Sunday, August 12, 2007

More on leaderless groups

Forrest Christian has an interesting response to my earlier post on leaderless groups. Do check it out here.

I particularly agree with his views on the 'Big man' school of management that involves people bowing to ONE supreme leader in whom we place our faith to lead us. Such structures may have worked well in colonial times, but certainly have no place in the modern workplace, and indeed society. In this context it is interesting that elections in the US tend to surround the 'Big Man' i.e the presidential candidate, whereas elections in India tend to focus more on political parties and their ideologies. I remember reading somewhere that on 'Individualism', Americans score much higher than Indians. I suspect that the Big Man school of management has it's foundations in individualism.

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The role of strategy in firms

My latest column for The Hindu Business Line explores the role of strategy in firms . Full text follows -- While there are many defini...