A key lesson from Jamsetji to the leader of the future: Develop four Qs

To achieve all that he did in his lifetime, besides IQ and EQ, the Tata group founder must have been rich in adaptability and spirituality quotients too

While researching for the book Jamsetji Tata: Powerful Learnings for Corporate Success, I wondered what kind of intelligence and self-awareness Jamsetji had developed to achieve all that he did in his lifetime, indeed even beyond. His intelligence quotient (IQ) may be assumed to have been strong — anyway, the originator of IQ testing, Alfred Binet, was born only after Jamsetji died in 1904.
 

IQ ruled the roost for decades until EQ (emotional quotient) was born in 1990. I assume Jamsetji possessed lots of EQ. Why else would he have unilaterally provided creche facilities for kids of employees, the provident fund, regulated working hours, and a clean township for his workers as early as the 1880s? Or set up the nation’s first endowment fund in 1892 for the education of Indian scholars in foreign universities? I found it reasonable to assume that both IQ and EQ were quite adequate in Jamsetji.
 

This must be true, no doubt, for his successful contemporaries as well. I wrestled with the remaining question of what his differentiation was. My hypothesis is that he was rich in AQ (adaptability quotient) and SQ (spirituality quotient) as well. What are these two new-sounding Qs?

 

Adaptability quotient
 

I found it important to review leaders other than Jamsetji rather than rely only on my predilections. AQ-endowed leaders are open-minded, proactive, communicative, and, above all, humble. It is instructive to refer to a public and well-acknowledged leader with clear and superior AQ like Abraham Lincoln. Biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin exposes the high AQ of Lincoln in her Team of Rivals by observing that Lincoln did not just recruit his rivals into his team, but chose the very best from among his rivals. So did Jawaharlal Nehru by recruiting B R Ambedkar and Syama Prasad Mookerjee into the first Cabinet of independent India. Can you imagine such high AQ among modern leaders, who seem to expend their energies talking down their rivals incessantly?
 

What do adaptive leaders do? They resolve recurring problems bottom-up through systemic change rather than implementing solutions designed and driven by top people. Such an approach harnesses the creativity of the whole organisation. Think about Jacinda Ardern, former New Zealand Prime Minister, and her adaptive response in 2019 to the right-wing attacks on two mosques at Christchurch. Reflect on Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft, who assumed the role of “cultural architect” to enable his company to embrace the future. Recall how Indian leaders transformed our nation from a ship-to-mouth food economy to a foodgrain surplus economy through the 1960s and 1970s.

 

Spirituality quotient
 

Spirituality quotient is recent. It was propounded by academics Zohar and Marshall only in 2000. SQ enables greater context to issues, thus facilitating a more meaningful life. SQ is an intelligence that helps to solve problems with meaning and values. I quote two examples of which I have personal experience.
 

The first goes back to 1989-90, when employees of Hindustan Lever’s Doom Dooma (Assam) tea plantation were stranded, and, in fact, faced death threats from the ongoing militancy in the state. Doing what is right to do, but quite uncommonly, Hindustan Lever sought the help of the Army and Air Force to covertly airlift all threatened employees and their families— without the knowledge of the complicit state administration, which was suspected to be complicit. It was a daring display of moral fibre.
 

The other display of SQ that I saw first hand was when the terror attack took place at the Taj Mahal Hotel in 2008. Some days after the devastation, the HR head of the hotel took Ratan Tata around the hospital where the injured employees were being treated. The HR head explained the many actions that the company had undertaken. “Are our actions satisfactory, Sir?” he expectantly asked Mr Tata towards the end. “I am not here to see whether your actions are satisfactory, dear friend, I am asking myself what else the company can do for these wonderful employees.”
 

One of the many powerful lessons from Jamsetji, and relevant for the future leader, is to develop and display all four Qs — IQ plus EQ plus AQ plus SQ. For the future leader, they are like the four tyres of leadership. It is a tall order, but essential. This requires that the future leader be not just thinking, feeling, and sensing, but also should be seeking meaning (SQ).

The writer’s latest book, JAMSETJI TATA: Powerful Learnings for Corporate Success, co-authored with Harish Bhat, was

 published last month. rgopal@themindworks.me