When Seeds of Integrity are Sown in Youth
-A visit to a Mumbai School

Why does an industrialist fly hundreds of kilometers and spend a few hours with students?  Let’s read on to find out the impact on simple first generation learners (14/15 year old) who are celebrating their academic year 2013-14 as the year of Leadership.

Sarosh Ghandy made a one-day visit to Kamla School in Mumbai on December 14, 2013 and spoke to two groups of students and a group of teachers in separate sessions on Ethical Leadership. Below are a few stirring comments that were given as feedback by the students.

Annu Singh:  I learnt that a good leader should have the quality of responsibility. If you are not responsible you can’t lead the team.

Bhaskar Bhoumik:  I learnt that a leader has the humility to learn from others and try new things. He is not afraid of failure because he knows that he can learn from his errors.

Samina Rai:  I learnt the attributes of leadership – vision, passion, integrity and credibility.

Nasreen Halden:  I learnt that there has been tremendous growth in the last 300 years – Technology in Industry, Transportation, Digitalization, Medical Science, etc. I also learnt that diseases which were unknown 100 years ago are our greatest killers today.

Jhanvi Khanna: It was a very inspiring, motivating and helpful session. I learnt about the environment I live in and the meaning of leadership and how to manage it. Leadership is about giving not taking.

Karishma Pal: I learnt that a leader must have the quality of generosity and continue with quiet time all his life.

Aswani Sarang: Leadership has two attributes – vision and passion. Vision means a clear idea of the goal to be achieved. One has to have the passion to achieve it.

Bhagyashree Saroj:  I learnt that leadership is all about motivating and influencing people.

Building Future Leaders

Folker Mittag, former International Controller, Varta Group of Companies, Germany, and Member of the Working Group of CIB, addressed 97 students (who earlier attended the Effective Living and Leadership [ELL] Program at Panchgani) of Symbiosis Institute of International Business (SIIB) at their Hinjewadi Campus at Pune on Nov. 18, 2013 on the subject, “International Controlling in Business is based on Ethics and a Permanent Need of Individual Change”. Dr. Pranav Mukherji, Director of SIIB, while introducing Mr. Mittag to the students mentioned that he had personally learnt from Mr. Mittag in the course of his two interactions with him.

After Mr. Mittag’s inputs, he answered a number of questions from the students including:

• There is no difference in handling ethics in developing countries and developed ones.
• One needs to be flexible on locations and ready to work hard (60 to 80 hours a week) to climb up the ladder.
• The personal vision of business at your place of work has to include your wife as well as your friends around you.
• Theoretical knowledge is only one important part of education. The real learning starts when you have to apply it in practice.

After the one and a half hour session, Dr. Mukherji requested to have more such sessions on ethics in business for the students, to further reinforce the foundation built during the ELL program.