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Executive Interviews: Interview with John P Kotter on Leadership
October 2006
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By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary
John P Kotter Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus at Harvard Business School. 
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If you have to make a list of top 10
business leaders in the last century, who
would they be?
If we are talking about a CEO of an
established and sizeable firm, the
best business leader in the last
quarter of the 20th century in the
world by far is Jack Welch. There are
others that have done a very good job,
but Welch has done a terrific job. He
is number one by some distance. If
you talk about business leaders who
were entrepreneurs, who started
with nothing and then grew
organizations, I might pick Herb
Kelleher at Southwest airlines. Mr.
Kelleher is about as good as you get in
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terms of an entrepreneur who is not
only a good businessman but also a
good business leader. If you move
back earlier in the 20th century, one
great business leader was a man of
whom I wrote a biography. He started
his business around 1917 and was
associated with it until he died in
the late 1980s. He was Konosuje
Matsushita. This is the man whose
firm has products sold under labels
like National, Panasonic, JVC,
Technics, Quasar. In terms of being
both an entrepreneurial leader and a
leader of a significant size business,
he was astonishing. He was
astonishing not just as a Japanese
businessperson but a corporate
leader anywhere. I can say that with
some confidence, because I spent a
good deal of time digging into his
story, talking to people who know
him well, and reading his writings. Still others—from about 1917-
1918 until about 1960, Thomas
Watson who provided extraordinary
leadership at IBM. He was given, by
financial backers, three small
companies. He merged them,
changed the name of the firm to
International Business Machines,
and built an incredible business.
Another great entrepreneurial
leader in the last quarter of the last
century was Sam Walton. If you
watch videotapes of him talking to
people and stories about him from
people who knew him well, you
find he had an outstanding capacity
to create visions, communicate
them, and inspire his people. -
What's your view on Indian corporate
leaders?
I haven't studied Indian corporate or
business leaders explicitly. I
certainly have seen a string of them
come through our executive
programs at Harvard in the last 10 or
20 years. I also have met some who
are senior people in international
businesses centered in the US. But I
don't feel like I have quite enough
information to comment here. My
sense is that there certainly is much
potential in the country. I think the
potential for creating a great
economy and great businesses is
huge. I think this may require much
more entrepreneurship, a lot more
entrepreneurial leaders who can
turn a business of four employees
into one with 400 or 4000. I think
this may require taking more stateowned
businesses and making them
private. I think it is going to take a
while and much more attention
towards leadership in educational
programs and in companies
nurturing talent. I think this will
require a greater appreciation
among more people of the
importance of leadership. But I see
no cultural reason why India cannot
produce many great leaders.
1.
Leadership and Entrepreneurship Case Studies
2. ICMR
Case Collection
3.
Case Study Volumes
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The Interview was conducted by Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary, Consulting Editor, Effective
Executive and Dean, IBSCDC, Hyderabad. This Interview was originally published in Effective Executive, IUP, October
2006. Copyright © October 2006, IBSCDC
No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced or distributed, stored in a retrieval
system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or medium – electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without the permission of IBSCDC. |
