- Credibility, not money.
- Humility is probably the foremost quality I would look for in a leader. How many bullies have been successful leaders?
- If one succumbs to inadequacies one can never become strong and realize one’s latent talents that abound in each one of us.
- My own experience with overly intellectual and academic managers has not been a great one as I see they seldom make team players.
- The most important lesson I learnt about leadership and timely decision making was from Mr. G. M. Din, a hard task master and veteran from the ICI Group who had been recruited as Technical Director and to whom I reported at the start of my career. He said that businessmen and leaders took speedy decisions even if some of them turned out wrong. Bureaucrats and pencil pushers sat over papers and hoped somebody else would bear the brunt of an incorrect decision, he taught me. Such people did not get into too much trouble but could never be leaders. His favorite example was of disposal of incoming mail. He said if I left all the mail I got on a Monday unattended and looked at it the next Monday, about 90% of it would require no action as it would be out of date. I wouldn’t get into trouble but I might have caused serious damage by my inaction. I would also have become a bureaucrat.
- An aspect which proves disastrous for leaders is their inability to listen to the opposing view and to be most comfortable amongst sycophants. This is a worldwide malaise but perhaps too rampant in the Sub-Continent. Such a closed mind accepts change with great difficulty and often lives in the past, sadly ignoring the reality that only change is constant.
Tariq Sayeed Saigol
Chairman, Kohinoor Maple Leaf Group
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