What I learned from Mr Abhay Savargaonkar at Airtel – Part 2

I did learn quite a few other aspects of leadership from Mr. Abhay Savargaonkar and in the post today, I am sharing another important lesson.

Be ready to pay the price

One of the main things that any leader has to do is to achieve “Alignment” across the teams that he/she is responsible for. Different leaders achieve “Alignment” through different means based on their leadership styles. But regardless of the style, a Leader is the enforcer of the rules. A leader has to define the tolerance levels and make sure that anyone who goes outside the defined limits is notified, corrected and or eliminated based on the violation. If a leader ignores a violation, soon the whole house may fall like a pack of cards, as more violations surface and the “Alignment” is lost.

Once the “Alignment” is lost, a beautiful synchronous march will suddenly start looking like a lurching crowd, that may still be moving in a specific direction but inefficiently and without any grace. One would lose the predictability and dependability of a team and end up with a loosely connected group of people who seem to be working together.

Abhay showed me the best way to set boundaries and rules. We must reach out to the people we represent and agree upon the expectations and boundaries and make sure that communication is clear and reaches all the way to the last person in the team. Everybody must know the code by which we live. He also reaffirmed that the leader cannot shirk away from the responsibility of delivering a quick response.

But a leader is also the father figure for the team, and invariably the action will hurt someone, maybe even terminate their job. The leader should always be ready to pay the price of making that decision. It may weigh heavily on your heart and it may seem easier to forgive the erring individuals but then the rest of the team and the whole company may end up paying a much bigger price collectively.

Abhay demonstrated this facet of leadership multiple times and I cannot forget one incidence when we had a serious traffic failure while Abhay was Head of Operations. Abhay commissioned a study, and we were able to establish that it was a human error and mistake could be pinned down to lack of proper procedure being followed by the team. Abhay established the responsibility of the team leaders to make sure that the proper procedure is being followed and declared a zero-tolerance policy. We had a repeat of the incidence and it was made sure that the consequences of the violation are carried out.

This incident reinforced for me that even if such decisions are difficult, a leader must be ready to pay the price. A leader must be fair but relentless. Thanks, Abhay for this lesson.

I hope this lesson can help you understand the tough decisions your leadership has been taking and make you ready for taking up the mantle when you pick up the role.

Next week I will start with POWERGRID, where I spent the first eight years of my career and got to learn tons. Stay tuned.