EXTREME LEADERSHIP
V.N. Bhattacharya
Name of the Faculty:
Designation: Independent Consultant Business &
Corporate Strategy
Teaching Area: Organisation Behaviour
(such as Finance & Accounting; Marketing;
Production & Operations Management;
Strategy)
This course may be offered to: PGP and other programmes
(PGP, FPM, PGPEM, PGPPM, EPGP)
http://www.iimb.ernet.in/programmes
Credits (No. of hours): 3 (30)
(3 credits=30 classroom hours; 1.5 credits15 classroom hours; session=90 minutes)
Term / Quarter: December
(Starting April /June
/September/December)
Course Type: Elective
(Core or Elective)
Offered as: Regular course
(Regular Course: staggered across the term
or
Workshop1 Course: 3-5 continuous days)
Are there any financial implications to this None except what is needed for course
course? pack reading material.
o Adjunct Faculty in IIMB. I teach
Additional information required
Strategic Thinking and Decision
Making to PGP, PGPEM, and EPGP in
IIMB. Profile appended separately
below.
o No other faculty envisaged.
1
Workshop course: Please provide reasons as to why the course is being offered in workshop mode and why it cannot be offered
as a regular course (that is spread over 10 weeks). As an institution, IIMB prefers courses offered in the regular mode, since it
results in better learning experience for the students and avoids overlapping of courses.
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Course Summary
The elective course will draw on the lives and exploits of explorers, mountaineers, and
people thrown into leadership roles in extreme circumstances. We will glean lessons from
their successes and failures of leaders during crises and critical incidents – situations involving
great risk, uncertainty, and high stakes. Though seemingly far removed from the world of
business they yield valuable lessons on decision-making, leadership, and behaviours.
Pre-requisites, if any: None.
inclusion/exclusion criteria, if any: None.
Learning Objectives / Outcomes
The course is designed with the following specific objectives and learning outcomes:
a. Instill deep appreciation of the onerous task of leadership, its complexity, challenges,
and responsibility for consequences.
b. Acquaint students with the leader’s critical role in sense making, crafting, and
executing strategy, and organization building, and enhancing performance.
c. Kindle awareness of the need to prepare students and their organisations for dynamic,
uncertain environments, and occasional crises.
Pedagogy
The elective will examine leadership through three distinct, yet related lenses.
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Envisioning a distant, uncertain future when all hope seems lost.
Sensemaking, strategy formulation, and decision-making.
Building teams, and sustaining organisational performance.
We will use short biographies and accounts of explorers to the Antarctica and mountaineering
expeditions. We will discuss curated stories on the Chilean Mining Accident (2010); Nestle
India’s handling of the Maggi fiasco, and Anne Mulcahy’s turnaround of Xerox, among others.
Principal theoretical underpinnings will be the following.
•
•
•
•
Leadership theories on skills approach, behavioural and team leadership, and
situational factors.
Decision making in the heuristics and biases tradition.
Naturalistic Decision Making (Klein), sense making in dealing with complex and rapidly
changing situations (Weick).
Leadership styles (Emotional Intelligence, Goleman), Flexible Leadership (Yukl and
Lepsinger), and Psychological Safety (Amy Edmondson).
Course Evaluation & Grading Pattern
Quiz
Project (Group/Syndicate)
End-term Examination
20%
40%
40%
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Session-wise plan
A fair amount of reading material will be sourced from authentic published resources on the
Internet, especially for sessions on Antarctica expeditions, accidents, and crises faced by select
corporations.
Sessions
1
2
3
4
5
Topic
Topic: Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott’s race to the South Pole.
Comparing and contrasting their priorities, goals, preparation, resources, and
strategy. How these factors played a role in outcomes and consequences.
Reading:
• Soul of the Wilderness by James M. Glover, International Journal of
Wilderness Vohme 4, Number 1.
• Biographies and expedition accounts of Roald Amundsen and Robert
Scott from Wikipedia and www.south-pole.com.
Topic: Ernest Henry Shackleton’s Imperial Transcontinental (Antarctic)
Expedition with focus on the voyage of Endurance and its aftermath. Leadership
lessons on adaptive goal setting, strategy, and organisation. Courage and
resilience in leadership.
Reading:
• Leadership lessons from the Shackleton Expedition by Nancy F. Koehn,
New York Times, Dec. 24, 2011.
• Biographies and expedition accounts of Shackleton’s Endurance
expedition from Wikipedia and www.south-pole.com.
Topic: Influence of socio-cultural influences on leadership styles of Amundsen,
Scott, and Shackleton. Evaluating their leadership in strategy, decision-making,
marshaling resources and people.
