The Thought Leader's Voice Podcast

Andrew Newby: Hello everyone, my name is Andrew Newby and I’m hosting a series of iResearch Services podcasts, over the coming weeks. These are intended to educate senior-level marketers and thought leaders. How to address some of the more challenging and exciting issues facing them currently.

Our topic today is using servant leadership to drive transformation within an organization.

With that, I’d like to welcome today’s guest expert, Dr. Madana Kumar. Madana is a self-styled servant leadership evangelist, thought leader, and organization builder. With close to four decades of experience. He currently balancing two roles, one incorporate as the vice president, and the Global Head of leadership development at UST Global an American provider of digital technology and transformation, IT services, and solutions.

The second role is in consulting. Spreading the message of servant leadership, and helping organizations, implement, and benefit from this new leadership paradigm. Madana, Dr. Kumar welcome, and thank you for

Madana Kumar: Thank you, Andrew, it’s a pleasure to be here and a pleasure to be talking with you. Thank you very much. 

Andrew Newby: You’re very welcome and fully reciprocated. So just to start off, Madana can you give our listeners an idea of your central message or messages with regard to servant.

Madana Kumar: Yes. So servant leadership is, in my view, the only leadership philosophy that balances beautifully between results and relationships and that is really what makes it unique. It is the leadership thriving, not just surviving but for thriving in this world. In today’s world through results. So, it’s a beautiful balance between results and our relationships. And It also creates a whole new world ecosystem around us, it creates better employees and better citizens for the world so it’s really a beautiful philosophy. Not just for organizations but for the world itself.

Andrew Newby: That’s a big claim, so would it be summarized as follows, that it’s about the welfare of the employee above that of the leader him/herself.

Madana Kumar: That’s absolutely right yeah that is the practical definition that I always provide for servant leadership. Actually, when people ask me what is a, who is a servant leader. I tell them a servant wiser, richer, healthier, wealthier, happier, more famous than himself or herself. That’s what a servant leader is, truly. But in an organizational complex to make it more practical, what you said, if placing the interest of the employee ahead or above the self-interest of the leader is what makes servant leader in an organizational context.

Andrew Newby: So how did you find this path, the correct leadership, accountability.

Madana Kumar: Come again, Andrew.

Andrew Newby: How did you come to this path?

Madana Kumar: Okay yeah.

Andrew Newby: Leadership accountability as a management paradigm?

Madana Kumar: Yeah, so I actually stumbled upon it. Interestingly from the Bible frankly. As part of my faith journey when I started studying the Bible, is when I came across it. And then when I started looking the practical implications of that and so as many people who search for servant leadership in the organizational context would obviously know Robert Greenleaf, love and creamy. So that’s, you know, so I came from the Bible to Robert Greenleaf, So I came from the Bible to Robert Greenleaf and that’s how I discovered this philosophy.

Andrew Newby: In essence, servant leadership invests in the life of someone else to become bigger, richer, wiser, more famous than oneself as a leader. Is that the nub of it?

Madana Kumar: Yeah. That’s how I really define servant leader, yes.

Andrew Newby: Because that’s kind of a big claim isn’t it? If you look from a secular point of view, within a company. We are surrounded by people we like, people we respect, some we don’t respect so behaviors that you recommend leaders to develop with instruments to measure them. Tell me how it works, tell me how servant leadership works.

Madana Kumar: Right yeah, so ultimately the final question right how does it work? Does it work and how can we make it, how can we apply it in real life and that’s where I have come across, as I’ve come seven behaviors. It goes like this, demonstrating conceptual skills, empowerment, emotional healing, putting others first behaving ethically, helping others grow and succeed, and creating value for the community. So those are the seven behaviors in my research and my study. Make a servant leader, and if one can excel in these seven behaviors, one can truly claim to be a servant leader in any walk of life really, not just in an organization.

Andrew Newby: Okay, In terms of those seven behaviors. Can they be developed? Does somebody clearly naturally does possess those seven behaviors naturally or have developed them? In a talent but are these

Madana Kumar: I believe so, yes, I have to say we have proof to say that yes, they are all learnable skills. Because the way we do is, you know, we follow what we call a 4, 7, 10 model, right. So the leader, seven behaviors, the behaviors that I just described.

