In a Webinar on the topic of “How the Parameters of Leadership and the Role of CEO would change in the future world of uncertainties’ organized on May 29 by BW Businessworld, Dr. Annurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, BW Businessworld engages with Sohinder Gill, CEO, Hero Electric, Rohit Kapoor, CEO, India & South Asia, OYO, and Anshu Budhraja, CEO, Amway India on various aspects of leadership amidst pandemic and beyond.

In the post-COVID-19 world, a CEO will need to be more than just a chief executive officer. He would be required to also become a ‘chief evolving officer’ and a ‘chief clarity officer’, said the three leading CEOs from a diverse field of electric vehicle, hospitality and direct selling businesses.

For Sohinder Gill, CEO, Hero Electric, communicating with compassion has been learning amidst the post-lock-down world. He says and believes that “a true leader is not the one who talks, but who walks the talk’.

For Anshu Budhraja, CEO, Amway India, ‘people come before strategy’. “Our mantra was to adapt, engage and energize”, Budhraja recalled while discussing the steps taken by his company as the country went into a lock-down. “We held a lot of interactions with our 550,000 micro-entrepreneurs, 60 percent of which are women. And it was delightful to see that nobody had lost hope,” recalls Budhraja.

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For Rohit Kapoor, CEO, India & South Asia, OYO, there should be a new acronym for CEO: “I personally feel at these times, leaders are neither the Empathy officers nor Chief Emergency Officers, they are and should be the Chief Clarity Officers.”

“I think the only thing that we really put in a charter for the next two months is to re-tool the entire company. When the fishermen cannot go out to the oceans, it is time to repair the nets because,” says Kapoor. “So, we have been repairing our nets on every front,” he adds.

When asked about looking into the near future and how the business of the future will come up? Gill of Hero Electric says: “Employees will become much more integrated, cohesive, and focused. Because that oneness of the purpose of the group is coming greatly to the front.”

Kapoor of OYO recalls his three favorite acronyms: KKH or ‘Karna Kya Hai” (What to do)’. “It is very important in these times to say things just as they are. There is a need for authenticity and bounded optimism,” Kapoor adds.

Role Models of CEOs

When asked to comment on their respective role models, Budhraja of Amway India named Elon Musk. “He is so audacious and so bold,” he adds.

For Gill it is simply ‘Ratan Tata’. “I look up to him for compassion and great determination,” Gill adds.

And for Kapoor of OYO, it is none other than M.S. Dhoni, the former India captain. “He is tactical, calm, and strategic and leads from the front,” says Kapoor.

In conclusion, the three dynamic CEOs are united in their message that this disruption will make the organizations and their workforce more integrated, cohesive, and therefore much more focused.