Reading: Biographies of Amundsen, Scott, and Amundsen from Wikipedia and
www.south-pole.com.
Topic: Understanding intuitive decision-making. Judgement of risk under
uncertainty. Heuristics and bias: a few major heuristics and cognitive biases.
How they aid and, sometimes, lead to erroneous judgement and decisions.
Reading:
• Representativeness Revisited: Attribute Substitution in Intuitive
Judgement. Daniel Kahneman and Shane Frederick, Chapter 2 pp. 49-81
Book: Heuristics and Biases - The Psychology of Intuitive Judgement.
• Appendix B: Choices Values and Frames by Daniel Kahneman and Amos
Tversky. Book: Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, pp 433-446.
Topic: Comparing leadership of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer who led the tragic
1996 expedition to Mt. Everest in 1996. Examining their decision-making and
behaviour through the lenses of cognitive bias and judgement of risk under
extreme uncertainty.
Case: Mount Everest 1996, HBR.
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6
7
8
Topic: Application of leadership theories – skills approach, behavioural, team
leadership, and situational leadership concepts – in the tragic 1996 Mount
Everest expedition. Leadership failures of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer.
Reading:
• ‘Leading on Top of the World: Lessons from Into Thin Air’ (Jon Krakauer)
by David Keller. Advances in Developing Human Resources Vol. 9, No. 2
May 2007 166–182.
• YouTube film Into Thin Air, a film adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s book by
that name: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wl2Di18-sY.
Topic: Reflection and contemplation in making critical decisions. Lessons from
Shackleton’s practices.
Reading: Solitude and leadership by William Deresiewicz, The American
Scholar, March 1, 2010.
Topic: Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM, Klein) as a counterpoint to heuristic
led judgement of risk and uncertainty. The role of expertise and experience in
decision-making under time pressure.
Reading:
• Developing Expertise in Decision Making by Gary Klein, Thinking and
Reasoning, 1997, 3 (4 D), 337-352.
• Conditions for Intuitive Expertise: A Failure to Disagree, Daniel
Kahneman and Gary Klein, American Psycholologist, September 2009.
9
10
Briefing on Syndicate Projects. Formation of syndicates.
Syndicate projects will require students to research a notable figure’s life and
work. They will write a critique of the person’s leadership using relevant
concepts from the course. Syndicates will make presentations in the last two
sessions of the course.
Topic: Naturalistic Decision Making in action. Team constitution, organisation,
and building trust. Parallels from Mount Everest case and tragedy in the Mann
Gulch fire.
Reading:
• The Collapse of Sensemaking in Organisations: The Mann Gulch Disaster
by Karl E. Weick, Administrative Science Quarterly, 38(1993): 628-652.
• Case Study: Fire at Mann Gulch, HBR.
Topic: Ethical leadership. Ethics: what it is and where it comes from.
Subjectivity, cultural variations, and universality. Implications in decision
making. Impact of goals, values, consequences on unethical decisions.
Reading:
•
•
A framework for thinking ethically. Copy and paste the link(s) in your
browser if you cannot click through.
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/framework.html
Interview of an Everester who did not summit to save a comrade in
distress. Discussion of choices, personal loss, and ethical considerations.
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19
Topic: Organisation building, risk assessment, and ethical leadership.
Contrasting styles of Chris Warner (on K2) and Rob Hall (on Mt. Everest 1996).
Case discussion: Darden Case study: K2-Brotherhood of the rope.
Topic: Role of leadership in a national crisis. Motivations and drivers of decision
making among top leaders of a nation. Ethical responsibility. Submarine Kursk
Disaster (2000).
Reading:
• Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kursk_submarine_disaster
• YouTube movie: The Command (US).
Topic: Psychological Safety in building learning organization and preparing
them to deal with unpredictable situations.
Six different leadership styles anchored in Emotional Intelligence theory. Their
characteristics and differences, and their advantages and disadvantages.
Significance of fluidly switching leadership styles based on situational
awareness.
Reading:
• The Fearless Organisation by Amy C. Edmondson. HBS Product #
ROT389-PDF-ENG
• Leadership That Gets results by Daniel Goleman. HBR, March-April 2000.
Topic: Getting things done – organizing for execution in a crisis.
Reading:
• Getting It Done – Four Ways to Translate Strategy into Results by Gary
Yukl and Richard Lepsinger, Leadership in Action, Vol. 27, Number 2,
May/June 2007.
Case: The 2010 Chilean Mine Rescue (A). HBS.
Topic: Case discussion: Nestle India Maggi Recall 2015. Where was the
leadership? Failure to respond swiftly to the crisis and nip it in the bud.
