MGT5PLS Report: Anand Mahindra's Leadership Approach Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Anand Mahindra's leadership, focusing on his transformational and situational leadership styles within the Mahindra Group. It examines his personal profile, leadership behaviors, and their effectiveness in driving the company's success, particularly in expanding sales and navigating project lifecycles. The report highlights Mahindra's approach to risk-taking, stakeholder engagement, and strategic decision-making, illustrated through case studies of the Mahindra Sedan and Scorpio projects. It assesses the impact of his leadership on various stages of project lifecycles, from introduction to decline, and concludes with an evaluation of his overall success in leading the company through a customer-centric model and adapting to the changing global business environment.

MANAGEMENT

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Executive Summary
In today’s business environment the success of the company is highly dependent on the way
leaders thinks and acts. Leaders like Anand Mahindra who had received a company from his
family took large numbers of initiatives so as to make their business a success. This report
analyses the personal profile of Anand Mahindra and his success journey till now. This report
also does an analysis on the type of leadership showed by him. It is found that he is a
transformational and situation based leaders that do take a step back in taking riskier
decisions. His leadership behaviour has helped the company to expand their sales outside
India when there is already a large amount of companies present in the market. The report
also throws light on the way he leads his organisation through whole project lifecycle which
can be illustrated in the case of both Sedan which was a failure and Scorpio which is a
success.

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Contents
Bibliography..........................................................................................................................................2
Leadership style.....................................................................................................................................2
Effectiveness of leadership behaviour...................................................................................................2
Impact of his behaviour on the project throughout its lifecycle.............................................................3
CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES......................................................................................................................................5

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Bibliography
Anand Mahindra is a chairman of Mahindra Group who was born on 1 May 1955. Anand’s
net worth is expected to be around $1.55 billion (Thomas White, 2012). He was an alumnus
of Harvard business school and Harvard University. He is known for his social activities like
opening a non-government firm in Nanhi Kali which supports education for girls that are
underprivileged in India. Fortune magazine has included him in the World’s 50 greatest
leaders and Forbes India has given him the ‘Entrepreneur of the year’ in the year 2013.
Anand became a board member of U.S.-India Business Council. In 2011, Anand was invited
to join the International Advisory council of Singapore’s economic development board.
Leadership style
The leadership style of Anand Mahindra is understood to have transformational leadership
style especially he is understood be a leaders that takes all the stakeholders with them. He is
understood to be as the leader that takes decisions beyond the safe jones as he has taken many
risky decisions which failed but still made the company to earn lot of profits (Sharmelly &
Ray, 2016). His leadership style is known to be of a leader that aims at becoming the best by
concentrating on the future need of the company. He is known for taking everyone with him
so as to make the decision making process more stakeholder friendly. He has also taken tough
decisions especially when it is related to expanding their business into new regions of the
world that too in the time of global economic slowdown (Ramaswamy & Chopra, 2014). He
is also known to follow situational leadership style as the decisions made by him are highly
based on the situation that company is facing. Anand Mahindra also focuses on working with
blue ocean strategy so as to create space for them instead of replacing them.
Effectiveness of leadership behaviour
His leadership behaviour is understood to be one of the best in terms of taking everyone in
confidence while making decisions. This has helped them in making decision without much
internal restrictions and the support from the shareholders have also been high. This has made
the decisions effective and for much larger use (Smiejczak, 2011). He always defines clear
vision for the organisation and has communicated it through different platforms so that any
kind of confusions does not pertain inside the organisation. It has created effectiveness as this

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leadership behaviour has helped him in taking riskier decisions as well since all the
stakeholders support him. It is his leadership behaviour that he has been able to expand his
company in many countries. It has made them one of the most profitable automobile
manufacturers in the Asian region. It is his leadership behaviour that he understood the
requirement of introducing advanced technological resources for expanding in new markets.
This can only be done with the help of improving the automobiles as per the requirement of
the international market. It is his leadership approach that he has been successfully funding
the improvement procedures.
He has been making partnerships with different companies so as to improve its business
model (Jayakumar & Vasanthi, 2009). He himself has taken great interest in the designing
and building new model for its existing products that are successful. Due to this they have
been able to improve the strength of the company in the utility market. It was his convincing
power that the company came into the SUV business when in Indian market the SUV was not
very successful. But due to his approach company was able to make Mahindra as one of the
most successful company in the industry. It was his passion that SUV market in India
becomes so successful that now it has become a case study in the Harvard Business School
(Kale, Singh & Raman, 2009). His strong decisions helped him in acquiring Korean
manufacturer Ssang Yong Motor. His vision towards making company more customers
centric has helped company in successful implementation of total quality management within
the organisation.
It is his leadership behaviour that Mahindra till now has not faced any severe business issues.
This has also helped in gaining control over the market which is necessary for its future
plans. After he became the leader of the company, Mahindra has gained control of the SUV
market and has become a bigger brand name in the industry (Kale, 2009). His strategies are
the reflection of his leadership behaviour which has made it a success in the changing global
business environment. He has given freedom for the sharing of ideas and he continuously
interacts with all its stakeholders so as to make it a success. At the same time he ensures that
continuous improvement is made in the organisation so that company not loses control over
its traditional business and at the same time adds new business in its profile.

