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As every company knows, employees are its greatest resource. It's more than a shame, then, that many workers are either not encouraged or afraid to speak up and communicate ideas at work. Employers are losing valuable knowledge and experience, and their companies are weaker for that loss. Latent voice episodes and Upward voice Latent voice episodes describe those moments at work when someone considers speaking up about an issue, problem, or even an improvement opportunity. How do people think about speaking up? The episodes are called "latent" because they are potential communications that may or may not in fact occur. Understanding the factors that encourage or inhibit people speaking up at work with the relevant ideas and concerns they have is the focus of this research. Upward voice refers to communications directed to someone higher in the organizational hierarchy with the perceived power or authority to take action on the problem or suggestion. T...

Do Indian CEOs and business leaders operate in a way that is markedly different from those in other parts of the world? What is the source of their competitive advantage? Can other managers learn from their experiences? Four Wharton professors – Peter Cappelli, Harbir Singh, Jitendra Singh (now dean of the Nanyang business school in Singapore) and Michael Useem – answer these questions in a new study titled, "The DNA of Indian Leadership: The Governance, Management and Leadership of Leading Indian Firms," co-sponsored by India's National HRD Network. Based on interviews with 100 CEOs of leading Indian companies, the researchers concluded that while top Indian leaders do share several attributes with their U.S. counterparts, they also have distinctive characteristics. In contrast to U.S. business leaders, Indian CEOs tend to be more preoccupied with internal management, long-term strategic vision and organizational culture. Financial matters, on the other hand, are ...

Only one out of five employees of major global corporations is engaged in his or her work, and top managers may be to blame, according to a study released by a global professional services firm. A survey of 90,000 workers in 18 countries by Towers Perrin HR Services, US-based consultancy, found that only 21 percent of employees are engaged in their work, while 38 percent are disenchanted or disengaged. The study defined "engagement" as being willing to do more than is required to help their employers succeed and measured it by their responses to questions about their feelings about work, as well as their behavior. Mexicans proved to be the most engaged, followed by Brazilians and Indians. U.S. respondents ranked fourth. The least engaged workers were the Japanese, followed by residents of Hong Kong and South Korea . The study found that worker engagement was most driven by senior managers -- not by an employee's upbringing or relationship with a direct mana...

Companies worldwide face a looming leadership crisis due to the retirement of baby boomers (see text at the end of this post) and rapid growth in Asia with half fearful they cannot develop the skills they need, a study released on Thursday (Oct 18 2007) said. The survey by IBM's consulting arm interviewed 400 HR executives from 40 countries and suggests companies are putting growth strategies at risk if they cannot identify and develop the next generation of leaders. Baby boomers will drain companies of valuable knowledge when they retire, while multinational firms need to find people to lead their businesses in booming markets such as India and China , the study said. "You've got this perfect storm of leadership crisis that is hitting the mature and maturing markets," said IBM's Eric Lesser, one of three co-authors of the study "Companies are really crunched both in terms of their current capacity of leadership and also their ability to develop lea...

PLUGGING INTO PEOPLE'S MINDS AND HEARTS The criticality of the human element is today more pronounced than ever before. What sparks and sustains the success of an enterprise is its people. This is a universal truth. It’s no different in India . Leadership is all about plugging into the minds and hearts of people, about rallying them around to a compelling and exciting vision of the future. It is about upping the quality of imagination of the organisation. It is about encouraging a spirit of intellectual ferment and constructive dissent so that people are not bound by the status quo, and mavericks are given space and free play. It is about building the highest levels of empathy, without compromising on fairness and running a popularity contest. As I look ahead, I believe the war for talent will intensify and that could become a major speed breaker. There is an acute competition – rather a scramble for inducting and retaining people with the competencies apposite for a globalis...