Examining leadership through lenses of sense making and Goleman’s leadership
styles approach.
Case: Maggi Noodle Safety Crisis in India (A). HBS
Topic: Leading in rapidly changing and uncertain environments through
adaptive leadership. Implications on problem solving, innovation, and managing
change. References to leadership behaviour observed in Copiapo (Chile) mining
accident case.
Reading:
• Improving Performance Through Flexible Leadership By Gary Yukl and
Richard Lepsinger. Leadership in Action Vol. 25, Nr. 4, Sept / Oct 2005.
• Leading Change – Adapting and Innovating in an Uncertain World by Gary
Yukl and Richard Lepsinger. Leadership in Action, Vol. 26, Nr. 2,
May/June 2006
Topic: Anne Mulcahy and the Xerox Turnaround. Discussion of Mulcahy’s
leadership style using Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence Theory and Yukl and
Lepsinger’s flexible/adaptive style approach.
Case: Anne Mulcahy Leading Xerox Through A Perfect Storm. HBS.
Topic: Standard Operating Procedures in a crisis. When they are effective and
when not. Zoom interview of a former Indian Navy submariner.
Summarising the course, drawing, and integrating lessons.
Topic: Syndicate presentations on study of leaders.
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Topic: Syndicate presentations on study of leaders.
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Profile of the Adjunct / Guest Faculty (if any)
V.N. BHATTACHARYA
Mr. Bhattacharya is a highly regarded business and corporate strategy
consultant. He advises and works with senior management teams to
help make firms competitive, and achieve rapid, sustainable and
profitable growth. His work cuts across industry sectors: electronics,
engineering, logistics, paints, pharmaceuticals, software, telecom
and technology.
He conducts custom management development programmes for
senior managers, and provides business coaching to CXOs. He teaches
Strategic Thinking and Decision Making, and Extreme Leadership in
Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore. He is a Visiting Faculty in XLRI (Xavier School
of Management), Jamshedpur. He has taught in IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta in India. He
served on the Editorial Advisory Board of American Journal of Business. He writes regularly on
management and is a sought-after speaker.
CAREER. Mr Bhattacharya is a seasoned business leader with a rare breadth of perspective
and world-view. He has nearly fifty years’ experience in diverse industries in India and
abroad. He has turned around loss-making businesses, created new streams of revenue and
revitalised old ones. He blends conceptual rigour and rich experience with strong focus on
execution.
During his corporate career he worked in large and medium sized Indian and multi-national
corporations. His breadth of perspective stems from experience in many industries – consumer
goods, automobiles, paints and chemicals, engineering, capital equipment, packaging,
hospitality, and telecom. He served as the Chief Executive of BPL Telecom Ltd. – a telecom
engineering and networking company - before setting up his consulting practice.
CONSULTING. His consulting work is strongly anchored in research-based management theory
and settled thinking. He engages deeply with clients to help them create and execute
effective and innovative strategies. He guides managers to develop insight, broaden
perspective, and bring to bear expansive thinking and data to make crucial business decisions.
Among his prominent clients have been Allcargo Logistics, Allergan (Pharmaceuticals),
Allstate Solutions (Insurance), Bayer (Chemicals), Carborundum Universal (Abrasives and
Industrial Ceramics), Hitachi, Honeywell, IBM, Mindtree, Wipro (Information Technology),
Schneider Electric (Engineering), and Qualcomm (Telecom Technology).
EXPERTISE. Formulating and guiding implementation of strategies for sustainable and
profitable growth is his special forte. He has advised firms on business portfolio selection,
managing multi-business corporations, and designed structures for complex organisations.
He is deeply interested in decision-making. He guides them on structural and process
methodologies that foster curiosity, collaboration, and innovation.
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He is one of the few practitioners of Game Theory. He uses its principles in his consulting
work, in establishing collaborative practices in firms, and to encourage anticipatory
(strategic) thinking among senior managers.
EDUCATION. He earned a Bachelor of Technology in Chemical Engineering from Indian
Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur and Post-graduate Diploma (MBA) in Marketing and
Finance from Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta.
INTERESTS. VN, as he is better known, enjoys English fiction, science and astrophysics,
behavioural economics, and cognitive psychology. He is an avid golfer. For several years he
did high altitude trekking in the Himalayas. He lives in Bangalore with his wife and Indie dog.
There is more information on him on his website https://vnbhattacharya.in. He can be
reached at vnbhattacharya@gmail.com.
Contact:
Villa # 300, Palm Meadows Phase 2, HAL Airport – Whitefield Road, Bangalore 560 066, India.
Tel: +91-98450 58034 (M); e-mail: vnbhattacharya@gmail.com.
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