And those seven behaviors are further mapped into what we call us 10 attributes. Attributes like listening, attributes like conceptualization foresight, attributes like, you know, healing, empathy, you know and stand through the 360 degrees segway.

And when they know where they stand with respect to, you know, their own self-perception versus the perception of others, and also where they stand in a, in a group of people, you know, within their organization or overestimated themselves a bit, or when they have underestimated themselves a bit. So the 360 degree actually pulls up those four areas and then looking at those four areas, they can really look at what is the skill or the attribute that you need to develop to become a servant leader or to become a better servant leader, let me put it that way. Because most of the people will have some of these aspects you know in some way or the other. Yeah, so that’s absolutely it is learnable, and the cells of our intervention still now definitely proved that, yes, people do learn it, and practice it.

Andrew Newby: So, in terms of the payoff for this, the listeners will be asking, well this is all very nice. Where is the beef? The key here is the transformer power this has on employee potential. Is that

Madana Kumar: Yeah, it’s actually not potential it’s on employees, you know, empowering them or feeling them, make them feel empowered It is about helping them to bounce back from their own holistic development and things like that, it’s a lot about what do we do to make them better, bigger, wiser, wealthier, more famous, happier and things like that. It’s all about that.

Andrew Newby: And in terms of clients, the touchpoint with clients is what better engagement.

Madana Kumar: Yes, better engagement. Faster decision-making because, a company who has servant leadership as their culture. Nobody will be saying look this is beyond my paygrade. Now let me go check out, go of decision making and the sense of ownership that the employee takes and the equality of outcome that is there that they provide. The receptiveness, to, feedback and things like that. So, really, it is really a win-win, a huge win for the clients too.

Andrew Newby: Right, so relating this to the situation as we have it now and I hate mentioning the C-word too much, but we have to talk, COVID. Because I’m interested in investigating how this tap And I think we’re in a time where employers are looking for leaders who use power appropriately. Live certain values and sort of walk the talk in terms of who is right, right by themselves, by the workers, by their family. So, do you see a set of links with what’s going on now? Between that and servant leadership?

Madana Kumar: Absolutely, absolutely. As it is the world has been going around, changing as everybody will know the rate of change has really overtaken human adaptability. Even before the COVID hit us. The world whole change that could have happened probably the next five to 10 years into the last six to seven months, right. So, exactly as you said, people start, people are now looking for the leaders who use power appropriately. Leaders who put the others interests first and not their self-interest first leaders who walk the talk as far as the set of values are concerned, and leaders who do not chase success alone. But pursue significance. And I define always significance as somebody who adds value to themselves. At the same time, add value to others. So people will start looking, look okay you are successful so what did you do with it, and who benefited from it, who else benefited from it other than you?

So people are really seeking those answers and what COVID has done is exponentially increase the number of people who are asking those questions and who are seeking answers and who are sort of putting that external So actually to me, COVID has literally accelerated the adoption. The need, the desire, the desire for us to have better leaders among us.

Andrew Newby: So, I guess the counterpart to that is, let’s talk about resistance and barriers. Companies at the moment that wanting to preserve cash they’re not wanting to do anything big. like that within organizations?

Madana Kumar: Yeah.

Andrew Newby: This tendency of institutions for the corporate block to dampen the inspiration. How do you, how do you recommend that companies and leaders keep on prevent that from

Madana Kumar: Yeah, interesting actually yeah, that’s actually true, when organizations become big, you know the ideas get lost somewhere. I have this interesting, what I call, it’s funny, organizational saying no. VP of staying the course and VP of you know, let us do it later and all that stuff and then the new manager for new ideas reports into these people and you know what happens and so typically that’s really what happens when organizations become bigger.

And that is really why servant leadership makes sense because servant leadership literally flattens the organization so that when ideas are there, it is, you know, the organization as a whole is able to capture it and they have an idea. If the person’s idea is not going to get killed in the bureaucracy somewhere and may never see the light and things like that. So, those type of cultural changes happens when you actually implement servant leadership, and when organizations are able to see this. That is when you know that that’s when people say that there is some sense in it so let’s try it out. 

