The idea of an invincible leader is a grave mistake: Suresh Narayanan

“I need you in India, Suresh, the MAGGI crisis is getting serious, and Nestlé needs you to support the team there!”

These words from Wan Ling Martello, then director-in-charge of Asia, Oceania and Africa at Nestlé, came as a thunderbolt for Suresh Narayanan, former Chairman and Managing Director of Nestlé India Ltd. Barely four months into his tenure as Chairman of Nestlé Philippines, he was being called back to India to confront what would become one of the most defining crises of his corporate career.

“Life has a unique way of throwing us curveballs when we least expect it. These moments can shake us to our very core, testing our resilience and adaptability,” Narayanan writes in the chapter Managing Yourself in his book Courage Under Fire.

More than a decade later, that experience offers a window into his philosophy of leadership. Having navigated the Maggi crisis and political upheaval during the Arab Spring in Egypt, Narayanan believes corporate India has spent too long celebrating seemingly invincible leaders while overlooking the vulnerability, loneliness and uncertainty that accompany positions of power.

He is equally critical of a corporate culture where long working hours are mistaken for productivity, empathy is celebrated but rarely practised, and employees can be dismissed over Slack or email without basic dignity. For Narayanan, people must remain at the centre of leadership, even when performance pressures are relentless.

In a candid conversation with exchange4media, Narayanan reflects on the mistakes he would revisit, the role of trust in rebuilding brands, the limits of a leader's control and why compassion and high performance can coexist. And, on a lighter note, he also reveals why pahadon wali Maggi tastes so much better.

Excerpts from the conversation:

Your book challenges the conventional image of a leader as someone  infallible and always in control. Looking back at four decades of leadership, do you believe corporate India has spent too much time celebrating successful CEOs and too little time examining how they behave when things go wrong?

If you look at our history, if you look at our mythology, if you look at our texts, they always eulogize and they always make supermen out of people who were mortals, who did their jobs well and who did their work with a lot of commitment and drive.

So, we are used to eulogizing supermen, eulogizing people and admiring people with supernatural capabilities. I mean, that is the way we have been brought up and nurtured, and to look up to a powerful, big figure is always considered to be an important part of our cultural upbringing. 

Just as you look up to God, there is a figure out there, we personify him or her, and then we look up to them as a pillar of strength for us. I think corporate India has followed a similar pattern, culturally in consonance with the rest of the country and societal norms. Therefore, we always eulogize and exemplify leaders who have achieved and who continue to achieve, irrespective of the circumstances.

And I think we are making a grave mistake because we are getting into a world now where uncertainty, volatility and BANI (brittle, anxious, non-linear, incomprehensible), as they call it, are going to be the rule of the hour. In such a changing world, where technology, climate change, inequality, unemployment and geopolitics are coming together in a toxic mix to throw up challenges, I think it is only the foolhardy who will look at themselves as being invincible.

So, a leader must exemplify, of course, competence, compassion and courage, but they should also look at their own vulnerabilities and look at these not as weaknesses but as possible strengths that they can leverage in times of difficulty. Vulnerability does not mean you are weak; it just means that in life, there are a few things that are beyond your control.

So, I would agree with you that we look at only the brighter side of leadership, we look at the more achieving side of leadership, we look at the glitzier part of leadership, we look at the charismatic side of leadership. We don't look at those hollow moments, we don't look at that emptiness sometimes that we feel, the loneliness that we feel and the sheer helplessness that we feel, which actually, if verbalized, can give us strength rather than enhance our weakness.

The MAGGI crisis was as much a battle over public trust as it was a regulatory and business challenge. When the consumer has already formed a judgment, how does a leader distinguish between defending the company's position and genuinely listening to what has gone wrong? Can the instinct to protect a brand sometimes become its biggest liability?

I would liken the accusations made against an honest individual to those made against a company. While the scale is very different, the crisis of confidence and the crisis of trust remain similar.

When a person who is honest, law-abiding and works to the best of their abilities and conviction is accused of malfeasance or wrongdoing, what do they do? They act in consonance with their conscience, their values and their purpose. That's how they react. In a similar manner, a corporate entity, and Nestlé in this particular case, acted according to its conscience and its DNA.

Every company has a DNA, just as every individual has a DNA, and the DNA in the case of Nestlé is food quality and safety. That's what we swear by in our products at all times, in all places, in all countries. And when that is challenged, you muster up the facts: the fact that you have done no wrong, that there is an error in the testing mechanisms. But you address it politely, resolutely and firmly so that nobody gets offended, while the facts are put on the table.

So you act with transparency. Trust is an invaluable asset that works in difficult times. In good times, trust is taken for granted. In bad times, trust becomes a great weapon in the hands of companies to leverage.

So if you are a trustworthy company, there will still be a benefit of the doubt given to a trustworthy company and a credible leader, rather than attacking them with all ferocity at that point in time. 

So that is what Nestlé did.

