The ‘Deputy’ gets a book
Manoj Madaan’s DEPUTY: Second to None makes the case for the leaders who never get the corner office, and its New Delhi launch showed how many of them there are.
Business literature has a favourite protagonist: the founder, the turnaround CEO, the person at the top. Manoj Madaan’s DEPUTY: Second to None, published globally by Walnut Publication, looks one rung down. It is a book about the number two and number three, the people who turn a boardroom’s intent into a working institution.
Its central line is also its sharpest: “You need not be number one to be second to none.” Madaan, a global business executive, TEDx speaker and conscious leadership coach, pitches the book at a specific reader, the person who is “unquestionably capable yet remains unseen.” That is a real audience. Every organisation runs on people whose competence is assumed and whose contribution is rarely named, and almost no one writes for them.
The launch at the India International Centre suggested the idea has traction well beyond one sector. The speakers came from very different rooms. Sangeeta Gupta of NASSCOM spoke of operational deputies as the anchors of enterprise agility in times of disruption. Charanjot Singh Nanda of ICAI pointed to the finance leaders who form the backbone of companies without owning the headlines. Aruna Jha of SRCC and Sarvesh Mathur of EYGDS argued that institution-building, in academia and in industry, depends on those who balance strategy with daily execution. Ajay Bagga of Zimmer Biomet and Bhurijana Dasa of the Hare Krishna Movement carried the theme into healthcare and social stewardship, treating the deputy’s role as one of duty rather than rank.
That spread is the book’s strongest argument. When a hospital executive, a spiritual leader, a chartered accountants’ body and an IT industry association all recognise the same figure, the figure is not a management cliché. It is a structural fact of how institutions work.
The most useful contribution of the evening may have come from Poonam Madaan, a chartered accountant turned executive wellness coach. She addressed the psychological strain on mid-to-senior leaders, the people who carry responsibility without full authority. Her point was that self-awareness, inner equilibrium and mental well-being are not corporate perks but non-negotiables for lasting professional endurance. This is where the book’s theme turns from career strategy to something closer to survival, and where it is most likely to find readers who have never picked up a leadership title. The risk for any book in this genre is that recognition becomes the whole message, a pat on the back for the overlooked. The launch pointed to a better version: the deputy as a leader with distinct skills, distinct pressures and a distinct claim on organisational attention. If DEPUTY delivers on that, it fills a gap on the leadership shelf.
For now, the evidence is that the gap is real. A room full of senior people nodding at the word “deputy” is a fair sign that this book has found its readers.