There has been severe speculation from several quarters in the last few weeks about who the next President will be. Each party has been trying to huddle with its allies to come to a consensus candidate. It is becoming obvious after the UP elections that the road to Rashtrapathi Bhavan will have to go via Lucknow. There are arrangements being worked out by allies of ruling party to send alternate ministerial hopefuls list if one of the ruling party Ministers is offered the top job.
In addition to the parties, the media has been playing with people opinions conducting all sorts of surveys and opinion polls on this. CNN-IBN has been conducting an SMS poll with 8 potential candidates which include the current President as well. Even Amitabh Bachchan is a potential candidate and as of yesterday he had a 2% support !!
Anyways, the crux of this blog post is to question if corporate leaders make good presidents? One of the names that has been speculated very heavily is N.R.Narayana Murthy. Murthy, who needs no introduction has been building his self-brand consciously for years alongside Infosys. Today, he is like the Gandhi of IT in a sense - a seedha-sadha guy, ambitious, focused, transparent in operations, from a middle class background, living a simple life even after becoming one of the richest person in the nation, humble and party-neutral (though he has been a socialist in his early days). His image has been so well perfected that it is not a wonder he gets so much support from the upper middle class sections of the society. The NR Narayana Murthy brand carries a heavy value in Indian polity these days and a Governor or a President post is the next logical step for for him.
ET ran an article on May 21 about potential corporate leaders who are Prez hopefuls - list included Tata, Premji, KV Kamath, Sunil Mittal in addition Murthy.
The fact is - Yes. These people have been great leaders - ambitious, go-getters. winners, handle complexities everyday, great relationship builders etc., But is this what it takes to the President of this largest democracy ? Or are they overqualified for the job, which makes them too risky to occupy the Rashtrapathi Bhavan ?
thoughts???...
In addition to the parties, the media has been playing with people opinions conducting all sorts of surveys and opinion polls on this. CNN-IBN has been conducting an SMS poll with 8 potential candidates which include the current President as well. Even Amitabh Bachchan is a potential candidate and as of yesterday he had a 2% support !!
Anyways, the crux of this blog post is to question if corporate leaders make good presidents? One of the names that has been speculated very heavily is N.R.Narayana Murthy. Murthy, who needs no introduction has been building his self-brand consciously for years alongside Infosys. Today, he is like the Gandhi of IT in a sense - a seedha-sadha guy, ambitious, focused, transparent in operations, from a middle class background, living a simple life even after becoming one of the richest person in the nation, humble and party-neutral (though he has been a socialist in his early days). His image has been so well perfected that it is not a wonder he gets so much support from the upper middle class sections of the society. The NR Narayana Murthy brand carries a heavy value in Indian polity these days and a Governor or a President post is the next logical step for for him.
ET ran an article on May 21 about potential corporate leaders who are Prez hopefuls - list included Tata, Premji, KV Kamath, Sunil Mittal in addition Murthy.
The fact is - Yes. These people have been great leaders - ambitious, go-getters. winners, handle complexities everyday, great relationship builders etc., But is this what it takes to the President of this largest democracy ? Or are they overqualified for the job, which makes them too risky to occupy the Rashtrapathi Bhavan ?
thoughts???...
1 comment:
Hey Shiva,
Over the past few years, the countries are being referred to as 'Inc.' such as 'India Inc.' in many articles. When that is the case, it makes sense to have these corporate leaders run this Inc.
What say?
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