The qualities that make Ratan Tata a born leader

In the midst of an ongoing search process to find Ratan Tata's successor to head the country's biggest corporate house, top leaders from the group have heaped lavish praise on his leadership style.

Ratan Tata has been heading the group since 1991 as chairman of the group's promoter company Tata Sons and is scheduled to retire in December next year.

A search committee has been tasked to find Ratan Tata's successor to head the salt-to-software business conglomerate and the process is on for many months now.

In the meantime, as many as five senior executives from the group have written about "the many hues of leadership" in the latest edition of the Tata Group's internal publication Tata Review, wherein they have praised the leadership styles of the group as also that of Ratan Tata.

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These include Tata Sons director R Gopalakrishnan, Tata Sons finance director Ishaat Hussain, Tata Industries managing director Kishor Chaukar, Tata Sons' group human resources chief Satish Pradhan and Tata Quality Management Services head Sunil Sinha.

Another senior group executive and a search panel member R K Krishna Kumar recently admitted that finding a successor for Ratan Tata was a difficult task and the panel was considering people from both within and outside the group.

Krishna Kumar, in an internal interview published on the group's website in March, had also praised Ratan Tata for his contributions to not only the group, but the business and industry as a whole and called him a 'born leader'.

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Now, Ishaat Hussain has named Ratan Tata among the business leaders who are inventors. "That's why I admire Ratan Tata -- he is such a game changer," he said.

Hussain further said that the Tata Group leaders, both past and present, subscribe to a form of leadership where shareholder value was relevant and inclusive.

Chaukar, on the other hand, said that Ratan Tata was a 'terrific combination' of the four necessary leadership characteristics -- character, commitment, competence and courage.

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Terming 'courage' as one of the most important ingredients to become a leader, Chaukar said: "The courage bit is partly yours and substantially that of the organisation you are with. If it had not been for Ratan Tata, I don't know whether I, as an individual, would have had that courage."

About Ratan Tata, he further said: "Additionally, he is an amazing indefatigable individual. I have never seen him say, "I am tired, we'll do this tomorrow."

"Be it with technical stuff, finance, business matters or anything else, he is able to bring tremendous energy levels to the job. He has this immense persistence in always moving closer to his goal, even if this goal keeps shifting," Chaukar noted.

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Satish Pradhan said: "The Tata leadership story is part of the distinctive narrative that has Ratan Tata and the leadership infrastructure he created at the centre of the group."

Noting that Tata was the chairman of several companies as well as Tata Sons, Pradhan said, "A whisper from him can reach 5,000 decibels. So he plays his role in a measured, gentle way."

At the same time, Sunil Sinha said that the Tata model of leadership creation was in contrast to business houses that have 'a structure where the centre is more powerful than the states'.

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"In such organisations, the parent companies are listed and the children are unlisted. In case of the Tatas, the parent is unlisted and the children are listed," he said.

Sinha said that the Tata structure has transferred a huge amount of responsibility from centre to state, which results in leaders coming out from different business milieus.

Terming humility as yet another dimension to the Tata leadership matrix, Sinha said, "No one demonstrates this characteristic more than Ratan Tata."