Kiran Mazumdar Shaw

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is the Chairman & Managing Director of Biocon Ltd, India's biggest biotechnology company. In 2004, she became India's richest woman. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw was born on March 23, 1953 in Bangalore.

Education:

She had done her schooling at Bishop Cotton Girls School and Mount Carmel College at Bangalore. After doing completing her B.Sc. in Zoology from Bangalore University in 1973, she went to Ballarat University in Melbourne, Australia and qualified as a master brewer. 

Career:

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw begin with her professional career as the trainee in brewer in Carlton & United Beverages in 1974. In  the year 1978, she joined as Trainee Manager with Biocon Biochemicals Limited in Ireland. In the same year, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw led the founded Biocon India in collaboration with Biocon Biochemicals Limited, with an initial capital of Rs.10, 000. She initially faced many problems regarding funds for her business. Banks were hesitant to give credit to her as biotechnology was a brand new field in India at that point of time and she was a woman entrepreneur, which was a rare phenomenon in the country.

Biocon’s initial operation was only to extract an enzyme from papaya. Under the guidance of Kiran Mazumdar Shaw’s stewardship Biocon transformed from an industrial enzymes company to an integrated biopharmaceutical company with strategic research initiatives. Today, Biocon is recognised as India’s pioneering biotech enterprise. In 2004, Biocon came up with an IPO and the issue was over-subscribed by over 30 times. Post-IPO, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw held close to 40% of the stock of the company and was regarded as India’s richest woman with an estimated worth of Rs. 2,100 crore.

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is the recipient of several prestigious awards. These include ET Businesswoman of the Year, Best Woman Entrepreneur, Model Employer, Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Life Sciences & Healthcare, Leading Exporter, Outstanding Citizen, Technology Pioneer, etc. Government of India also felicitated her with Padmashri (1989) and Padma Bhushan (2005).

Her business policy has created great value for the shareholders of the Biocon and under her leadership Biocon  emerged as  the  India’s best research and development company who is working on the vaccine research company has created several vaccine for the various disease like hepatitis-B,C, Antibiotics,antiallergic etc

Reward and recognition:

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is the recipient of several prestigious awards. These include ET Businesswoman of the Year, Best Woman Entrepreneur, Model Employer, Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Life Sciences & Healthcare, Leading Exporter, Outstanding Citizen, Technology Pioneer, etc. Government of India also felicitated her with Padmashri (1989) and Padma Bhushan (2005).

Leadership style of the Kiran Mazumdas Shaw: 

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw inspires her team with a shared vision of the future. Transformed them into, and efficient workforce, she don’t necessarily lead from the front, as she loves t to delegate responsibility amongst their teams. While their enthusiasm is often infectious, they can need to be supported by “people”.

In Biocon, both transactional and transformational leadership has been seen. The transactional leaders (or managers) ensure that routine work is done reliably, while the transformational leaders look after initiatives that add value. High regulating and low nurturing has seen as the key factor of her behavior, she always defines the role of the group members telling them what task to do and how and when and where to do them. She is the master of her field so she has developed her trade like that. 

She always initiates the problem solving and decision making are solely by her even the solution and decision are announced by her and its implementations are closely supervised   by her. The above behavior keeps her under the authoritative and directive leadership trade. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is known as her authority under her leadership Biocon has immerged as the most admired company in biotechnology for their research work and wealth creation. She is the great believer in herself and always led the research project under her umbrella.

Constraints on Leadership Behavior

Constraints on Leadership Behavior

In thinking about leadership as mutual influence process we are taking in to account the fact that the behavior of subordinates has a casual influence upon the behavior of the leader. In other words, leaders do not decide how they are going to behave in total isolation from their subordinates. Leader must select and adjust their leadership style in light of how their subordinates are performing and responding. But acknowledging that the behavior of subordinates can influence how leaders behave raises the question of what other factors may be influencing and constraining what leaders do. In fact, it turns out that leaders are far from totally free and unencumbered in choosing their leadership style.

Subordinate Behavior

As was pointed out in our discussion of leadership as a mutual influence process, the evidence is quite clear that the performance of subordinates has a critical casual impact upon that a leader does and how he or she behaves toward followers.

Characteristics of Subordinates

In addition to what subordinates do and how they perform, other identifiable traits, or characteristics, of subordinates may influence the leader’s behavior as well as the behavior of the subordinates themselves.