And what we of course try to do is to make this, you know, not obviously, not everyone needs to conserve cash and things of that, so if we say okay let’s put a lot of money to develop servant leaders within the generating internal champions within the organization. So, all that they need to do is invest some amount of time, they’re more than willing to invest that time, because of the passion that they are able to see and the payout that they’re able to see in that, people’s moment when it becomes an internal true moment, even, even the cash flow issues get answered. and that’s really how wherever we’ve been able to see some traction on this, we have been able to make progress in organizations. 

Andrew Newby: right and that feeds into one of the seven characteristics. You mentioned, namely demonstrating conceptual skills, dreaming big not being constrained by current

Madana Kumar: Absolutely, along with the whole concept of empowerment when we talk about an inverted pyramid where the leaders, you don’t have to demonstrate that demonstrating consumption skills. You know implement and constantly doing the leaders as resources to implementation. So it has to go hand in hand with the behavior of empowerment. So you demonstrate your conception skill, set missions, set goals, set values, set boundaries, and then step aside and say that guys now you take all I am available to you as a resource as and when you need it. You are now responsible for the implementation and the difference that it can make to the organization is phenomenal. When we do that.

Andrew Newby: Sure, we can address examples of this, in a minute. Are there any specific sectors, or optimal company sizes, or characteristic bundles that make servant leadership, more powerful? So environments. Just keep the commercial for now. Traveling tourism doing very well at the moment, banks doing okay, media doing okay, even bits of retail. Where do you see this working out? Or most likely to work out?

Madana Kumar: Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, wherever there is direct contact with clients that sort of in b2c type of industries. where the employees are in direct touch with the end-users. That’s for that matter, like those organizations, it can actually make a big difference and the results can be seen quickly. And of course, travel and tourism is also that type of business. It is a direct customer contact business. Yes, but they have going through a travel time right now but I’m sure it is going to pick up. and when it pickups, it is a place where you know where servant leadership will and has the power to be big successes and a big asset to have.

But having said that, my studies really show that there is really no sector which cannot benefit from it. There’s no size limitation for this. The only challenge of course is that, if you have not gone, if thousand employees. Then it takes a little more effort to populate that culture within the organization so it will be it will require some amount of time before it becomes this thing obviously organizations on the size of 25,000 employees and maybe 25 to 50,000 employees. It’s a lot more easier. Of course, it’s smaller organizations 400 to 2500, employees, it becomes a lot more easier for people to implement it, but from the point of view of practicality. Or from the point of your effectiveness. I don’t think any sector will find it not beneficial to have this philosophy implemented.

Andrew Newby: Right, so corporate cultures or national cultures which are more prone to hierarchical structures. They are the ones that probably need this the most. Big banks, big tech companies. Can you little to how those organizations have benefited from servant leadership.

Madana Kumar: Right, yeah, I could certainly give some global examples. You know, any study on servant leadership will automatically throw out companies like chick fillet for that matter, which is a fast-food  is even a much better example, of empowerment and servant leadership, they had again unabashedly, they will go and claim that a servant leader is the only philosophy that we have. It’s actually one of their three values, servants heart is one of their three values. They have succeeded and remained profitable. In the past several decades. Despite the aviation industry being always an industry where competition and they continued to be the most profitable airline industry in the whole world. And their management does not have any, any hesitation, in admitting that a major part of that goes to the servant leadership culture within that organization. Those are service industries, right then you can look at organizations like Google for that matter, like, the employee empowerment is so big, managers are stripped of all powers that they have, and you know, so even though they’ve not called it servant leadership per say.

But there is a lot of servant leadership elements that you can see in the so-called Google culture that a lot of techies dream about like LinkedIn, for that matter, uses what is called as a compassionate leadership specifically, you will see they’re significantly in the topper group of companies. If you look at their whole, founding philosophy like, they had a big dream, but they wanted to make sure that the achievement of that dream is achieved too. Very specific ethics highly focused on integrity matters that have stood the test of time. 

What happened during one of the terrible times, what we call 2611. In India, we are famously known as 2611. How the employees of the Taj hotel. You know shield it. The clients from the terrorists. Many of them paying organization and how [inaudible25:28] himself behave. And then they appreciated each and every employee of that organization after that incident. So we will see this significantly in several organizations across the globe.

