An evening with Vinita Bali

Introduction

On Friday July 23rd, we had a very insightful session by Ms. Vinita Bali, a senior corporate leader, associated with reputed organizations like Coca Cola, Cadbury and Britannia and worked in different countries across the world including the UK, Nigeria, South Africa, Latin America, the US and of course India. Ms. Bali did her Master’s in management from the University of Bombay and subsequently did another Masters from the Michigan State University. Ms. Bali left behind her successful corporate career in April 2014 to pursue wide ranging interests, many of which are directed towards the improvement of society.

Ms. Bali is considered to be a significant contributor to discussions on strategy, innovation, marketing and operations at the board level. Not surprisingly, she is on the boards of various reputed organizations including Cognizant Technology Solutions, SATS limited, CRISIL, Syngene and IIM Bangalore. She was earlier on the board of Titan. She is also on the national nutrition committee of CII. Ms. Bali has been recognised in various national and international forums. She has been named one of 27 global leaders by United Nations and entrusted with the responsibility of maternal and child health.

Ms. Bali started by recalling her fascinating journey over the years. She began her career as a management trainee in Voltas. At that time, she just could not imagine that by the time she finished her career, she should have worked in 6 countries, five continents and visited 75 countries. Looking back, she feels that all this happened not because she planned it that way. But because opportunities came her way, and she tried her best to make full use of these opportunities.

The key point made by Ms. Bali in her session was that leadership is essentially about taking responsibility.

just because we have a designation or a title. Indeed, we should not confuse designation or title with leadership. Leadership is all about behaviours. It is about what we do and not about what we say. As the philosopher Ralph Emerson mentioned, “your actions speak so loudly that I cannot hear your words”. It is our behaviours which are open for everyone to see. So, leadership is all about practicing the right behaviours.

The role really does not matter. We had the opportunity to be a leader when we were in school as the captain of a sports team or as the class monitor, in college as the head of the dramatics society, etc. Whether we are in a corporate organization or an academic institution, we can demonstrate leadership. We do not need to wait to be conferred the title of Vice President or General Manager to be called a leader. We can demonstrate leadership every day of our life.

The story of Thimmakka

During the Q&A session, Ms. Bali narrated the example of Thimmakka, a 109-year-old woman living in a small village in Karnataka. She got married when she was very young but unfortunately, she and her husband realised over time that they would not have children. She began to look for solace and found a larger purpose in life. She came to know that a lot of saplings were being distributed by the government to plant banyan trees in every village. She and her husband made sure these saplings were put to good use. They would carry four pails of water for four kilometres to water the saplings. They protected the saplings from grazing cattle by fencing them with thorny shrubs. In all, they planted 384 trees. When it seemed as if the trees would be chopped down for the widening of Bagepalli-Halaguru road in 2019, Thimmakka requested the Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy and Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara to reconsider the project. The government decided to look for alternatives to save the 70-year-old trees. The trees have changed the complete ecology and environment of the village. Thimmakka has become well known across the world and received the Padmashri in 2019. But she continues to live in her small hut. Despite being illiterate, she created a movement and became a role model for everyone. This is a great example of leadership where without having any resources or position or power, we achieve so much.

To become more credible and more reliable, we must be authentic.

We cannot pretend to be something which we are not. People are smart and they can see through what we're saying. We should do what we say, and we should say what we're going to do. It is authentic behaviours which inspire and encourage people. Intimidation and fear can only work up to a point. People will really be sparked into action only when they are inspired.

Taking accountability for what happens is another important trait of leadership.

Ms. Bali recalled that when she was in primary school, the railway minister Mr Lal Bahadur Shastri (one of India’s most popular leaders) submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru after a major railway accident. Mr Shastri was not driving the engine nor was he controlling the train. But he still submitted his resignation, taking moral responsibility as he felt that the accident had happened under his watch. Without any hesitation, without making any excuses and without passing the blame, he submitted his resignation immediately. Indeed, as Ms. Bali mentioned, we as leaders have no moral right to hold others accountable if we ourselves are not accountable.

Good leaders demonstrate great work ethic, the essence of which is taking ownership for the results or the outcomes.

Ms. Bali recalled that during year end performance appraisal discussions, she would come across two types of people. Some would accept that they did not achieve the results and others while admitting that they did not achieve the results, would explain that many things had come in the way. As leaders, our responsibility is not to make excuses. We must cope with the challenges and navigate the uncertainties. We cannot externalise performance. We have to take accountability and ownership for whatever happens.

Leadership is also about character and that comes into play when we exercise our judgment.

Most dilemmas in life do not involve choosing between black and white. Rather they're about dealing with the greys. So, leaders have to exercise the best judgment so that they do what is right and not what is expedient or what benefits a few. It is the consistency of behaviour, credibility and reliability that inspires people to go beyond the ordinary.

Ms. Bali narrated the example of Mahatma Gandhi.

He had no title, and he did not receive any awards. He made himself vulnerable by talking about things which others would hesitate to talk about. But in that vulnerability, he also demonstrated his strength and confidence. If leadership is about achieving great things without a title and about consistency of behaviour, credibility, reliability and inspiring people to go beyond the ordinary, there is no better example than Gandhiji.

Ms. Bali also gave the example of Nelson Mandela

whom she met at a function in South Africa. As soon as she got an opportunity to interact with Mr Mandela, Ms. Bali had a question: “You were locked up for 27 years in Robben Island. The cell in which you were imprisoned, did not even have a window to look out and see the ocean. In this kind of a situation, what was the most difficult thing for you?” Mr Mandela replied: "My biggest fear was that when the time came to take responsibility, I should not blame the people who put me in prison."

