Dr. B. Karunakar is Professor of Strategy & Leadership Development at Narsee Monjee, Hyderabad. He is author of "Corporate Champions: Excellent companies of India". 

During his career, spanning 30 years, he has held responsible positions in the banking, manufacturing, IT and education sectors.

He is an alumnus of IIT-Bombay and IIM-Calcutta and has a Ph.D. in Management from Osmania University. For more details click here: https://in.linkedin.com/in/karunakar-b-dr-640a60a or http://www.nmimshyderabad.org/faculty-and-research/faculty/full-time/karunakar-b/ 

During his visit to Amar's Pensieve on August 9, 16, we started talking about Leadership. Here are some excerpts of our conversation:

Amar: ‘Leadership’ as a concept is gaining, currency over the concept of ‘Management’? Why is this so?

Dr. Karunakar: Nowadays, one expects far more initiative and influencing in an individual in getting things done.
Basically, leadership is about Vision and translating that into reality.

Amar: Do ‘Leadership’ and ‘Management’ inform each other; are they the same; are they different?

Dr. Karunakar:  Well! They are not the same. They are different and overlap also. A leader can always become a Manager, but for a Manager to become a Leader is an uphill task. You have to work a lot on yourself to become a Leader. 

Manager looks at the woods, Leader looks at the forests.

Amar: Your book on Leadership – "Corporate Champions: Excellent companies of India" (http://www.amazon.in/Corporate-Champions-Excellent-Companies-India/dp/8132107128) – can you share the theme and the highlights of the book!

Dr. Karunakar: This book is about the excellent companies of India and what it took to become Champions.

Corporate Champions are those companies with sustained and showed superior performance over more that two decades.

It provides deep insights and themes (strategy, operational excellence and leadership) that go into the making of an exceptional company. These companies were not picked by the author but the sieving criteria distilled those exceptional companies, viz. Indian Hotels, Mahindra & Mahindra, Apollo Tyres, Hindalco, SKF Bearings etc.

Amar: Do you think that ‘Leadership’ can be learnt? (How, when, where, who)

Dr. Karunakar: Yes! It can be learnt through observation, experience, reflections and readings. The more you get exposed to challenges and the more you have the willingness to face them, faster will be the learning to lead. You also need to be lucky in terms of getting mentorship and support at crucial times. If all these three pieces challenge-willingness-mentorship fall in place exceptional results in learning to lead will take place. 

Amar: Can we lead without knowing or understanding: (1) an organization's Vision/Mission, Policy/ Values, Culture, and (2) at a personal level our own Goals, Beliefs/Values, personal orientation and preferences.

Dr. Karunakar: Knowing these things or discovering them as we along is essential for our growth as a leader and performing as one. 

Amar: According to you, what is important in Leadership Training? (Facilitation; Curriculum / Methods; Space ….)

Dr. Karunakar:  If you want to bring about an impact in leadership development, follow the training with one on one coaching.  

In my own experience of building NMIMS (Narsee Monjee), Hyderabad, I had the singular opportunity of applying these principles which helped into bringing NMIMS on the Hyderabad business school landscape. 

You have designed a wonderful activity filled training program but don't have the right space to evolve it

Take Amar's Pensieve[1]™. It is 30 kms away from Gachibowli and can be reached in around 30 minutes. The drive is different from that on city roads. Lesser traffic, speeds of 60 kms per hour on an average, with occasional spurts of up to 80 kms per hour, being possible.

The third and last leg of the journey starts at the beginning of the colorful arch to Chilkur Balaji temple – For nearly all of the last 8 kms, you have the road mostly to yourself, with nobody ahead for most of the time. You slowly get adjusted to the pre-dominance of green and blue of the vistas unfolding in front of you as you move along the tar road, you can identify with Keith Urban’s words[2]…

 "Gonna kick off my shoes

And run in bare feet

Where the grass and the dirt and the gravel all meet

Goin' back to the well gonna visit old friends

And feed my soul where the blacktop ends"

You realize you have started unwinding when the 3-40 minute ride feels much longer. On reaching Amar's Pensieve, you find tea and the rest of the day stretching ahead of you.

An acre of space, 4 buildings built around a tennis court sized lawn. An indoor, fully equipped training room, an ‘open to air’ classroom, an obstacle course, a dining area... place to spread oneself around, engage together in activity, experience every moment to the fullest. However, Amar’s Pensieve™ is more than that.

Like the lines from the Tao Te Ching, Amar’s Pensieve™, seeks to be a vessel/bowl for preparing, developing, practicing to be better, to excel, individually and together.

“With a wall all around

A clay bowl is moulded;

But the use of the bowl

Will depend on the part

Of the bowl that is void.….

So advantage is had

From whatever is there;

But usefulness arises

From whatever is not”

Play a game (calvin ball[3], even), facilitate an activity, direct a role-play, run a simulation, have a discussion, feel the space around you expand and space between you and your colleagues diminish. Find rhythm with the library of sounds and movements, each has within oneself.

Feel-think-plan-implement your own program, learn for your self/team. Label everything, take what is useful back to the workplace and apply it and grow.

By design, Amar’s Pensieve™ provides both activity-friendly training space and privacy to Trainers, Learning and Development Divisions and Organizations and working/career professionals who would like to use activity-based approach to learning.

The journey to Amar’s Pensieve is by good, black-topped roads, through open, green and leafy areas. Amar's Pensieve may be hired on a day or overnight (tent stay) basis by prior agreement. Transport through taxi or bus may be arranged as required, at the cost of the client. Meals are arranged as per requirement at the cost of the client.

Come, visit Amar’s Pensieve and evolve thought and action.

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[1] ‘Pen-sieve’ is a magical vessel, referred to by J. K. Rowling in her ‘Harry Potter’ books. Thoughts can be placed in the ‘pen-sieve’ for looking at them dispassionately and taking decisions. The training centre: Amar’s Pensieve™, through its activity based emphasis seeks to be the pen-sieve for its visitors.

[2] ‘Where the Blacktop ends’, Keith Urban, April, 2001

[3] ‘Calvin & Hobbes’, Bill Waterson