And of course, the company that I work for UST Global is an example where we here today claim that is servant leadership has been and is a major, major factor in our digital transformations.

Andrew Newby: Right, great examples thank you. In terms of the non-commercial sector. Do you have any examples of social organizations that have benefited from?

Madana Kumar: Yeah. I can certainly quote World Wishon, as one of them, you know World Wishon probably one of the biggest NGOs nonprofit organizations, that in my view is one of the biggest organizations that certainly follows those principles both the management as well as external stakeholders dealings and things like that. So, yeah. And of course. I’ve studied for my doctoral research, I have studied certain organizations. Compassion international law is two of them which I studied as part of my doctoral research itself.

Andrew Newby: So just wrapping up, Madana. What advice would you give to anyone who wants to be an evangelist for servant leadership within their organization but who doesn’t know where to start. Obviously, starting their journey.

Madana Kumar: I would say, basically start with, with a 360-degree assessment, which will give people a huge, huge insight and awareness into where they stand right. Based on that, we can work on actions and seven leadership, cannot be forced upon anyone, it has to be a choice. It has to be a conscious choice that people will pick up because it is a conscious choice it will energize you, and it will happen by itself so instead of working on the nuts and bolts and the policies and the practices and stuff like that. What one needs to work on is developing the passion internally. So that people feel I want to choose to be a servant leader and that’s going back to my UST Global example, but that’s how UST has been successful in doing it because today, people queuing up for the workshops and registering for the workshops and things like that, and everything is being done by a group of internal champions and that has come only because, you know, people have become passionate about that topic. And so, so any evangelist needs to find out ways by which his or her passion can become infectious and that catches on to others. And then once you have a group of a coalition of partners then it will stop thriving. So that’s really what my advice would be for anyone. Of course, the tools are there, the surveys are there, the workshops are there, the coaching will be there. So those are all the tools, practical tools that are available, but the beginning has to be in infecting other people with the passion that you have for the topic.

Andrew Newby: Dr. Kumar Madana, thank you so much for your time and insights today, it’s been really important. Thank you so much for your time.

Madana Kumar: My pleasure Andrew thank you. Thank you very much.

Andrew Newby: Hello everyone, my name is Andrew Newby and I’m hosting a series of research services podcasts, over the coming weeks. These are intended to educate senior-level marketers and thought leaders. How to address some of the more challenging and exciting issues facing them currently.

Our topic today is using servant leadership to drive transformation within an organization.

With that, I’d like to welcome today’s guest expert, Dr. Madana Kumar. Madana is a self-styled servant leadership evangelist, thought leader, and organization builder. With close to four decades of experience. He currently balancing two roles, one incorporate as the vice president, and the Global Head of leadership development at UST Global an American provider of digital technology and transformation, IT services, and solutions.

The second role is in consulting. Spreading the message of servant leadership, and helping organizations, implement, and benefit from this new leadership paradigm. Madana, Dr. Kumar welcome, and thank you for

Madana Kumar: Thank you, Andrew, it’s a pleasure to be here and a pleasure to be talking with you. Thank you very much. 

Andrew Newby: You’re very welcome and fully reciprocated. So just to start off, Madana can you give our listeners an idea of your central message or messages with regard to servant

Madana Kumar: Yes. So servant leadership is, in my view, the only leadership philosophy that balances beautifully between results and relationships and that is really what makes it unique. It is the leadership thriving, not just surviving but for thriving in this world. In today’s world through results. So, it’s a beautiful balance between results and our relationships. And It also creates a whole new world ecosystem around us, it creates better employees and better citizens for the world so it’s really a beautiful philosophy. Not just for organizations but for the world itself.

Andrew Newby: That’s a big claim, so would it be summarized as follows, that it’s about the welfare of the employee above that of the leader him/herself.

Madana Kumar: That’s absolutely right yeah that is the practical definition that I always provide for servant leadership. Actually, when people ask me what is a, who is a servant leader. I tell them a servant wiser, richer, healthier, wealthier, happier, more famous than himself or herself. That’s what a servant leader is, truly. But in an organizational complex to make it more practical, what you said, if placing the interest of the employee ahead or above the self-interest of the leader is what makes servant leader in an organizational context.

