Organisational Leadership

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is an Indian company headquartered in Mumbai, India. It is a conglomerate holding industry which engages many businesses across India. It includes telecommunications, petrochemicals, textiles, natural gas and retail products.  According to Fortune Global 500, RIL ranked at 114 in the world’s biggest companies list in 2014. In India, RIL is the largest private sector company. Their motto is “Growth of life “which signifies the ever evolving spirit of the company and aim is to touch people’s life in a positive way.

Dhirubhai Ambani was the founder of the RIL in 1966. He became a middle class person to a millionaire with his extraordinary organizational leadership qualities. He started Reliance textile industry in the beginning of his career and eventually started many other industries with his business tactics.  It was under Ambani leadership, the company emerged as largest business corporation in India. According to Ambani (1968), Dreams have to be bigger. Ambitions should be higher. Commitment to be deeper. And efforts should be greater. This was his dream for Reliance and for India. He always believed that customers should be provided with best quality products at lowest cost. He also believed that open mindedness to new ideas and information is important to assimilate more and become solution oriented and be successful in life. This legacy of leadership is followed by his son Mukesh Ambani who is the current chairman of the company.

The unique characteristic of  RIL leaders is investing in their people, which is their main competitive advantage. Organizations and leaders take a long term, internally focused view.  They strive for employee engagement and openness and make investments for employee development. Moreover, leaders of the RIL prioritize their 4 important key responsibilities as main input for business strategy, maintaining organizational culture, be a role model and guide to employees and at last shareholders interest. The executives focusing on employees and culture of the organization help them to develop human capital. Interest in employees and human capital clearly indicates that leaders are setting strategy as their top priority on their list. RIL executives mainly spend their time on setting strategy, while majority of other competitors focuses on external demands such as regulatory concerns, investors and shareholders. According to the Capelli (2010), more than  61% of leaders are envisioning and articulating a path to the future; strategic thinking; guiding change.