Speaking about leadership and success in an interview, Chairman and CEO of Softlogic Holdings Ashok Pathirage offered a mesage to entrepreneurs too. “Work hard; nothing is going to happen overnight. It’s only if you work hard, focus and be intelligent and humble that you can be successful, but it’s not an easy role.”
These words are a reflection of who Pathirage is as a business leader, but most of all, a human being and how he has brought Softlogic to where it stands today.
Excerpts from the interview :
Q: There is a saying, “To be successful, hire people smarter than you.” Do you agree?
We are always on the lookout for good people, especially in our business as we are in the services industry. We need to have the best people. We have always hired the best that is available in market. I don’t know if they are better than us, but whatever, it’s not a measurement that matters. It’s delivery that counts! It depends on different areas, so we try to get the best who possess unique expertise in their field because that is critical in today’s world. Success is very much dependent on the people. If you don’t understand this and if you don’t hire the right people and if you don’t look after them or motivate them, and keep them with you, that’s not good for the business. All actions are interconnected on a larger scale too.
Q: Leadership is probably the single biggest difference between winning and losing in a competitive environment. What do you think about this?
Leadership plays a very big role, in any organization, in any government. It’s one of the key factors. If you don’t have a leader, who drives and motivates to achieve the company’s objectives, it’s very difficult for any organization or entity to be successful. Leaders are also learning every day. Leaders aren’t born with everything. They also acquire all this knowledge over a period of time. It is important that a leader knows his work and demonstrates good practices. This is critical, especially when you are trying to hold a very large organization together with completely diversified business interests. In some sense, an autocratic leadership is necessary for unifying these different companies with the sole purpose of raising the bar and succeeding as a group.
Q: Leaders have followers. This is the norm. Do you think that sometimes leaders have to be followers?
I think that is very critical and this is why I said, we also learn and we also make mistakes. We also need to understand and we need to be self-critical and try to learn from mistakes and also understand the new practices that are evolving in the world. If there’s something to be learnt from someone, you have to be humble enough to learn and adapt accordingly. This is what leadership is all about.
