Despite the talks of India inching towards becoming a global economic and military power, the harsh reality is that very little grassroots development has taken place in the country,” said RP Singh, Chairman, Board of Governors of IIT Guwahati talking to the students of Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Raipur on Tuesday.
“Giving is the true enjoyment of wealth. Make wealth only as much you can and give away the rest intelligently to patronise right cause,” he said quoting Upanishads on Indian philosophy and values. Singh was addressing the students of IIM at a guest lecture organised by the institute as a part of ‘The leadership Series’. He has also served as the Chairman and Managing Director of Power Grid Corporation of India.
Director of the institute Prof. BS Sahay welcomed the guest after which Singh began the lecture with a brief overview of the current scenario of the governance and bureaucracy. He talked about the leadership traits and differentiated a leader from an executive. “The leaders are pole apart from executives. They take personal ownership and responsibility for the result, whereas executives wait to review work done by the juniors, unaware of the consequences,” he said. He also described the changed role of the corporate in the modern age, and emphasised the creation of wealth along with its judicious utilisation.
He asserted that the leader should model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act and encourage others. He also gave his insights on corporate culture and linked it with ‘Religion and Spirituality’. He defined culture as a set of knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs and other capabilities. He said that an organisation’s culture played more important role in its success than the vision, strategy, marketing and financials and explained the organisational framework in the context of collective capacity of its people and value creation.