Andrew Newby: So how did you find this path, the correct leadership, accountability.

Madana Kumar: Come again, Andrew.

Andrew Newby: How did you come to this path.

Madana Kumar: Okay yeah, 

Andrew Newby: Leadership accountability as a management paradigm?

Madana Kumar: Yeah, So I actually stumbled upon it. Interestingly from the Bible frankly. As part of my faith journey when I started studying the Bible, is when I came across it. And then when I started looking the practical implications of that and so as many people who search for servant leadership in the organizational context would obviously know Robert Greenleaf, love and creamy. So that’s, you know, so I came from the Bible to Robert Greenleaf, So I came from the Bible to Robert Greenleaf and that’s how I discovered this philosophy.

Andrew Newby: In essence, servant leadership invests in the life of someone else to become bigger, richer, wiser, more famous than oneself as a leader. Is that the nub of it?

Madana Kumar: Yeah. That’s how I really define servant leader, yes.

Andrew Newby: Because that’s kind of a big claim isn’t it? If you look from a secular point of view, within a company. We are surrounded by people we like, people we respect, some we don’t respect so behaviors that you recommend leaders to develop with instruments to measure them. Tell me how it works, tell me how servant leadership works.

Madana Kumar: Right yeah, so ultimately the final question right how does it work? Does it work and how can we make it, how can we apply it in real life and that’s where I have come across, as I’ve come seven behaviors. It goes like this, demonstrating conceptual skills, empowerment, emotional healing, putting others first behaving ethically, helping others grow and succeed, and creating value for the community. So those are the seven behaviors in my research and my study. Make a servant leader, and if one can excel in these seven behaviors, one can truly claim to be a servant leader in any walk of life really, not just in an organization.

Andrew Newby: Okay, In terms of those seven behaviors. Can they be developed? Does somebody clearly naturally does possess those seven behaviors naturally or have developed them? In a talent but are these

Madana Kumar: I believe so, yes, I have to say we have proof to say that yes, they are all learnable skills. Because the way we do is, you know, we follow what we call a 4, 7, 10 model, right. So the leader, seven behaviors, the behaviors that I just described.

And those seven behaviors are further mapped into what we call us 10 attributes. Attributes like listening, attributes like conceptualization foresight, attributes like, you know, healing, empathy, you know and stand through the 360 degrees seg way.

And when they know where they stand with respect to, you know, their own self-perception versus the perception of others, and also where they stand in a, in a group of people, you know, within their organization or overestimated themselves a bit, or when they have underestimated themselves a bit. So the 360 degree actually pulls up those four areas and then looking at those four areas, they can really look at what is the skill or the attribute that you need to develop to become a servant leader or to become a better servant leader, let me put it that way. Because most of the people will have some of these aspects you know in some way or the other. Yeah, so that’s absolutely it is learnable, and the cells of our intervention still now definitely proved that, yes, people do learn it, and practice it.

Andrew Newby: So, in terms of the payoff for this, the listeners will be asking, well this is all very nice. Where is the beef? The key here is the transformer power this has on employee potential. Is that

Madana Kumar: Yeah, it’s actually not potential it’s on employees, you know, empowering them or feeling them, make them feel empowered It is about helping them to bounce back from their own holistic development and things like that, it’s a lot about what  do we do to make them better, bigger, wiser, wealthier, more famous, happier and things like that. It’s all about that.

Andrew Newby: And in terms of clients, the touchpoint with clients is what better engagement.

Madana Kumar: Yes, better engagement. Faster decision making because, a company who has servant leadership as their culture. Nobody will be saying look this is beyond my paygrade. Now let me go check out, go of decision making and the sense of ownership that the employee takes and the equality of outcome that is there that they provide. The receptiveness, to, feedback and things like that. So, really, it is really a win-win, a huge win for the clients too.

Andrew Newby: Right, so relating this to the situation as we have it now and I hate mentioning the C-word too much, but we have to talk, COVID. Because I’m interested in investigating how this tap And I think we’re in a time where employers are looking for leaders who use power appropriately. Live certain values and sort of walk the talk in terms of who is right, right by themselves, by the workers, by their family. So, do you see a set of links with what’s going on now? Between that and servant leadership?