We acted in consonance with our purpose and our values. Our values are of respect: respecting ourselves, respecting each other, respecting diversity and respecting the future. We acted in consonance with our food quality and safety norms and the conviction that we would never be found on the wrong side of the law or on the wrong side of the consumer.

We reiterated this fact over a period of time, calmly, in a composed manner, but with full professionalism and an enormous amount of conviction.

Your experience in Egypt during the Arab Spring presents a very different kind of crisis, where circumstances were largely beyond corporate control. Did that experience fundamentally change your understanding of what a CEO can actually control? And is knowing when not to intervene an underestimated leadership skill?

In my long experience of more than four decades in the corporate world, I have realized that there are three arcs or three circles of influence.

The core circle is what you can control, or things which are under your ambit, under your power and within your capabilities, conviction and professionalism. There is a middle circle which is a little bit of a mix. Some parts of it can be controlled, some cannot, and you have to identify which are the ones that are not controllable.

And then there is an outer ring which is completely beyond your control, which has got to do with politics, weather and various other acts of God that you have no control over.

I think a wise human being, with their mental and psychological antennas out, is able to make an assessment of what is uncontrollable in a situation and what can be controlled. So I always say, and I say this in my book as well, act on what can be controlled by you and what can be influenced by you.

But do not try and meddle in things that are beyond your ken and beyond your competencies. And I think sometimes leaders confuse the power they possess with the power that is needed to do a particular task. They fall flat, get frustrated and angry, and that leads to more problems.

So sometimes silence is a statement, sometimes silence is the word.

And I think leaders who adopt that kind of philosophy do not lose the moment, and yet do not lose their conscience because they have been able to do whatever is within their control.

When we fall sick or face a dilemma in our lives, we put our hands together in prayer and look up to a God that we believe in. What is that surrender? It is saying, "I don't know what is to be done. You help me.”

It's the same in a corporate situation. Sometimes there are situations which are beyond your control, so you put your hands together in prayer and say, "I hope this situation subsides, but I will do my best to protect my people, to protect my organization, to protect the purpose and values of the organization and to protect its culture.”

These are the things that you can protect and that you will try to protect.

A recurring argument in Courage Under Fire is that leadership must remain fundamentally human. But companies today operate under relentless pressure to deliver quarterly results, improve productivity and protect margins. Have we reached a point where empathy is celebrated in leadership literature but quietly penalised in corporate boardrooms?

Look, I know this statement in this paragraph was written with my genuine conviction that working long hours doesn't necessarily mean working effectively or efficiently. Because the human body does tend to switch off after a point in time, and relentless hard work is only going to damage your other interests in life, your relationships and your health.

So, at least as my own philosophy, I have believed in working hard and working harder when I should. During the crisis, I worked very long hours, but that was inevitable because of the nature of the problem. Otherwise, I have never missed a dance competition of my daughter, a sports meet or a parent-teacher meeting. Because this is part of life, and I have always believed in a healthy work-life balance and a healthy work-life relationship.

Ultimately, productivity increases when the mind and the heart are both in consonance, when you feel energized by your brain and satiated by your heart, knowing that you are doing the right things, that you feel valued and that you are doing things that matter.

So yes, in some sense, that's why I think the world we are getting into, and in fact, the whole purpose of my writing this book, is that we are entering an increasingly fractured world. A world where performance matters at all costs, where principles of empathy and compassion do not matter anymore, and where it is just a question of efficiently churning out whatever you are expected to. And if you don't, then you are ejected from the organization on Slack or email, without even a modicum of decency and respect being given to you.

That is something which hurts me. And I feel that I have had the privilege of experiencing something different. Therefore, the incidents that I quote in Courage Under Fire are all examples of companies which have worked with a lot of character, commitment, courage and compassion. They have been people-centred, and yet, despite all of this, they have still been high-performance companies.

So people-centricity, compassion, empathy, purpose, values, behaviours, trust, credibility and outcomes are perfectly compatible with a high-performance organization.

That's the simple logic that I have given to youngsters. Give it a shot and see how it works for you.

Because today, increasingly, we are reaching a place where, 

In my time, mental wellness was never a point of contention. 

Today, mental wellness is problem number one and that problem is increasingly arising because of work-related stress. And who is going to reduce work-related stress? It is going to be leaders.

Leaders cannot put up their hands helplessly and say, "But the market is demanding this and I am going to do this." The market will continue to demand performance of you, but that does not mean that you subject your people to inhuman hours of work, that you do not give them the necessary space they need, that you create a toxic workspace or that you make acrimony the centre of your leadership style.

So yes, I think empathy has been used a lot as a word. It has been eulogized in the dictionary but unfortunately, less of it has been put into practice.

When you revisit the financial crisis, MAGGI, COVID and other defining moments with the benefit of hindsight, is there a decision you were absolutely convinced about at the time but would approach differently today? What did that experience teach you about the difference between conviction and stubbornness?

Look, I think one of the things that I am happy to be stubborn about is the people-centred approach that I took in each of the crises. You know, there are three aspects to a crisis: there is the crisis itself, there is the environment and there are the people.

