The Fifth V Narayanan (Pond’s) Memorial Endowment Lecture took place on 31 January, 2025, at the MMA Management Center. During the event, Atul Vohra—Advisor, Professor, and Brand Ambassador—engaged in a conversation with Ramesh Srinivasan, Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company in New York, and co-author of the book “The Journey of Leadership.” Their discussions focussed on cultivating psychological, emotional, and human attributes essential for successful leadership.
Atul Vohra: Tell us why you wrote the book, “The Journey of Leadership”?
Ramesh Srinivasan: The more I hear about Mr. Narayanan of Pond’s, the more I wish I had known him better. While I’ve spent more than 30 years at McKinsey, the only other institution I spent time at was Hindustan Lever, where I spent a few months during a summer. I chose McKinsey over Hindustan Lever, but I’ve always had a lot of respect for both Pond’s, growing up in Chennai, and Hindustan Lever as I went through business school and beyond.
The idea for this book started about three years ago. I’m the dean of McKinsey’s Bower Forum. More than 600 CEOs have attended the Bower Forum. Three years ago, we could already see this trajectory, and we felt like we had a data set from which we could extract learnings and share those with the world. Part of our objective was to democratise the Bower Forum itself. We’ve shared a lot about the process we use and the stories of a small set of leaders who have gone through the Bower Forum and those we’ve observed.
Over the past 30 years, my colleagues and I have observed many leaders, and we’ve extracted a set of what we call micro practices and a set of questions that can help leaders on their own journey. By leaders, we mean not just CEOs or senior leaders but leaders across the whole spectrum who are thinking about leadership. Mahatma Gandhi said, “Live every day like it’s your last and learn every day as if you’ll live forever.” It was really this learning orientation that inspired us to write the book and bring these ideas to the world.
Atul Vohra: What are your thoughts on human-centric leadership?
Ramesh Srinivasan: In today’s rapidly changing world, with evolving geopolitics, disruptive technology, and the ongoing reality of climate change, the notion that a leader has all the answers is no longer relevant. We believe it’s crucial for a leader to be able to ask questions. On one hand, a leader must still set a sense of purpose, vision, and direction useful to the organisation. However, they must also be open to asking the tough questions—what am I not clear about today? Leaders need to be humble and use their sense of purpose to inspire teams and institutions.
Our thesis is that leaders can no longer simply dictate what others should do. Instead, they must possess a deep sense of their own purpose and use that to inspire teams and institutions. We call this Inside-Out Leadership. The “inside” refers to the inner journey, which is understanding one’s purpose, identity, and sources of energy. Using that energy and clarity, leaders can inspire teams and drive positive change in the world.
Atul Vohra: In Pond’s, Mr. Narayanan had the uncanny ability to look beyond and around corners, envisioning a world where India, Indians, and Pond’s could be hugely successful. He instilled empathy in us. When we went out to meet a salesperson and came back, the first question he would ask us was, “How is his son/daughter doing now?” He realised that the way to grow was to build these brands and also to build multiple businesses. We came up with many ideas, one of which was the leather business, handled by Mr. Balaraman.
I was sent on a trip to Chesebrough-Ponds, where I met Mr. Bill Schmidt, our R&D leader. He took me out for a Mexican meal and asked, “Do you think you can grow mushrooms in a factory situation in India?” I thought mushrooms were grown on farms. We flew to Pennsylvania and drove to a mushroom farm. A year later, we were producing mushrooms for one of the food units of Chesebrough-Ponds. That was the level of inspiration and empowerment we had.
A colleague of mine did the same with the thermometer business. We exported to Russia and the Soviet Union. We had to find opportunities, grow them, and use the surplus funds to build the businesses. There was a clear purpose: to make India strong, for God, country, and the institution. My question to you is, having met 600 CEOs and more, does that resonate with what you’ve seen?
Ramesh Srinivasan: It definitely resonates. We call it “managing polarities.” What we observed in the leaders we studied was their ability to, on the one hand, be humble and ask tough questions for which they didn’t have answers at the time—and on the other hand, set audacious goals and pursue difficult opportunities. While being empathetic, they could also be demanding and set high expectations for their teams.
For example, Stephane Bancel of Moderna believed they could produce a vaccine in the first quarter of 2020. He set a goal of manufacturing a billion doses of the vaccine at a time when they had not produced a single dose of any product. Moderna was a small biotech company then. He asked the head of manufacturing, “How can I support you to make a billion doses?” He was willing to roll up his sleeves, bring in the right expertise, do whatever it took, and be collaborative. In these leaders, we saw an incredible ability to be problem solvers, challengers, and yet attract and empower great people.
Atul Vohra: I’d like to hear from you about vulnerability.
Ramesh Srinivasan: Vulnerability and resilience are close cousins. In today’s world, resilience is incredibly important, both at a personal level and at an institutional level. But I’ll start with vulnerability. We have many stories of vulnerability to share. One of them is about Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, the CEO of Feeding America. During the pandemic, Claire set very audacious goals. She realised that 50 million Americans were food insecure, a problem that still persists even in a developed country like the U.S. This included 14 million kids who were food insecure. Claire set tough expectations for her team to be there for the people they were serving.
At the same time, in the right setting with the right people, she was extremely vulnerable about questions for which she did not have answers, such as how to design a supply chain that serves 50 million people and how to create a comfortable experience for those accessing food from Feeding America or its food banks.