Leadership is also about conviction.

if we do not have conviction, we will only be doing things for the sake of making money, wielding power and so on. We should really be enjoying what we do. If we do something we enjoy, we will not even feel it is work. If we believe our work has meaning, we will be able to enjoy every single activity which is part of the job. Talking about work life balance, Ms. Bali explained that it is not about how life fits into work. It's about how work fits into life.

Leadership is also about high energy.

Ms. Bali explained that Gandhiji wrote books, travelled across the world, gave speeches, led protest marches, worked with universities, wrote letters, interacted with scholars and even met Charlie Chaplin. In addition to all this, he also led India's freedom struggle! To be able to demonstrate high energy throughout our career, we must look after ourselves and keep good health. Otherwise, we will find it difficult to contribute. Getting good sleep is also important. We must be conscientious. Only then we will have proper sleep at night.

Q & A

How do organizations develop responsible leaders?

Organizations have a critical role defining the parameters for responsible leadership. They can do a lot in this regard by rewarding the right behaviours and punishing the wrong behaviours. Organizations spend a lot of time in conducting various surveys. But they do not pay enough attention to the quality of thought and action. People are the differentiating factor, not the amount of Capex or the use of AI. We need to spend much more time fostering the right leadership behaviours. We must create pathways for people to take additional responsibilities. In this context, Ms. Bali felt that it is not HR which is responsible for leadership development. HR is only responsible for certain administrative processes. People are ultimately responsible for people.

On the importance of empathy

Empathetic listening is key to great leadership. When people come to us with ideas, we should encourage them. We should be able to deal with the diversity of views which come where we interact with different people. We should welcome dissent. Leadership is about developing holistic, well rounded perspectives rather than ticking the boxes.

Does leadership responsibility differ from situation to situation?

The basic tenets of leadership do not differ, but effective leadership has to be contextual. Without understanding context, it is difficult to display empathy and without displaying empathy and understanding what is on people’s minds, communication can go for a toss. Where we understand the context, we will be able to find the common goal or shared purpose.

On the importance of judgment when dealing with people

Consider a chef in a restaurant. Because of his great work we may have decided to promote him and make him the general manager of the restaurant. But he is clear that he doesn't want to do anything else but cooking. That is where we have to use our judgment. Should we promote the chef and make him a mediocre general manager and, in the process, lose a great chef ?

On the role of education in developing leaders

Education by itself cannot create leaders. As Mark Twain once mentioned: “I’ve never let schooling interfere with my education.” Education is less about creating leaders and more about shaping the right behaviours. Education should be about enkindling curiosity. Ms. Bali narrated the example of her uncle who would always sit with an Atlas and a dictionary while reading a book. When asked why he did that, he would explain whenever he come across a place, he had not heard of, he wanted to know where it was and when he saw a word which he did not understand, he would look up the dictionary.

An important point made by Ms. Bali is that we should not just focus on correcting the problems in higher education. To address the problems in education, we have to start from much lower levels.

Teaching something which is available online will not add much value. The role of education is to spark curiosity, encourage students to ask questions, understand the context, promote empathy and responsiveness to the environment. Take the example of climate change. It has become very visible through incidents such as the heat wave in Canada, forest fires in the US and the floods in Europe. Children should be made to look outside the window and understand that it is the tree outside which supplies the oxygen they breathe. This will make sure that they will think several times before cutting a tree.

On the ICFAI online curriculum

Mr Prasad explained that the objective of the online curriculum is to inculcate curiosity in students. As per the regulations, 90% of the learning has to happen outside the classroom. So, there is a great opportunity to structure this component innovatively. The journey is not easy and has only started. But a lot of debate is happening about how to relate the applications to concepts and encourage students to think creatively and entrpreneurially.

On the future of organizations

Ms. Bali explained that the future depends on how much we are going to accept wrong practices and how much we are going to push back. She gave the example of Volkswagen which tried to beat the emission laws. Many VW cars were sold in the US with software that could detect when they were being tested, by monitoring speed, engine operation, air pressure and even the position of the steering wheel. The performance was changed accordingly to improve the results. Once on the road, the engines switched out of this test mode. The result? The engines emitted nitrogen oxide pollutants up to 40 times more than the norms. There were some senior leaders who were aware of what was happening, but they considered it to be okay.

The Wells Fargo scandal was brought about by the creation of millions of fraudulent savings and checking accounts on behalf of clients without their consent. The bank’s clients began to notice the fraud after being charged unanticipated fees and after receiving unexpected credit or debit cards or lines of credit. The blame was first put on individual Wells Fargo branch workers and managers and sales incentives given for cross selling of financial products. But the root cause of the problem was the top-down pressure from higher management to open as many accounts as possible through cross selling.

We cannot change the entire country. But we can change our own organization. If everybody does what is right, things will take care of themselves. So, we should ask ourselves what our responsibility is and what we should be doing next time.

On her own career

Looking back at her career and the positions she held, Ms. Bali felt that all of them were rewarding. It is difficult to choose which of them was the most exciting or the most important. Rasna her first major brand building responsibility was a success. But if it had been a failure, she does not know how her career would have progressed. Some of the brands which she launched subsequently did not do to well.

On success and failure

Ms. Bali felt that there's too much emphasis today on success and failure is often looked down upon. Success and failure are part of life and we should love everything we do. We should have conviction in what we do. We should not be hung up about looking good or sounding good. Even if something is not a success, people will acknowledge what we are trying to do. Once we have the conviction we will keep trying and that itself will be the reward.

A great session by an outstanding leader. Great moderation by Prasad and Sudhakar.

Rgds,

Ved

We thank Dr. Vedpuriswar for bringing out the highlights in the form of this note