Lubrication

Leadership Style:

We kicked off this session with a very simple yet confusing question of the qualities that a leader should possess. Mr. Ashok Kumar, started the conversation with a sense of humor stating that,” There are many books already written on this” but immediately switched to the actual context. He stated that a leader is the one who leads from the front and in the organization there are different leaders at different levels, performing different tasks. In general, most of the work is done by managers here, as they follow a stringent process of the organization. The role of leaders usually start from the zonal level as that is the point where one gets a free hand to innovate and take the call, which is usually restricted at a lower level. Leaders vary their roles according to the situation and nature of work. The interpersonal skills are very important for a leader. Thus leaders are rarely seen in routine working.

We talked to Mr. Kumar on how he goes about in terms of leadership skills. According to him, as far as target is concerned it is scientifically calculated and given by the top management who keeps working on it throughout the year because they are the ones who actually know what the market size is. They come out with the method which is then distributed centrally, but he does have a role to play as far as normalization or making plus and minus is concerned. He sits across with his team and decides a number they have to target, in terms of shorter targets to the original target, and also have a target number allocated to subordinates. If any aberration is there they correct it and move ahead.

After this we moved on to the motivation part of the organization as in what all motivations are given to the employees. According to Mr. Kumar, there are two ways to go about this. One is to push him and not listen to his part of the story, but the best thing is to find out the reason why a person is not doing well and usually any one of these things work.  ICICI is a growing organization and everybody is given a target numbers and they know what to do and how to do it. Still if the problem exists with somebody it certainly needs to be discussed, understood and counseled upon and ensured that he's aligned to the SOP.  ICICI like any other organization has a performance appraisal system that also takes care of the performer and a non-performer.

Change is the need of the hour, and the rule of nature. When Mr. Kumar was asked if he has made any changes in the organization he said that, he cannot change the policies of the bank but certainly has an option to give feedback continuously.  ICICI is known for flexibility and it has a system by which he can take deviations that further improve a particular process which is not in line with the current requirement. Further to get the process rectified and implemented there are certain channels such as    I-memo which gets approved by different stakeholders and it has never been a hindrance. If it is a requirement a pack note is post and a new rule is made. He has a number of circulars and if something is not covered in those circulars, it can be initiated.