Madana Kumar: Absolutely, absolutely. As it is the world has been going around, changing as everybody will know the rate of change has really overtaken human adaptability. Even before the COVID hit us. The world whole change that could have happened probably the next five to 10 years into the last six to seven months, right. So, exactly as you said, people start, people are now looking for the leaders who use power appropriately. Leaders who put the others interests first and not their self-interest first leaders who walk the talk as far as the set of values are concerned, and leaders who do not chase success alone. But pursue significance. And I define always significance as somebody who adds value to themselves. At the same time, add value to others. So people will start looking, look okay you are successful so what did you do with it, and who benefited from it, who else benefited from it other than you?

So people are really seeking those answers and what COVID has done is exponentially increase the number of people who are asking those questions and who are seeking answers and who are sort of putting that external So actually to me, COVID has literally accelerated the adoption. The need, the desire, the desire for us to have better leaders among us.

Andrew Newby: So, I guess the counterpart to that is, let’s talk about resistance and barriers. Companies at the moment that wanting to preserve cash they’re not wanting to do anything big. like that within organizations?

Madana Kumar: Yeah.

Andrew Newby: This tendency of institutions for the corporate block to dampen the inspiration. How do you, how do you recommend that companies and leaders keep on prevent that from

Madana Kumar: Yeah, interesting actually yeah, that’s actually true, when organizations become big, you know the ideas get lost somewhere. I have this interesting, what I call, it’s funny, organizational saying no. VP of staying the course and VP of you know, let us do it later and all that stuff and then the new manager for new ideas reports into these people and you know what happens and so typically that’s really what happens when organizations become bigger.

And that is really why servant leadership makes sense because servant leadership literally flattens the organization so that when ideas are there, it is, you know, the organization as a whole is able to capture it and they have an idea. If the person’s idea is not going to get killed in the bureaucracy somewhere and may never see the light and things like that. So, those type of cultural changes happens when you actually implement servant leadership, and when organizations are able to see this. That is when you know that that’s when people say that there is some sense in it so let’s try it out. 

And what we of course try to do is to make this, you know, not obviously, not everyone needs to conserve cash and things of that, so if we say okay let’s put a lot of money to develop servant leaders within the generating internal champions within the organization. So, all that they need to do is invest some amount of time, they’re more than willing to invest that time, because of the passion that they are able to see and they payout that they’re able to see in that, people’s moment when it becomes an internal true moment, even, even the cash flow issues get answered. and that’s really how wherever we’ve been able to see some traction on this, we have been able to make progress in organizations. 

Andrew Newby: Right and that feeds into one of the seven characteristics. You mentioned, namely demonstrating conceptual skills, dreaming big not being constrained by current

Madana Kumar: Absolutely, along with the whole concept of empowerment when we talk about an inverted pyramid where the leaders, you don’t have to demonstrate that demonstrating consumption skills. You know implement and constantly doing the leaders as resources to implementation. So it has to go hand in hand with the behavior of empowerment. So you demonstrate your conception skill, set missions, set goals, set values, set boundaries, and then step aside and say that guys now you take all I am available to you as a resource as and when you need it. You are now responsible for the implementation and the difference that it can make to the organization is phenomenal. When we do that.

Andrew Newby: Sure, we can address examples of this, in a minute. Are there any specific sectors, or optimal company sizes, or characteristic bundles that make servant leadership, more powerful? So environments. Just keep the commercial for now. Traveling tourism doing very well at the moment, banks doing okay, media doing okay, even bits of retail. Where do you see this working out? Or most likely to work out?

Madana Kumar: Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, wherever there is direct contact with clients that sort of in b2c type of industries. where the employees are in direct touch with the end-users. That’s for that matter, like those organizations, it can actually make a big difference and the results can be seen quickly. And of course, travel and tourism is also that type of business. It is a direct customer contact business. Yes, but they have going through a travel time right now but I’m sure it is going to pick up. and when it pickups, it is a place where you know where servant leadership will and has the power to be big successes and a big asset to have.

