The Hindu Business Line : <I>The new manager, the new leader </I>

Why do we want a `new' manager? Who is the `old' manager? The old manager got things done; he produced the results he was expected to; he did it efficiently.

Whether a middle manager working for his bosses or a CEO working for the owners, he delivered the results others expected him to produce, and learned and applied better means for producing them.

The new manager is expected to have a conscience. Even to blow the whistle on his employers. To question their objectives. Whose needs are they serving? Who are they hurting as they maximise their returns?

She is not merely a manager of a process that must be improved and made more efficient to deliver the results expected; rather she is a `systems thinker' who strives to understand what happens beyond and around the process, and beyond and around the enterprise. The new manager must question the ends of the enterprise, not merely its means.

The new manager is a creature of the new age of individualism and self-fulfilment; the age in which organisations too, for their success, need every manager to come up with new ideas.

The new manager must not merely do as she is told, she must be innovative and she must also determine what should be done.

The new manager is no longer a good soldier: The new manager is a leader with a conscience, a vision and new ideas.

Leadership is not a set of techniques, like management. A leader questions the existing order. He aspires to produce a better world for others. He or she has a dream in his or her heart.

She is committed to its realisation even when she does not yet know how it will be obtained and who will support her. She is a great learner with an open mind to find the means to realise that dream.

Can people be taught to think systemically? To think beyond the rules of their management disciplines? To appreciate the points of views of others? To have a conscience? To deeply care for others also and not just their own `bottomlines'. This is the agenda of a leadership movement to make leaders from managers.

— Arun Maira, Chairman, The Boston Consulting Group, India and Chairman, CII's Leadership Summit

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