Pakistan, despite its abundant resources and talent, lacked good governance and transparent leadership, capable of extricating the country out of crisis, speakers agreed at a seminar here on Tuesday. The seminar, titled 'Global and Pakistani Perspectives on Leadership', was organised by Karachi School of Business Leadership (KSBL) here at its campus.
The country, speakers argued, had been crippled by an acute energy crisis because of an absence of a visionary leadership. Although the country had corporate leadership, but it needed good governance at government level to steer the country out of the prevailing economic crisis, they maintained.
The seminar was attended by a number of students, heads of corporate entities and people of different spheres of life.
In his key note address, Professor of Management of the Duabia-based Zayed University Dr Milan Pagon highlighted the impact of neuroscience on leadership, saying that human beings were using just 10 percent of their brain power. He said that people aged between 17 and 70 years could develop their brains. ; However, he said that people above 30 years of age usually stopped developing their brains, and such a process was called neuroplasticity.
Giving his recommendations for good corporate leadership, he said that integrating emotions in decision-making and provide challenging work to employees, besides initiating behaviour changes, were pivotal tactics to make an organisation successful.
In his presentation on the 'Leadership Role in Driving Organisational Excellence', Saad Amanullah Khan, the CEO of Gillette Pakistan, highlighted strategies to make a business successful. He said that organisational excellence was the colour of business planning, adding that values were very important for a successful organisation.
"When you start a company, define the settled values," he advised entrepreneurs. He said that positive thinking was another tool for the success of any organisation. "Everybody has to be approachable from top to bottom at the organisation," he asserted.
Saad said that leaders should think 'out-of-the-box' solutions and adopt creativity for achieving goals, adding that a 'can-do attitude', passion to be the best, breaking down barriers, and walking out of comfort zones were amongst key tools to help an organisation succeed.
At the panel discussion, Zafar Iqbal Subhani of Hubco, Asif Juma of ICI Pakistan, Saad Amanullah Khan of Gillette Pakistan dicussed Pakistani perspectives on leadership.
Dr Imran Ali, Professor of Business Policy at KSBL acted as the moderator.
Asif Juma said that a leader had to have a clear vision with a transparent and approachable personality. He said that good leaders should create enabling environments for achieving desired outcomes.
Zafar Iqbal Subhani said that because of the lack of leadership and poor governance, Pakistan was facing severe energy crisis.
Saad Amanullah Khan said Pakistan had abundant resources, but economically, it was facing deterioration. Dr Shaukat A Brah , the Dean of KSBL, also attended the seminar.