How a visionary leader is made

Having initiated transformation in the organisation, the task of the visionary leader is to create processes for new businesses. This is where Principle 6 (role of real change leaders), Principle 7 (innovative feedback systems) and Principle 8  (a daily operation system) come into play.

A CEO or a visionary leader cannot achieve a breakthrough all by himself. He will need a team of people who believe in his ideas to diffuse these to the rest of the organisation.

• What a visionary CEO must do

Shoji Shiba defines these people as real change leaders. Such people generally have similar emotional feelings about the transformation or breakthrough project as the leader himself.

Often a new idea gets laughed off as just another crazy idea of the leader and could sound the beginning of a long and arduous journey. This is because most decisions in organisations take place based on feasibility.

But, really, there can be no breakthrough if you only fulfill what seems feasible. In such a situation, the leader needs the support of at least one person, the RCL.

When in Sona Koyo we joined the CII Cluster Programme it was a breakthrough concept - that of building a quality-focused organisation through learning and sharing. We developed three RCLs in the quality department to help diffuse the concept in the organisation.

RCLs are the ones who ensure the implementation of the transformation or the visionary leader's so-called "wild idea". They usually have a commitment to a better way and the courage to challenge the norm. And, most important, they share a relationship with the leader that goes beyond a boss-subordinate relationship.

While the RCL enables the implementation of the transformation idea, Principle 7 states that there is a strong need for an innovative system for feedback from results.

• 8 principles of visionary leadership

Further, Principle 8 states that the visionary leader has to create a daily operation system that includes a new work structure, a new approach to human capabilities and improvement activities.

Essentially, it means that the new business requires a regular daily operation system that helps to produce results and those results are then fed back in order to further modify the daily operation system.

The daily operational systems are those, which produce the work, the activities designed to develop people to perform the work in a better manner. For instance, UCAL Fuel Systems put in place a completely new team to implement a breakthrough project after the company joined the First CII Prof Shiba Learning Community.

This team was altogether different from the old R&D team. It had no links in terms of culture with the old organisation, did not follow the same mindset and had set its own rules.

A team of young engineers, the key element of this organisation had a passion to do something different. Team members did not wear uniforms and had no hierarchy. This was a new way of working at UCAL and was in its own right a breakthrough in implementation within the organisation.

There must be some physical, behavioural and organisation systems that channel the evolution of the new business. If aptly driven by the RCL, chances are the visionary leader's breakthrough idea will find acceptance, and implementation will become easier.

The fact is that it is extremely difficult to encourage people to accept a breakthrough idea that sounds almost crazy; this is a major complication in the entire process of organisation transformation.

The leader is looking for more of a transformation in people, that is, change in their behaviour rather than in the organization - and, unless people believe in something, they will not change their behaviour.

Therefore, breakthrough is achieved when the leader is able to engage the energies of people in the organisation; any forced acceptance of the idea is likely to fail.

In conclusion, it is four factors that support organisation transformation or a new business: RCLs, philosophy of societal values, visible image of goal and symbolic behaviour and a new physical organisation or behavioural system.

To help companies understand this process of transformation and to create a nationwide pool of visionary leaders who are capable of bringing together these four factors for transformation, CII is launching the Visionary Leaders for Manufacturing Programme starting September 2007. This programme, which aims to create such Visionary Leaders to lead Indian manufacturing into the future, will be led by Shoji Shiba himself.