On September 6th, 2019, along with many enthusiasts, Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi went inside Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’ s Bengaluru campus to witness the great moments of soft-landing of its’ second lunar expedition Chandrayaan-2. But when things did not go well as per the planned scripts, PM Modi emerged as an iconic leader at that difficult hour.
After a 47-day journey during which Chandrayaan-2 travelled lakhs of miles and carried the hopes of 135 crore people, when it’s Vikram lander lost contact with ISRO at a distance of barely 2.1 kilo meters from Moon’s surface, the mood inside ISRO looked tense and completely down. This was when, PM Modi who went to congratulate the scientists stood up to the situation and exhibited perfect art of leadership required for that situation by encouraging great scientists around him by saying “These are moments to be courageous and courageous we will be. Ups and downs are part of life… India is proud of you” he told the scientists at ISRO. “You all have done a big service to the nation, science and mankind. I am with you always”. He further added. “We will rise to the occasion and reach even newer heights of success. To our scientists I want to say- India is with you. You are exceptional professionals who have made an incredible contribution to national progress”.
The act of PM Modi is heart touching and perfect example of phenomenal leadership and a great management lesson to the mankind. He hugged ISRO’s chief K Sivan when K Sivan broke down in-front of him. Look at the below video, where words are not sufficient to describe the depth of the exemplary persons performing their roles exactly on dot required for the need of the hour. K Sivan’s "breaking down in-front of PM Modi" explains the decade’s dedicated efforts of great Indian scientists and their sleepless nights to make this mission successful. Where as PM Modi’s "consoling K Sivan" explains how India enshrines its children's hard work and the commitment to achieve the extremely difficult goals (as you know, Chandrayaan-2 was an Indian lunar mission that was targeted boldly to go where no country had ever gone before — the Moon's south polar region).
The act of PM Modi is heart touching and perfect example of phenomenal leadership and a great management lesson to the mankind. He hugged ISRO’s chief K Sivan when K Sivan broke down in-front of him. Look at the below video, where words are not sufficient to describe the depth of the exemplary persons performing their roles exactly on dot required for the need of the hour. K Sivan’s "breaking down in-front of PM Modi" explains the decade’s dedicated efforts of great Indian scientists and their sleepless nights to make this mission successful. Where as PM Modi’s "consoling K Sivan" explains how India enshrines its children's hard work and the commitment to achieve the extremely difficult goals (as you know, Chandrayaan-2 was an Indian lunar mission that was targeted boldly to go where no country had ever gone before — the Moon's south polar region).
This reminds me a true story of my own team way back in 1998 where our company’s vice president Mr. Jayaraman took our product team to Mumbai by air to demonstrate our newly launched product to a government agency for whom we developed the new product. On the last hour, when everything that was supposed to work properly failed utterly bad, and our Vice President Mr Jayaraman said to the government executives “Friends! Our boys need more time to demonstrate the product. We need another 3 weeks to demonstrate the product. We will come back”. Then, he turned to our team and said “Pack up boys!. Let us catch our flight to Chennai back”. He was in cheering mode and our team mates were feeling guilt that we could not stand up to our beloved Vice President’s honor of the hour. During our plight of the flight, our vice president did not utter any single word about the disappointment and our team mates resolve to make the product successful tripled. Once we were back in Chennai, our team became self-organized and put up 16 hours of work each day with out being reminded by anybody. Within a week’s time, we went back with our Vice President to Mumbai and gave a brilliant demonstration of the product with more features. Such was the exemplary understanding shown by our leader Mr Jayaraman.
On similar lines, team ISRO will comeback with greater power when we witnessed such exemplary leadership from our prime minister Narendra Modi. This disappointment is only stepping stone for doing spectacular things. I can tell you this for sure. On this context, I want to say “PM Modi went inside ISRO campus to witness the great mission’s last steps. He came out of the campus as an iconic hero”. India needs such great leaders to channelize every team's emotion, commotion and logic towards highest standards and targets”.
Conclusion: At good times, everybody greets the team and appreciates them. At the difficult hour, it matters how truly leaders empathize and support their team’s effort with true heart. The depth of truthfulness will be reciprocated by the team for sure… always….When leader understands the team, the team will make impossible as just possible in every dimension. Sky is the limit for such team.
On similar lines, team ISRO will comeback with greater power when we witnessed such exemplary leadership from our prime minister Narendra Modi. This disappointment is only stepping stone for doing spectacular things. I can tell you this for sure. On this context, I want to say “PM Modi went inside ISRO campus to witness the great mission’s last steps. He came out of the campus as an iconic hero”. India needs such great leaders to channelize every team's emotion, commotion and logic towards highest standards and targets”.
Conclusion: At good times, everybody greets the team and appreciates them. At the difficult hour, it matters how truly leaders empathize and support their team’s effort with true heart. The depth of truthfulness will be reciprocated by the team for sure… always….When leader understands the team, the team will make impossible as just possible in every dimension. Sky is the limit for such team.