports, we have had examples like Mike Brearley, the famous English cricket captain. In the corporate world, we have had the likes of Akio Morita of Sony and Jack Welch of GE. What is common among all these people? They turned a set of average people into an extraordinary force, thus, creating a better future for their country, their teams and their companies. The only resource they had was the human mind. The main fuel they used in order to ignite these minds was aspiration. They raised the aspirations of their people and made them courageous to dream the impossible, and work hard and smart to convert that dream into reality. Who would have thought that thousands of young men and women would sacrifice their lives to lead India to freedom? Who would have thought that a tired, African-American housemaid called Rosa Parks would have the courage to refuse to vacate her seat in a bus? These courageous acts were the result of the high aspirations created by leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Aspirations build civilisations; they make people more confident; they make people achieve the impossible. The difference between a great country and an ordinary one is the quality of its leaders. Almost without exception, every country that has achieved great economic progress in the last century has had great leaders. The reverse is also true.

The first and the foremost attribute for a successful leader is courage-courage to dream big; courage to expect the impossible from colleagues; courage to take tough decisions; and to make sacrifices and ask others to make sacrifices. Whether it is Bill Gates of Microsoft or Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, the pattern is the same-one of courage, conviction, determination, sacrifice and discipline. Robert Kennedy summed up the leadership challenge when he said: most people see things as they are and wonder why; I dream of things that never were and say why not?

Let me recount an incident from Infosys. In 1992, when IBM and several MNCs set up shop at Bangalore, many of my friends told me that Infosys would soon wind up operations since our staff would leave us and join these great MNCs. We had three options: one, get the government to keep these MNCs out of India. This was an easy option since I was the Chairman of NASSCOM during 1992-1994 and creating xenophobia was not difficult. However, that was against my philosophy of free market and competition. Two, we could accept this as our fate and give up the fight without resistance. This, again, was against my philosophy. Three, we could open up our minds, and analyse why our staff might want to leave us and join these great MNCs. I am glad that we took the third option. We realised that our people wanted competitive compensation, a high-quality workplace and contemporary technology.

This is how the idea of setting up India's first software campus came about. It meant spending Rs 20 crore on a new campus when our revenue was hardly Rs 10 crore. It also meant moving about 12 km away from the centre of the city. Many of my colleagues were against it. They felt that it was not wise to spend so much money on an initiative, which was unlikely to succeed. However, some of us realised that we had to take a courageous decision; else, we would jeopardise the future of the company.

Leaders have to transform the context. In every community, most people tend to see the context as a constraint and give up the effort to make progress. My view is that it is only weak minds that see the context as a debilitating force. Such people take comfort in apathy. Change brings uncertainties that a large section of average people is afraid to face. On the other hand, leaders see the context as an opportunity for change. This is where leaders should not succumb to the voice of the majority. They have to lead from the front and raise the aspirations of their people to take up the challenge of transforming the context. In 1965, Singapore was very similar to any Indian metro-bad roads, an apology for an airport and very poor buildings, etc. Had their leaders not dared to change the context, today, they would not have the world's fourth highest per capita gross domestic product; the world's best airport; the best airline-the list goes on.

Thus, leaders have to be quick, decisive and not be guided just by the voice of the large majority of people who want to maintain the status quo. They have to be unreasonable, since, as George Bernard Shaw once said: "All progress depends on the unreasonable man."

Leaders have to lead from the front and set examples. In my opinion, there is no instrument more powerful than leadership by example. This is particularly true in a feudal society like ours where every action of the leader is watched carefully and is imitated. Every history book on India tells us how our leaders-kings, emperors and noblemen-over the last 1,200 years, were involved in betrayal, cheating and intrigue, and sold out the country.

The same story goes for the current crop of corporate leaders, politicians and bureaucrats. Barring a few exceptions, most of us are corrupt, jealous and use any method to bring down our well-performing competitors. In this regard, my hero is Mahatma Gandhi, because, he epitomises leadership by example.

Leaders have to create an environment of meritocracy. If you want to make fast progress, you need intelligent people to design and implement good policies. In fact, the single most impressive attribute of the Singaporean ministers or bureaucrats I have met is that every one of them, without exception, is bright, dreamy, confident, open-minded, enthusiastic and energetic. That Singapore has made tremendous progress, then, is no wonder.

Every attribute for success, of which I talked about so far, is of the mind. Thus, if you want progress, you need a mindset that understands the value of that progress and adapts itself to making all the commitments needed for the required change to happen.

Can India make this change in mindset? Yes, of course, as long as our leaders set examples. Whenever I see a young, enthusiastic IAS officer, a bright, young IIT student, a Naina Lal Kidwai, a Rajdeep Sardesai, an Omar Abdullah, an Arun Shourie, a most progressive and seasoned IAS officer like Vinod Dhall or an Ashok Jhunjhunwala, my confidence in the country increases. At such times, I feel that we have the ability to make this country a better place for the future generations.

However, when, as the Chairman of IIM Ahmedabad board, I see a junior official of Human Resources Development Ministry decreeing that a board that includes eminent academicians like Prof. Dholakia and a corporate leader like Vindi Banga cannot decide on writing off a 14-year-old Maruti van, I lose hope about making progress.

In every area of activity in India, we need leaders who will decentralise and empower people to enthusiastically contribute to nation building. We have seen many such examples of visionary leadership in the past. There are no better examples than Nehru's initiatives in higher education; Narasimha Rao's and Manmohan Singh's initiatives in bringing about economic reforms; Vittal's and Sheshagiri's initiatives in bringing decentralisation in governmental decision-making; and Seshan's and Lyngdoh's courage in taking bold decisions regarding elections. Progress in this country has come about because of these courageous minds. It is all in the mind, stupid!