Broadly speaking, these are the three entities, and you can sub-classify them into nuances. But most leaders would like to address the core of the crisis as the number one challenge they face, the number one issue that needs to be resolved, or address the environment through communication, arbitration or negotiation in the best way they can.

And sometimes people are left to the last, even though they are the ones who will be delivering on the resurrection or revival of the company. For me, they will always remain number one. The first issues to be addressed are the people-related issues.

So I will remain stubborn on that, and that is the fundamental thesis of my book.

In terms of approach, yes, for example, in the Maggi crisis, initially we took it more as a transactional problem. We said we have the data, and the issue was between us and the regulator, later realizing that the mind had already been made up that we were guilty.

So then it meant that a wider arc of influence had to be opened up with the media. That was a little later than it should have been.

So, like this, there are different decisions in a crisis that I might have revisited, but the core philosophy of people-centricity over addressing the environment and over core crisis management is something I would still retain as the stubbornness that I bring to the table.

When you took charge during the MAGGI crisis, brands still had some control over the narrative through traditional media. Today, a controversy can become a national conversation within minutes, often before a company establishes the facts. Do you think the modern CEO is losing control of corporate reputation? And should brands now invest more in building trust than in building visibility?

The essentials of marketing and the overall premise of marketing may not explicitly mention the word trust, but the outcome of trust is crucial to the history, geography and mathematics of a brand.

Trust is the centrepiece on which a brand stands, just as it is for a human being. Therefore, any amount of glamorization of the marketing process by addressing all issues other than trust is going to be infructuous, for the simple reason that consumers buy a brand because they trust it.

Why did consumers come back to Maggi? Because they trusted the brand, because they loved the brand, because they had savoured the brand and because they had an emotional connection with it. That's how they came back to the brand.

So trust, in whatever form it is manifested, whether in communication, innovation, at the point of sale or in terms of digital connectivity with consumers, is going to be the centrepiece.

For any marketer to say, "I will look at visibility without trust," is a very fatal statement. Because visibility for what? Why should somebody notice you?

If you advertise yourself saying, "I am this and I am that" but your actions are exactly contrary, then why would somebody want to engage with you?

Therefore, trust is at the centre of every person, every relationship and every entity, and that is something a marketer can never forget at any point in time.

One of the most compelling ideas in your book is that leadership is defined by behaviour rather than position. Having spent much of your career at the helm of large businesses, when the financial results, market-share gains and corporate titles are taken away, what would you want people who worked with you, particularly during difficult times, to remember about Suresh Narayanan?

Look, I am without the trappings of corporatedom now. So I'm sitting quietly in my study in Bangalore and talking to you. You know, the train has left the station. This part of the journey is almost complete, and a new journey has started.

I think there was a line that I once read, attributed to Larry Bossidy, the former Chairman and CEO of Honeywell, which said that you will never be remembered for the profits you made or the revenue you generated. You will only be remembered by how you made the other person feel.

And that is really the essence of leadership. Long after you have left this table, if people are still talking about you in fond terms, in respectful terms, in affectionate terms, I think that is far more valuable than having led a corporation that quadrupled its market capitalization or showed double-digit growth or double-digit profit growth.

All of this happened during my time as the Chairman of Nestlé, but for me, the essence of my leadership is the fact that somebody still picks up the phone and talks to me in a friendly, affectionate tone and says, "Sir, can I get your advice on this?" Or, "There is a bit of good news in the family. Can I share it with you?"

These are the moments, I think, that matter. Leadership is about flesh-and-blood moments. Leadership is not about emails or pieces of paper exchanging hands. It's about vibrations from the heart going from one person to another. That is what really matters, and for me, that is the essence of leadership.

Having distilled decades of experience and lessons into Courage Under Fire, has the process of writing opened up a new chapter for you personally? Are there other stories, experiences or aspects of leadership that you feel deserve a book of their own? 

You know, one of the things I've realised is that it's far easier to sell a brand or a company than to market your own brand. So, Courage Under Fire is taking all my courage and making me do things that I've never done before.

For now, I will invest in whatever modest success Courage Under Fire brings me. Later on, if I do feel the need to write another book, I will. I have the time, I have the inclination, but as of now, I think the sweat of my brow is being fully stretched with one book at hand.

One last question on behalf of my friends, colleagues and probably the rest of the country. There is one mystery that has remained unsolved for years. Now that you are no longer with Nestlé, perhaps you can finally let us in on the secret: Why does 'pahadon wali Maggi ‘always taste so much better?

I think the Maggi noodles that you get on the plains are exactly the same as those you get in the hills. I think two things make a difference. One is the water that is used to prepare the Maggi, and secondly, the ambience.

You know, on a cold, frosty morning, having a warm bowl of Maggi is probably next to being in heaven. And that's a feeling that cannot be duplicated at 40 degrees in Delhi, sitting, sweating and eating Maggi.

The taste could become different because of your state of mind as well. And that's probably the reason why pahadon wali Maggi is doing as well as it has always done in the past. It is not something that has been noticed only of late. I'm very happy for the brand and for the company for that.