But having said that, my studies really show that there is really no sector which cannot benefit from it. There’s no size limitation for this. The only challenge of course is that, if you have not gone, if thousand employees. Then it takes a little more effort to populate that culture within the organization so it will be it will require some amount of time before it becomes this thing obviously organizations on the size of 25,000 employees and maybe 25 to 50,000 employees. It’s a lot more easier. Of course, it’s smaller organizations 400 to 2500, employees, it becomes a lot more easier for people to implement it, but from the point of view of practicality. Or from the point of your effectiveness. I don’t think any sector will find it not beneficial to have this philosophy implemented.

Andrew Newby: Right, so corporate cultures or national cultures which are more prone to hierarchical structures. They are the ones that probably need this the most. Big banks, big tech companies. Can you little to how those organizations have benefited from servant leadership.

Madana Kumar: Right, yeah, I could certainly give some global examples. You know, any study on servant leadership will automatically throw out companies like chick fillet for that matter, which is a fast-food is even a much better example, of empowerment and servant leadership, they had again unabashedly, they will go and claim that a servant leader is the only philosophy that we have. It’s actually one of their three values, servants heart is one of their three values. They have succeeded and remained profitable. In the past several decades. Despite the aviation industry being always an industry where competition and they continued to be the most profitable airline industry in the whole world. And their management does not have any, any hesitation, in admitting that a major part of that goes to the servant leadership culture within that organization. Those are service industries, right then you can look at organizations like Google for that matter, like, the employee empowerment is so big, managers are stripped of all powers that they have, and you know, so even though they’ve not called it servant leadership per say.

But there is a lot of servant leadership elements that you can see in the so-called Google culture that a lot of techies dream about like LinkedIn, for that matter, uses what is called as a compassionate leadership specifically, you will see they’re significantly in the topper group of companies. If you look at their whole, founding philosophy like, they had a big dream, but they wanted to make sure that the achievement of that dream is achieved too. Very specific ethics highly focused on integrity matters that have stood the test of time. 

What happened during one of the terrible times, what we call 2611. In India, we are famously known as 2611. How the employees of the Taj hotel. You know shield it. The clients from the terrorists. Many of them paying organization and how [inaudible25:28] himself behave. And then they appreciated each and every employee of that organization after that incident. So we will see this significantly in several organizations across the globe.

And of course, the company that I work for UST Global is an example where we here today claim that is servant leadership has been and is a major, major factor in our digital transformations.

Andrew Newby: Right, Great examples thank you. In terms of the non-commercial sector. Do you have any examples of social organizations that have benefited from?

Madana Kumar: Yeah. I can certainly quote World Wishon, as one of them, you know World Wishon probably one of the biggest NGOs nonprofit organizations, that in my view is one of the biggest organizations that that certainly follows those principles both the management as well as external stakeholders dealings and things like that. So, yeah. And of course. I’ve studied for my doctoral research, I have studied certain organizations. Compassion international law is two of them which I studied as part of my doctoral research itself.

Andrew Newby: So just wrapping up, Madana. What advice would you give to anyone who wants to be an evangelist for servant leadership within their organization but who doesn’t know where to start. Obviously, starting their journey.

Madana Kumar: I would say, basically start with, with a 360-degree assessment, which will give people a huge, huge insight and awareness into where they stand right. Based on that, we can work on actions and seven leadership, cannot be forced upon anyone, it has to be a choice. It has to be a conscious choice that people will pick up because it is a conscious choice it will energize you, and it will happen by itself so instead of working on the nuts and bolts and the policies and the practices and stuff like that. What one needs to work on is developing the passion internally. So that people feel I want to choose to be a servant leader and that’s going back to my UST Global example, but that’s how UST has been successful in doing it because today, people queuing up for the workshops and registering for the workshops and things like that, and everything is being done by a group of internal champions and that has come only because, you know, people have become passionate about that topic. And so, so any evangelist needs to find out ways by which his or her passion can become infectious and that catches on to others. And then once you have a group of a coalition of partners then it will stop thriving. So that’s really what my advice would be for anyone. Of course, the tools are there, the surveys are there, the workshops are there, the coaching will be there. So those are all the tools, practical tools that are available, but the beginning has to be in infecting other people with the passion that you have for the topic.

Andrew Newby: Dr. Kumar Madana, thank you so much for your time and insights today, it’s been really important. Thank you so much for your time.

Madana Kumar: My pleasure Andrew thank you. Thank you very much.