For example, a leader may behave differently toward males and females, older and younger people, and those with similar as opposed to different personal backgrounds from his or her own.

Characteristics of the Leader

The leader’s abilities and personal characteristics obviously influence and constrain what the leader does and how he or she behaves toward subordinates. On the ability side, task relevant knowledge and skill, as well as supervisory skills and sensitivities, will have an important impact. In terms of trait, personality characteristics such as assertiveness, dominance, and self-confidence all have an influence on leadership behavior.

Leaders Superiors

How leaders treat their subordinates is strongly influenced by how the leaders themselves are treated by their own immediate superiors. Superiors serve both as role models for the leadership behaviour of individuals toward their own subordinates and as sources of rewards and punishments. Leaders with immediate superiors who preach, practice, and reward a participative management style, for example, are unlikely to treat their subordinates in a directive and authoritarian fashion.

Leaders Peers

As in almost all thing, peers have an important influence upon how leaders behave. Peer pressure has a potent homogenizing impact upon leadership behavior in an organization. Other managers in an organization ar likely to exert both direct and indirect pressure on individual leaders to behave toward their subordinates in a fashion that is consistent with that practiced by other managers at that level in the organization.

Organizational Policies, Norms and Climate

Some organizations are characterized by a very open, democratic, and participative management style. Such an organizational climate and policy ill obviously influence a leader to behave as a participative manager. Very different leadership behaviors would be expected in an organization characterized by a very closed and authoritarian policy of management.

Nature of Subordinates – Tasks

The nature of the tasks that subordinates are performing also influences the behavior of leaders

toward subordinates. A very vague and ambiguous task such as developing the design of a new product from scratch is bound to elicit different types of leadership behavior than is a highly structured and routine task such as producing a particular number of units on an assembly line.

Common Leadership Styles

To decide on the “best leadership style” one has to enumerate the merits and demerits of each, evaluate their effectiveness and efficiency and more than anything else, see whether they deliver the goods”. Analysis of the various leadership styles conclusively proves that there does not exist something as the “best” leadership style. If there existed one, it should have proved successful under all circumstances. It can be observed that different leadership styles produce the best results under different conditions and circumstances.

That which results in the most favorable and desirable outcome under any particular circumstances is the “right” leadership style in that context.The success of the manager depends on his/her ability to identify the “right” leadership style in any given situation and then exhibit enough flexibility and adaptability to practice hat style.

Sources of Leader Influence on Followers

What provides a leader with the capacity to influence followers? Why will subordinates respond to the influence attempts of a leader by doing that the leader intends or wishes them to do? In other words, what is the source of the leader’s power over subordinates? Five distinct sources of leader power or influence have been identified. Any particular leader may have at his or her disposal any combination of these different sources of power.

1. Reward Power refers to the leader’s capacity to reward followers. To the extent that a leader possesses and controls rewards that are valued by subordinates, the leader’s power increases. Rewards at a leader’s disposal fall into two categories. Rewards such as praise, recognition and attention are sources of personal power possessed by the leader as an individual. In addition, a leader also usually controls certain organizational rewards, such as pay raises, promotions and other perquisites. These are sources of power that depend upon the leader’s position in the organization.

2. Coercive power is the flip side of reward power and refers to the leader’s capacity to coerce or punish followers. Sources of coercive power also break down into personal and positional components. Leaders personally possess coercive power to the extent that followers experience criticism or lack of recognition from their leader as unpleasant or punishing. In addition, leaders possess coercive power to the extent that their position permits them to administer organizational sources of punishment (such as demotion, with holding of pay increases or firing) to followers.

3. Legitimate power refer to the power a leader possesses as a result of occupying a particular position or role in the organization. In every organization, certain types of requests and directions issued by leaders to subordinates are viewed to be legitimate and valid. Subordinates are obligated to comply with such requests because of the norms, policies, and procedures accepted as legitimate by all members of the organization. Legitimate power is clearly a function of the leader’s position in the organization and is completely independent of any of the leader’s personal characteristics.

4. Expert power refers to power that a leader possesses as a result of his or her knowledge and expertise regarding the tasks to be performed by subordinates. Subordinates are most likely to respond positively to a leader’s attempts to influence their behavior if they view the leader as a competent and in possession of knowledge and information regarding effective task performance that they themselves lack. The possession of expert power by a leader obviously depends upon the personal characteristics of the leader (ie. his or her personal expertise) and is not determined by the formal position that the leader occupies in the organization.

