Illustration: Uday Deb

HR professionals contend that every employee should have a role model. “It helps you to acquire a mooring in life,” says Mumbai-based consultant Shashi Rao. But she admits quite frankly that people very often go after the wrong role model.

The best thing would be to have a role model within the organisation. That’s the reason some companies have a mentoring system.

In a good company, there is always someone to look up to or learn from. It could be the CEO or someone lower down the line. And it could be more than one person. Even the pushing-60 executive, who dropped out of the rat race some time ago, has something to teach. Perhaps it’s humility or a smiling acceptance that one has peaked.

The trouble with most people, however, is that they prefer their icons from outside their immediate sphere. Look at the polls conducted on Most Admired Businessmen or Business Icons. You will end up with the familiar suspects time after time.

Yet it is a matter of debate whether these are the people you should be trying to emulate. Most of these lists have a preponderance of scions of rich families. Some of them have not really performed on their own. The conclusion to be drawn is that they are role models because they are rich and powerful, not because of their own qualities.

Besides, people in high places always come with warts. Is it okay to hero worship, say, members of a family who have been throwing mud at each other over their share of the inheritance? Would you think highly of your neighbours if they had indulged in the same bout of acrimony?

Role models have unfortunately been reduced to a gambit for selling newspapers and magazines. “Career theory proposes the importance of role models as helping to guide individual development,” says Donald E. Gibson of the Charles F. Dolan School of Business. “The media often depicts role models as essential to career success. However, research on role models as a construct distinct from developmental relationships with mentors and behavioural models has waned.”

The concept of the role model has also been diminished by applying the term to not particularly appropriate subjects. The Beatles could be role models for wannabe musicians. But to claim that they are business role models, as UK health secretary Alan Johnson has done, is pushing things a bit.

And why does Johnson feel that way? Here is his perception: “If the Beatles had carried on producing albums like Please Please Me, they’d have ended up with a dwindling catalogue, dwindling sales and a dwindling audience. But, by drawing from global influences (like the sitar, Californian harmonies and gospel) on the one hand and scientific advances (like multi-tracking, back loops and flanging) on the other, they made every album sound fresh and new. We need to recreate the spirit of Abbey Road in British industry.”

Still in the UK, who is the top role model for UK Asians? According to a British Library survey, it’s Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin group. Karan Bilimoria, who has gone places with Cobra Beer, is in second place. The creator of the world’s largest steel empire — L.N. Mittal — barely makes it to the top list at no. 10.

“The concept of the role model is being destroyed,” says Rao. “Even the mentoring system is taking a knocking. You seek a role model when you want to become a role model yourself. Today, unfortunately, all that executives want is power and riches. Remember that Kenneth Lay of Enron fame was once a role model for much of corporate America. To some he still is.”

front-runners

The Most Admired Business Leaders

N.R. Narayana Murthy, Infosys
Ratan Tata, Tata Group
The Ambani family, Reliance
Vijay Mallya, UB Group
Kumar Mangalam Birla, Aditya Birla Group
Kishore Biyani, Future Group
Subroto Bagchi, Mindtree
K.V. Kamath, ICICI Bank
G.R. Gopinath, Air Deccan
Nandan Nilekani, Infosys

Source: Brand-Comm survey of B-school students