Global Leadership and Managerial Competencies of Indian Managers

A review of the literature on the qualities of effective managers, leaders and world class or global manager indicates a good degree of consistency in the qualities required to be called a global manager. In these days when mergers and acquisition have become common and national boundaries are crossed with ease in acquiring new businesses and setting up new businesses it is necessary to understand and acquire the competencies needed to be globally successful leader. This paper identifies 25 such qualities from a 360 feedback survey of 762 senior and top level managers from manufacturing, services and pharma sectors combined with those from a mix of organizations belonging to two leading business houses of India. An analysis of the open ended assessments given by nearly 7600 managers indicated the most frequently perceived strengths and weaknesses of Indian management. Job knowledge comes out as the most frequently observed strong point of Indian managers and this cuts across various sectors and business houses. Communication, team work, and hard work come out as other strong points of more than 20 per cent of Indian managers. Short temper, open-mindedness, and inability to build juniors are the most frequently mentioned areas needing improvement. Vision, values, strategic thinking, decision making skills, risk taking, innovativeness, ability to learn from mistakes, learning orientation and self renewal efforts, and cross cultural sensitivity are other qualities lacking in Indian managers to be called as global managers. These qualities are either not exhibited dominantly or are not received bye fellow managers. Future management education and management development programmes should focus on these qualities to prepare Indian managers to be world class managers.