Padma Bhushan Shekhar Gupta’s look of a leader

He began by assuring the audience, “I hear that print is dying. Let me assure you, it is not. We have a literate population that is growing.”

The theme Gupta spoke on was – leadership. “My experience of leadership is – no leader comes with all the traits of a leader. They have one of the following five leadership qualities – great intellectual; great instinct; great communication; ability to build a great team; and great commitment to the job they are doing.”

He gave his examples of each one of them in India prime ministers India has had, both past and present. He said, “Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, great intellects; great instinct again Narasimha Rao; Atal Bihari Bajpai was a great communicator and so is Narendra Modi, without doubt the best communicator in the country; Indira Gandhi had the ability to build a great team; and Narendra Modi again has a great commitment to the job, but has not built a great team.”

He added, some can have one of these qualities or maybe two or three, or even four, but until you have the fifth quality, you cannot be a great leader. “Climbing to the top is as much to do with what you achieve.”

He gave the example of the US president, Ronald Reagan. “He was a third grade actor, not many thought he would success, but he turned out to be a very good president.” So what did Reagan succeed? “He created a good team around him. He communicated well. He had a great instinct and saw to it that the cold war would conclude not in Moscow, but in Afganisthan, not exposing his own soldiers.”

In the corporate world, successful companies share a set of common characteristics. Besides the five traits Gupta shared, there’s also a need to bring in youth in the organisation. “Don’t be threatened by them,” said Gupta.

He added, that brings me to something that a leader must also possess. “A big heart with sensitivity will turn your people into loyal warriors.”