Indian executives are different in leadership styles and emotional competencies compared to their North American counterparts, but they have proved to be as strategic in terms of decision-making and thinking styles, research firm International Market Assessment (IMA) said in a study.

New competencies

The study was jointly conducted with talent management solutions provider Korn/Ferry International (KFI). North Americans are much more task-focused and intellectual but they are less social and participative in comparison to their Indian peers who are more hierarchical and less concerned about building a consensus, it added.

The ‘KFI-IMA Indian Leadership Study’ was based on responses of 100 Indian executives and a comparison of their leadership styles with the top executives in North America. The Indian executives were selected from IMA’s India CEO Forum and India CFO Forum. While 44 per cent respondents were CEOs, the remaining 56 per cent belonged to C-level.

“While India is well known for its entrepreneurial and highly-educated talent base, more and more attention is being paid to how it will continue to develop its intellectual and managerial talent and management practices in order to achieve a global standard,” the study said.

The current styles may be appropriate for the traditional Indian firms, but they would need to develop new competencies appropriate for the world stage on their way towards the globalisation, KFI Chairman Paul Reilly said. Indians show similar task-focused and intellectual styles as those in Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, it said.