MANAGE-WISE

When the CEO tries to play God

Pankaj Sinha hails from a village near Gorakhpur. He is the first engineering graduate from his village. Though he was an average student, he did very well because of his intense desire to make it big in life. He started his career as a management trainee and later shifted to a multinational company. In the 30 years of his career, he exploited every opportunity that came his way and left no stone unturned to create an opportunity when there was none for his career growth. As a result, today he is the chief executive of a Rs 2,000-crore company.

The fear factor

Sinha's style is typically authoritarian. He likes the fact that people fear him. Knowingly or unknowingly, he uses punishment more frequently than reward to lead his people. He tries to control everything. He decides everything from the production schedule to how people should behave in office to the extent possible. He takes pride in being involved in all aspects of the organisation and its people.

His background is well known to people, especially the manner in which he has grown in the organisation from a junior to the chief executive. People perceive him as manipulative and highly exploitative. It is also true that Sinha used people to progress in his career and then unceremoniously discarded them when they were not needed. One cannot rise to the level of chief executive unless one is ruthless, he says. Sinha very cleverly uses the infrastructure facilities of the company for his personal benefit. He indulges in politicking within the organisation despite being the head. He likes being unpredictable. Therefore sometimes he functions very objectively and sometimes very arbitrarily.

Playing partisan

He ensures the promotion of a few deserving employees and also some below-average performers who are unconditionally loyal to him. Pay hikes, foreign tours, plum assignments, transfers and promotions are all potential weapons he uses to increase his well-being rather than that of the organisation. At least 30 people work for him rather than for the organisation. He is selectively corrupt.

Tuned to his style and nature, people speak very highly of him in his presence, work the way he demands, and eagerly await opportunities to endorse his view, regardless of their opinion. Sinha did not spare even his senior colleagues. He made most of them powerless.

The double game

I got an opportunity to interact with him when I was engaged with a team to conduct an organisational diagnostic study as per the decision of the company's board of directors. Pankaj Sinha was very polite, and tried to be as professional as he could in our interactions. He shared with us his contribution towards the growth of the organisation, and how he had transformed it to become one of the major players in the steel industry. Financials of the company supported his claim that there had been a steady growth, but the fact is that the company was growing even before he took over as the CEO.

Interesting feedback

The interesting thing was that when we conducted a detailed survey involving questionnaires and blank opinion/suggestion writing, the chief executive's style of functioning came in for severe criticism. The CEO's style secured a below-average rating from 5,000 employees. The surprise was that all employees, regardless of their level, were uniform in their response as far as the CEO was concerned. The paradox was that none of them were critical when we met them personally and asked for their views. No amount of assurance could evoke a genuine response from the employees.

But as days passed, a good number of employees began to trust us. This contributed towards collecting realistic feedback from them. All of them felt absolute hatred and none of them had even the remotest respect for their chief executive. Even senior officers considered him an upstart who manipulated events in his favour. Technocrats considered him a poor engineer who did not understand even the fundamental technical aspects of the organisation. All, without exception, believed he was self-centered and corrupt. Experts within and outside the company said the organisation had grown because of its inherent strengths and advantages, and not due to any specific organisational or leadership effort. They predicted that the organisation was likely to face a downturn in the immediate future due to poor managerial systems. Our study also proved that the CEO's reputation and style of functioning were major stumbling blocks in the progress of the organisation, and that all managerial systems had collapsed due to his arbitrary and authoritative decisions.

Sinha rejected our findings saying all his employees were supportive of him, and that our report was far from reality. He used his clout to bury the report. I followed his career to find out whether we did justice to our job or not. Events that followed his retirement supported many of our findings. People were so happy when he retired that they did not even bother to give him a farewell. They ignored him when he visited the office to collect his retirement benefits. Employees criticised him openly. They found a new freedom after his retirement, and they were enjoying it thoroughly. Sinha's tenure at the top, even today, is considered one of the dark phases of the organisation.

Arbitrary behaviour

This is what most people in senior positions do. They try to play God. They behave arbitrarily. Blinded with the power entrusted to them, they seek sacrifices from people without doing the same themselves. They put their personal comfort and growth ahead of their organisation's goals and growth. They create insecurity in people through their whimsical behaviour. They are therefore the most hated people in organisations. A sign of career failure, despite being at the top of an organisation.

It is a false belief that people need to be manipulative, ruthless, self-centered and exploitative to rise in their careers. It is also not true that people who personally supervise everything are effective leaders. In fact, failure can be seen in their degree of physical involvement.

An effective leader sets the standards and inspires people to follow him. They m-ake sacrifices for their people. They do not manipulate.

Excerpt from You can Fail: Coping with Failure and Getting Ahead by Srinivas Kandula. Reproduced with permission. © 2003, Tata McGraw-Hill