Case Study

INDIAN EXECUTIVES HIGHLY ACTION- FOCUSED BUT, TO

ACHIEVE GLOBAL STANDARDS, NEW COMPETENCIES ARE
NEEDED, KORN/FERRY SURVEY.

While Indian executives match their Western business counterparts in terms of strategic
thinking, they are more hierarchical like the Asian business leaders. However, they
demonstrate remarkably different leadership styles and emotional competencies from their
western counterparts, while proving to be just as strategic in terms of their decision-making
and thinking styles, according a recent Korn/Ferry International-IMA Leadership Study.
The study found that as managers move up through an organisation, they typically adopt less
formal leadership styles to encourage knowledge sharing and cooperation. It shows a
significant difference between the leadership styles of C-level Indian executives and their
North American counterparts, however, indicating that they are much more task-focused,
intellectual, less social and participative. In other words, they are more hierarchical and less
concerned about building consensus. On this count, Indian leaders ranked most closely to
executives assessed earlier from the 'Four Dragons' countries (Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore
and Taiwan).
The study revealed that Indian executives were highly action-focused, complex and creative.
They take decisions after considering many options all the while focusing on high-quality.
This bodes well as focusing on strategic vision was listed as the most critical Western
leadership practice for Asian companies seeking to 'go global' to embrace, according to
another Korn/Ferry survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit previous year.
"While India is well-known for its entrepreneurial and highly-educated talent base, more and
more attention is being paid to how it will continue to develop its intellectual, managerial and
management practices in order to achieve a global standard," said Korn/ Ferry International
(KFI) chairman Paul Reilly. "Current styles may be appropriate for the traditional and fastevolving Indian business environment, however, as Indian firms continue to globalise, they
will need to develop competencies appropriate for the world stage."

The Indian executives' emotional competencies diverged the most from those in the West,
ranking lower in terms of ambiguity, tolerance, empathy, energy and confidence, all of which
impact their interpersonal communication and ability to access information, which is a key to
success.

Summary
According to Korn/Ferry International-IMA Leadership Study the leadership styles in India
were studied with respect to the Western countries. The results were given on 3 components;
namely, leadership quality, strategic thinking and emotional competencies.
The results are as follows:
1. Leadership Quality
Indian leaders are more directive and hierarchical than their Western counterparts, and less
concerned about appearing open to the input of others and building consensus. While this
may be effective in an Indian business context, such a leadership style could backfire with
international management teams who may need to feel a stronger sense of empowerment to
stay motivated and productive.
2. Strategic Thinking
Indian leaders are on par with Best-in-Class leaders from the West when it comes to
strategic thinking. Whats more, when the Indian assessments were compared against
Korn/Ferrys data on Chinese executive leadership styles, the Indian leaders ranked as far
more strategic, demonstrating a tendency to take a longer-term, holistic, and analytical view
of their businesses.
3. Emotional Competencies
Indian executives showed significantly lower levels of ambiguity tolerance, empathy, energy
and confidence compared to Western Best-in-Class leaders. This indicates that they may be
less comfortable with uncertainty, perhaps less sensitive to the feelings of others, and that
they might even be less willing to take risks and to stand alone than their Western
counterparts.

Challenges
1. Indian executives have to be more open up and try to be more social than just to be
action oriented.
2. They should focus on agreement and less on hierarchical leadership while going global.
3. The study revealed that they have lower levels of ambiguity tolerance, empathy, energy
and confidence as compared to Western Best-in-Class leaders.
4. They are less comfortable with uncertainty and less sensitive to the feelings of others

5. As well they are less willing to take risks and to stand alone than their Western
counterparts.

Solutions
The culture of India is answer of all the problems faced by the executives while handling the
leadership position while dealing with international market. The possible solutions for each
challenge are:
1. Employee Engagement at global level should be initiated more.
2. Merit of the employee should be given preference while dealing in international market,
than on hierarchy.
3. While dealing with global employees the executives should try to be more confident and
energetic with employees irrespective of their age and position.
4. They should learn more about global markets and should know the possible challenges
they may face with backup solutions ready with them.
5. They should think independently.

Conclusion
The case study reveals the results of the Korn/Ferry International-IMA (International
Management Assessment) Leadership Study. The pros and cons of competencies of Indian CLevel executives have been discussed. The three aspects of them are studied. While
comparing with Western best class executives there are some gaps which they need to fill; but
at same time, the strategic thinking of Indian executive is discovered to be better while
comparing with Chinese executives.
The Indian Culture is more responsible for such leadership skills of the C-Level Indian
Executives.