NITIN NOHRIA
Former dean, Harvard Business School
Early in 2012, my wife and I were vacationing in the Caribbean, and over the course of our visit I struck up a friendship with our hotel’s food and beverage manager, who happened to be from India. He’d just transferred to this job after spending many years working at the Taj hotels, part of the Tata group. So I asked him if he knew Ratan Tata. It turned out he did. For many years this man had managed a Thai restaurant at a Taj hotel where Mr Tata dined frequently.
When he learned that I knew Mr Tata as well, he immediately started sharing anecdotes about him — small stories that offered insights into his personality. According to a tale that circulated among hotel employees, one day Mr Tata was travelling on the highway when his car got a flat tyre. To his driver’s great surprise, Mr Tata not only stayed at the scene, but rolled up his sleeves and began helping replace it.
As I travel and meet people, I continually hear other people sharing stories about him, and those stories invariably portray him as lacking the presumptuousness or self-importance people expect to find in successful businessmen. Over the years, these second-hand stories have had nearly as much to do with why I admire him as my own direct dealings with him.
NITIN NOHRIA
Former dean, Harvard Business School
There are many ways to measure leadership, and one often overlooked measure of a leader is the stories that less powerful people tell about him or her. Ratan Tata has lived a life of extraordinary accomplishment and achievement. Everywhere he goes, he impresses people, and their stories are an important measure of the amazing grace with which he leads.
Allow me to share two more small stories to illustrate how Mr Tata embodies the virtue of grace.
The first one focuses on his leadership style. Mr Tata became chairman of Tata Sons in an era when there was a stereotype of CEOs as big personalities — the take-charge, lead-from-the-front types that my Harvard colleague Rakesh Khurana characterised as charismatic CEOs.
Mr Tata is not that type of leader. He is quiet and thoughtful, and sometimes even shy. Early in his career this led some observers to underestimate him. Some people doubted whether he had the skill and the style to succeed as the head of such a large, complex business group. He has certainly showed up these early doubters.
Whether you judge by the company’s financial returns, the way it’s grown to become India’s most global company, its development of innovative products like the Tata Nano and Ace, its ability to live up to its values, or the cohesiveness among the businesses that make up the group, the company has thrived under Mr Tata’s guidance. Despite that, he remains self-effacing and prefers to stay out of the limelight.
As dean, I often ask business leaders to come to HBS to talk with our students, and the typical CEO has two questions: How big is the auditorium? And how long can I speak? When I ask Mr Tata to give a keynote address, he consistently (and politely) declines. “I’d rather be part of a panel, or answer questions,” he’ll say. As a leader Ratan Tata has proven that effective leadership need not be brash or loud or image-conscious, and that great leaders need not occupy centre stage. He exemplifies a leadership style that remains quiet and humble, yet is extraordinarily successful.