Designing an effective experience was important for providing access to the right people. Claire was very open and unafraid to ask these questions in the right setting with the right team. We don’t talk about vulnerability during a crisis in front of thousands of people, but if you don’t pose these questions to your team or the right people, you won’t be able to find breakthrough answers and innovate.
When used correctly, vulnerability can be a source of strength, influence, and even power. This was evident in the leaders we studied. Vulnerability helped these leaders become more resilient and adapt to changes. When faced with challenges like COVID or significant shifts in regulations or geopolitics, we observed incredible resilience and versatility in these leaders and institutions, both emotionally and intellectually.
Atul Vohra: I remember my stint as a young brand manager for Pond’s Cold Creams. We had the iconic opal glass jars that suddenly had to be phased out, and we were very concerned and feeling threatened in some ways. Mr. Narayanan was with me, and we went into a meeting with our agency— Alyque Padamsee, another brilliant man of the era. It was in a hotel room with just four or five of us. We identified issues in the supply chain, manufacturing, etc. But the real issue was the consumer perception that the heft was gone. How could we overcome that perception? The answer was plastic packaging with cardboard patterns, and a crisis turned into an advantage, which is what leaders typically do. What did you find in terms of the blind spots of leaders? Is there something we can prepare for as leaders?
Ramesh Srinivasan: The biggest blind spot we discovered in the journey of these leaders is that people often don’t bring the truth forward. There’s a scarcity of truth-telling. Also, many leaders feel quite lonely despite leading large organisations. We have discussed the story of a media company CEO who came from a finance background. He was a very successful CFO before becoming CEO. Initially, he was always focussed on numbers and holding people accountable for performance. With that mindset, people didn’t tell him what was really going on with customers. So, he set up a network across the institution, travelled extensively, and changed his own personality because he realised that his style, personality, and presence were hindering truth-telling. He still held people accountable for performance, but he led with much more understanding. This shift allowed him to understand the business better and cultivate a culture of truth-telling within the organization.
This ties back to some of the micro practices we recommend. One practice I particularly like is that a leader must be the last one to speak in a team meeting when solving a problem. If the leader starts by giving their answer first, it will immediately shut down dialogue and problem-solving within the team. The leader must come in with a spirit of listening.
Atul Vohra: The flaw of not taking truth to power, I believe, represents a lack of character. That’s one of the things that V Narayanan stood for. At Pond’s, our company slogan was ‘a culture of character and competence.’
Ramesh Srinivasan: I agree with you. We have just published an article titled “Creating a Leadership Factory in the 21st Century,” where we learned a lot from the US Navy SEALs and other institutions, not just in the business world. In our book, we have featured Admiral Eric Olson, who spent 40 years with the US Navy. The Indian armed forces are also great leadership factories for inculcating leadership skills and character. Eric was the operational commander of the Osama bin Laden operation. He wasn’t on the ground, but he was in DC with the President. When one of the helicopters went down due to a miscalculation of the compound wall, he had to make a recommendation within a couple of minutes. This decision came down to all his training, judgment, understanding of his team, and his ability to listen to the voices on the ground.
Atul Vohra: At McKinsey, you do a great job of binding the alumni together. We are very proud of our Pond’s alumni. Any advice for us—the Pond’s alumni?
Ramesh Srinivasan: At McKinsey, it goes back to the sense of purpose, and I think that is what binds them. At McKinsey, we strive to make a positive difference in the world. We emphasise a learning orientation, giving feedback to each other, and helping each other grow. We create environments where people can learn and develop. Pond’s has done very well with a spirit of innovation, deep listening to consumers and employees, and fostering a sense of belonging and camaraderie. That’s the best way to keep the community strong and grow it over time. Perhaps you could expand to form a Unilever or Hindustan Lever community, which might allow you to achieve critical mass.
Q&A
Q: Leaders often struggle to balance short-term business performance with long-term cultural and organizational values. What frameworks or principles do you recommend to achieve this balance?
Ramesh Srinivasan: At McKinsey, through our 25 years of research, we believe that organisational health drives performance. We use “health” instead of “culture” because culture can be a loaded term. Our definition of health includes alignment on vision, direction, values, execution, accountability, coordination, capabilities, and the ability to continuously innovate and respond to changes. Leadership is at the core of all this.
Investing in health is the biggest predictor of long-term performance. Senior leaders focus disproportionately on health, believing it drives performance. While near-term performance metrics are essential, leaders must also spend time on the “balcony”—stepping back to ask critical questions and identify health metrics to drive sustainable performance. There is no magic formula, but effective leaders can switch between focussing on immediate performance and long-term health, fostering dialogue and addressing both simultaneously.
Q: Having worked on organisational transformation across industries, what are the biggest leadership challenges in managing change, and how can leaders overcome them?
Ramesh Srinivasan: Leaders today face challenges such as evolving geopolitics, technological disruptions, climate change, remote work, the expectations of Gen Z, and demographic shifts. At an individual level, managing energy—physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual—is crucial to overcoming change fatigue and fostering innovation.
Institutionally, driving change involves embedding a culture of continuous improvement. Frank De Souza from Cognizant emphasizes the use of rituals, legends, and storytelling to anchor change. Leaders must learn to convey change through simple, effective stories that inspire and engage their teams. By listening to customers and making them happy, growth and success will follow.
My advice to leaders is to start from within by sustaining their energy and using rituals, legends, and stories to drive change at the institutional level.