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Impact of his behaviour on the project throughout its lifecycle
Anand has given freedom to its employees so as to think in new direction but at the same
time ensured that control of the company remains in its own hand only. Anand is able to
reduce the shortcomings in company by applying modern theories of business. In all the areas
of business company is able to improve their capabilities. His far-sighted vision for the
company has played a critical role in making of the strategies for the long term. It is the idea
of competing with global firms that it has been able to make bigger players their allies.
Leadership has a very critical role in the development and achievement of its projects
(Dastidar, 2011). The first stage of any project is introduction where they are doing research
and his idea of transforming its business into customer centric business has helped the
company in creating projects that benefits them into the market. He himself has taken
initiatives towards improving the design of the product that would help in improving its
value. They have taken the idea of business to next level where they have added new
stakeholders from different parts of the world that helps them in terms of resources. He with
his leadership skills has been able to remove the barriers in the introduction process (Clifford,
2015).
In the growth phase he has been working as a team member where they are able to add new
markets in their portfolio. He has fastened the growth of the company by making new
strategies and improving the products as per the requirement of the firm. In third stage i.e.
maturity his skills of finding new market places and improving the prices has helped them in
not losing the control in the market. For this he emphasises on the design of the products.
This is very illustrated from its products like farm products. In the last stage that is decline
stage he has been able to make sure that there is no severe loss to the company
(Govindarajan, 2016). He is master in making transformations that helps them in either
leaving the product that is not making profits or re launching them with some kinds of
customer centric innovations so that its attractiveness in the markets. This can be very easily
seen in the case of Scorpio which is one of the most successful products of Mahindra in
today’s time. On the other hand his unsuccessful product such as Sedan has been able to gain
larger market controls.
CONCLUSION
From the above based report it can be concluded that Anand Mahindra is very much
successful as a leader as he has taken his family business to another levels. He has been using

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his creative ideas as a skill to improve their products that can help them in gaining success.
He is known for using transformational and situation based leadership skills. He is
concentrated towards transforming its business having customer centric model. His
convincing power helped him in convincing the company’s stakeholders to get ready for the
SUV business which in initial phase was considered to be its biggest success. His leadership
behaviour has had impact on the project lifecycle. This can be understood by the fact that
from introduction to decline phase, he improves the strategies so as to bring products that is
able to become bigger success in the market.

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REFERENCES
Clifford, M. L. (2015). The greening of Asia: The business case for solving Asia's
environmental emergency. Columbia University Press.
Dastidar, S. G. (2011). Mahindra and Mahindra's Acquisition of Ssangyong Motor
Company. Vidwat, 4(2), 31.
Govindarajan, V. (2016). Adaptive leadership 101. Leader to Leader, 2016(81), 42-46.
Jayakumar, V., & Vasanthi, V. (2009). Mahindra & Mahindra (B): An Emerging Global
Giant?. IUP Journal of Entrepreneurship Development, 6(3/4), 79.
Kale, P. (2009). The global Indian firm: Growth & value creation through overseas
acquisitions. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 41-53.
Kale, P., Singh, H., & Raman, A. P. (2009). Don’t integrate your acquisitions, partner with
them. Harvard business review, 87(12), 109-115.
Ramaswamy, V., & Chopra, N. (2014). Building a culture of co-creation at
Mahindra. Strategy & Leadership, 42(2), 12-18.
Sharmelly, R., & Ray, P. K. (2016). Organizational capabilities for mass market innovations
in the emerging economies: insights from an automobile firm in India. Journal of
Comparative International Management, 18(1).
Smiejczak, H. (2011). Mahindra & Mahindra's capability building process.
Thomas White, 2012. Emerging Leaders. Retrieved from:
https://www.thomaswhite.com/global-perspectives/anand-mahindra-chairman-and-
managing-director-mahindra-mahindra/