Ethics may seem irrelevant at some stages of leadership, but leaders who really want to command respect will have to be ethical, T.S. Krishnamurthy, former chief election commissioner, said on Thursday.
Speaking at the launch of bureaucrat Awdhesh Singh’s book The secret red book of leadership , Mr. Krishnamurthy said many leaders in the nation ‘did not command respect’.
“Many of them look to be lobbyists. They do not have that kind of an impact on the whole population. Awdhesh Singh has provoked us to think,” said Mr. Krishnamurthy.
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Pointing to the ‘mysterious quality’ of leadership in the Indian context, Mr. Krishnamurthy said the book adopted a new kind of approach. “The author has combined his experiences with experiences of others. It is very lucidly written,” he said.
N. Ram, chairman of Kasturi & Sons Ltd., said the book had an assured tone and voice, with an ability to engage the general as well as specialist readers, and, from time to time, surprises them with its findings, hypotheses and assumptions.
Pointing to the narratives pertaining to great leaders, Mr. Ram said the book was ‘interesting in the theme or rather the web of themes it takes up, in the questions and dilemmas it examines and where necessary, confronts without inhibition.’
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Mr. Singh said the book was about how to be a leader. “Leadership is about producing results. Leaders are very important for the society. In reality, leaders are not like what they are described in management books. I had the fortune of interacting with leaders in business and politics. It requires a lot of courage to actually speak the truth. This book tries to reveal the personality of leaders,” said Mr. Singh, who is the commissioner of the Central Excise and Service Tax, Large Taxpayer Unit.
Former India cricket captain Kris Srikkanth stressed the need for reading such books over and over again to sustain leadership qualities.