5. Referent power is dependent upon the extent to which subordinates identify with, look up to and wish to emulate the leader. The more that subordinates admire and identify with the leaders, the greater the leader’s referent power over subordinates. Referent power, like expert power, is totally dependent upon the personal characteristics of the leader and does not depend directly upon the leader’s formal organizational position.

Current Issues in Leadership

In addition to focusing on the different powers discussed above, leadership researchers have also recently identified a number of new and important issues that deserve our attention.

Leadership as Mutual Influence

The very term leadership naturally serves to draw our attention to leaders themselves and focuses our interest on the ways in which leaders influence their followers. As a result, research on leadership has tried to understand how different types of leaders and different types of leader behaviors cause follower to react in different ways.

An important contribution of recent research on leadership has been to point out the shortsightedness of this view of leader-follower relations. While it is no doubt true that leaders can and do influence their followers, it is also true that leaders and followers engage in interaction with one another, which necessarily implies the existence of mutual influence. In other words, not only is it true that leaders influence followers, but it is equally true that followers influence leaders.

Leadership Categories

Leadership Categories:

In every individual, all kinds of leadership skills may be present but their relative concentrations vary.The implication for the top management is that organizational success depends on allocating tasks and responsibilities to individuals based on their talents and capabilities. The message for the individual is that one should identify where his/her predominant leadership skills lie and as far as possible try to seek tasks which are in tune with them. When there is little scope for choosing tasks in accordance with ones leadership endowments, developing skills required for the tasks at hand become imperative.

Leadership Styles

Based on “how” a leader performs his/her tasks, various leadership styles can be identified, viz.

(i) - Authoritarian

(ii) - democratic

(iii) - Laissez faire (free rein)

The basis for the above classification is two fold, viz.,

(i) - mode of decision making

(ii) - manner of implementation

(i) Autocratic leadership style : As the term suggests, this is a leader-centered style where followers are reduced to insignificance. The autocratic leadership style itself has two variations, viz., authoritarian and paternalistic.

(a) Authoritarian Leadership Style : The authoritarian leader takes all decisions by himself/herself and will try to implement them even resorting to the use of force or coercion. The authoritarian leader is only concerned about the “tasks” but not the “people” with whom the tasks have to be achieved. If his/her followers/subordinates approach him/her with a problem, they face in implementing the leaders decisions or carrying out his/her orders, the leader takes the stand, I am not bothered about your problems. You …………… expedite and report”.

(b) Paternalistic leadership style: Leaders who exhibit this style assume the parental role for

themselves. They also take all decisions like the authoritarian leaders, but when it comes to

implementation they resort to tact and diplomacy rather than force and coercion.

The paternalistic leader considers his followers as immature children incapable of making decision and needing about the task as well as the people. If subordinates approach a paternalistic leader with their problems, they can expect empathic understanding and consideration. The paternalistic leader may be expected to sit with the subordinates to sort out their problems and help them reach or identify solutions.

(ii) Democratic leadership style: The style of leadership which recognizes and respects every member of the group or team as an individual with capabilities, rights and responsibilities and a potential contributor to the group processes including task achievements, is called democratic leadership style. Where democratic leadership style is followed, decision making and implementation are consultative and participative processes. It should be appreciated that the situation is not akin to one, where say, in a group of w00, what 51 people suggest is accepted and the opinions and suggestions of the remaining 49 are rejected mercilessly. That at best be termed monocracy. Where democratic leadership style is practiced, one is free to express his/her opinions as everybody’s opinions and their right to express them is respected. A member gets an opportunity to understand why his/her suggestions are not accepted as the group’s decision, even when that is the case. The ultimate group decision is everybody’s. When one had a say in the making of a decision, a high level of commitment may be expected to be exhibited by the group members for its achievement.

(iii) Laissez faire or free rein leadership style: Whether one follows autocracy or democracy as a leadership style, the leader will be performing the basic functions of providing direction and control to the group. The autocratic and democratic leaders differ only in the manner in which they perform the direction and control functions. Apart from this, there are leaders who follow a policy of “no intervention” in group processes. Their style is called “Laissez faire” or “free rein”.

There are behavioural scientists who even object to considering this as “leadership” as the “leader” does not discharge the basic functions of direction and control. However, one may find many in leadership positions practicing this style.