Abstract

Infosys Limited, a global technology Services Company, was headquartered in Bangalore, India. The founders of the company wanted to create an organization that had been ‘built to last’, and had the agility to manage ambiguity and uncertainty under all circumstances. From the dawn of the new millennium, the company had emphasized on developing leaders. The company had established the world’s largest leadership development institute at Mysore. At Infosys, the Leadership model was framed as a seven pillar model. The model emphasized the types of leadership qualities the leaders had to possess to become an effective leader. The model was intended to groom leaders to gain knowledge on various situations and also to enhance their decision making skills. The company developed a three-tier pyramid for developing leaders at all levels of employees at Infosys and also established a robust process for identifying and including talents into different leadership tiers. The Infosys Leadership institute designed a “Nine pillar model” to inculcate leadership based on the organization’s requirements and the employee’s area of interest. The case discusses the various leadership development initiatives at Infosys and also narrates how the company found itself in a leadership crisis in 2007 which further led to the company strengthening its leadership development initiatives. In early 2012, the company found itself with a new management team that had taken over from its more illustrious founders. Many senior leaders of Infosys were expected to retire in a period of ten years from 2011. In addition to reassuring their customers and investors who feared that the Infosys’s new leadership might not be able to manage the future uncertain situations, the company had to quickly develop a pool of leaders. This case is meant for MBA/MS-level students as part of their Strategic Human Resource Management/ Training and Development course.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• To understand the importance of developing leaders in the organizations.
• To discuss how the Infosys Leadership development model grooms future leaders to improve decision making skills and to manage critical situations.
• To discuss the leadership crisis at Infosys.
• To discuss the challenges for the new management team at Infosys and how these can be overcome.

Keywords

Leadership Development, Leadership Crisis, Infosys Leadership Institute (ILI), Succession Planning, Change/ Adversity Leadership, Strategic Leadership, Operational Leadership, Talent Leadership, Leadership competencies , Mentoring, Coaching, Seven Pillar Leadership model, Nine Pillar Leadership Development Process, Leadership Skills Training, Feedback Intensive Programs, System Process Learning, Inventive Reasoning, Bio-Inspiration, Infosys