Name: Nandakumar Raman

Title: Proprietor

Organisation: RNK & Co.,

A Chartered Accountant with 25+ years of experience in the field of accounting and taxation. A specialist in handling taxation of cross-border taxation and transfer pricing. Have experience in structuring inbound investments and in ensuring the structure complies with applicable statutory regulations.

Click here to read Nandakumar's first written interview: 7 Questions on Leadership

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I hope Nandakumar's answers will encourage you in your leadership journey. Enjoy!

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Jonno White

1. As a leader, how do you build trust with employees, customers and other stakeholders?

Be Honest and show empathy. Avoid surprises, as all of us would be disappointed to face surprises. Set the platform and expectations and support them in their journey, irrespective of whether they are employees, customers, or other stakeholders. Staying connected and showing genuine interest would really take the game to the next level.

In my career, many instances have come up wherein I was not in a position to support the team, but in those scenarios, I had connected and stayed put with the team, discussed and understood their views, and supported them in taking appropriate decisions. Staying connected and being honest are the keys to winning trust.

2. What do 'VISION' and 'MISSION' mean to you? And what does it actually look like to use them in real-world business?

Vision is an abstract concept as against a mission, which is a clearly defined goal to be achieved. Both are very critical for a business as one defines what is the nature of the entity and the other defines what the entity wants to achieve from a business perspective. Mission would predominantly be business-related, like to achieve x growth in Y years (or) achieve a topline of Z.

Whereas a Vision would be aspirational goals and according to me would be either (a) providing a challenging and learning environment, or) to be the best employer in the industry, or) most humane organisation in the industry, or) achieve carbon neutrality, etc. It is always easy to measure the achievements of a Mission statement, as it would be internal and specific, metrics-driven, as against a Vision statement is more of a feeling and would be very difficult to stipulate a metric to be achieved.

In real real-life scenario, I have experienced that the Vision (to ensure overall growth with sufficient time devoted to community service) united the feelings of everyone and gave great satisfaction in every minute spent in the journey.

As far as the Mission is concerned, sometimes it becomes stressful when the going gets tough, but with proper checks at the right interval and it gives a lot of satisfaction on achieving the Mission.

3. How can a leader empower the people they're leading?

A leader has to be a team player. His understanding of the strengths of the team would be critical, as this would enable him to allocate the right work to the right person with the right authority. Further, this supports providing the right guidance at the appropriate time.

This would ensure that the team is knowledgeable about the work assigned, and the leader would know that the team is capable of making its own decisions. At this juncture, the team would feel empowered, as it knows it has the right skill sets to manage the assigned work, and it would be confident that the leader would step in in case something is not going correctly.

So my take would be, the leader should take the first step in building confidence in the team, and then the team would reciprocate.

4. Who are some of the coaches or mentors in your life who have had a positive influence on your leadership? Can you please tell a meaningful story about one of them?

There are a couple of them, one who taught me to be confident, whatever that is to happens, and keep going. The positive thoughts that he would imbibe in me were game-changing and supported me a lot. Second taught me how to approach an issue with an open mind, learnt it by seeing the way he used to handle the issues.

The third one taught me to think big and be always grounded, the fourth one taught me when one should act upon and when one should be a silent spectator. The said qualities have supported me a lot in difficult moments and have helped me in navigating the.

This was a case where there was a discussion about an activity that I had taken up and completed. The entire senior management (including those who didn't know what the scope was and what was delivered) bounced on me and started evaluating the process. I felt like being under trial and moved out, but the head of the organisation came back and said that the point was only to discuss and improve upon the process, and it was never intended to point fingers at any individual.

This really opened my eyes to look at a situation from a third-person view and not to presume that things are being targeted. I wish it were better to evaluate whether the discussion is about an issue or is it about a person. There was a moral responsibility on the leaders to set the stage right so that there would be no ambiguities in this regard.

5. Leadership is often more about what you DON'T do. How do you maintain focus in your role?

I do not indulge in micromanaging and ensure that the work is progressing as scheduled. I have a dedicated board, which gets updated with To-dos and the work progress. The same would be updated by the team members regularly. I do not step into the deliverables until I get a feel that the team is stuck in the process, and in such a scenario, I provide broad guidance based on my experience and do not indulge in handholding them. Micromanaging is a big no-no, and ensure that the key asks / requirements of the team are met, but after due evaluation and due diligence.

6. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Everyone plans differently. How do you plan for the week, month and years ahead in your role?

It is always planning and tracking that are the two key elements that define a person. My plans are always of two types, one, the Purple one - the mission to be accomplished. The second one is to break the big tasks into small daily/weekly tasks for execution and tracking. This supports in evaluating whether the progress is in accordance with the set pattern or any corrective action has to be taken. The broken-down individual assignments are always flexible and could consume more / less effort as compared to the estimate. However, the accomplishment of the larger objective or the Mission would not involve any compromise, and the said target has to be achieved irrespective of the challenges. This way, I was able to largely avoid surprises and provide vision and satisfaction in the long run.

7. What advice would you give to a young leader who is struggling to delegate effectively?

The mission is to be made into assignable smaller tasks, without disturbing the overall picture. Breaking down the larger tasks into smaller tasks provides comfort to the team, enabling them to work with more vigil and complete it in a timely manner.