Ajim Premji Born: July 24, 1945 (age 63 July 24, 1945 (age 63Mumbai, IndiaMumbai, India Residence:

Bangalore, India Net worth:$14.8 billion$14.8 billion Spouse's: Yasmeen Premji Yasmeen Premji Azim H. Premji was born to M.H. Hasham Premji. His grandfather was the rice king of Burma. His father had declined an invitation from M.A.Jinnah to go toPakistan. Premji attended St. Mary's School I.C.S.E. in Mazagaon, Mumbai. He was just finishing his undergraduate engineering studies at Stanford University in 1966 when his father passed away Premji started off with a simple vision: to build an organization on a foundation of values. He eventually received permission to take correspondence art courses to complete the requirements for his bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering. Vision; Significantly contribute to achieve quality universaleducation that facilitates a just, equitable andhumane society. Under his leadership, the fledgling US$ 2 millionhydrogenated cooking fat company has grown to aUS$1.76 billion IT Services organization servingcustomers across the globe. Wipro started off as a small company manufacturing hydrogenated cooking fats and consumer products. It is now one of India's top IT companies and a world-class player at the global level. There is one man who is almost single-handedly responsible for making this miraculous transition from soaps to software happen: Mr Azim Premji. If there's one mantra for success given by Mr Premji's, it's: keep striving for excellence. And he has been very true to his own belief. A recipient of numerous awards, including the coveted Padma Bhushan award, his leadership style is lauded by entrepreneurs not just in India, but across the world.

On Teamwork
Unless you build a strong network of people with complementary skills, you will be restricted by your own limitations. It's the ability to become an integral part of a cross-cultural team which is an important ingredient in the recipe for success. This is because we are confronted with harsh challenges in this world and it is very difficult to face them alone.

On a Social Vision
For decades we have been waiting for someone who will help us in 'priming the pump' of the economy.The government was the logical choice for doing it, but it was strapped for resources. Other countries were willing to give us loans and aids but there was a limit to this. In the millennium of the mind, knowledge-based industries like Information Technology are in a unique position to earn wealth from outside. While earning is important, we must have mechanisms by which we use it for the larger good of our society. As we climb the ladders of success, we must not forget what owe to the society.

On Perseverance
No matter what you do in life, you cannot do without having that indomitable grit and an ability to withstand hardships. Keep at it and you will succeed, no matter how hopeless it seems at times. You must be true to the values you believe in and stick to them in good and bad times. Perseverance can make miracles happen.

On Dealing with Stress

The stress that a young person faces today while beginning his or her career is the same as the last generation faced at the time of retirement. These are times when our jobs have become more complex even though some new technology is being rolled out almost every day. It's only natural to get stressed under such circumstances. You must develop your own mechanism for dealing with stress. Some tackle it by going for a daily jog, some find relief in listening to good music and so on and so forth. The important thing to do is to develop your own stress-busting mechanism. You will need lots of energy to deal with the challenges. Unless you take care of yourself there is no way you can take care of others.

On Excellence

There is a tremendous difference between being good and being excellent in whatever you do. In the present-day scenario, going good is not enough. Globalisation has ushered in new standards of quality. In fact, excellence is a like a goalpost in motion. One has to raise the bar constantly. So if you reach a milestone, you can't just sit down and relax. It's all about continuing to strive for more.
http://www.mensxp.com/work-life/corporate-skills/5733-leadership-lessons-from-azim-premji.html Wipros stock trades on the NYSE, and in the last year, the stock dropped from hovering in the neighborhood of $16 per share to trading closer to $13 per share. The drop in share price caused a sizeable decrease in Premjis personal wealthabout four billion dollars. But thats not what motivates him, says Sheth, who compares Premji to Warren Buffet, founder of conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, noted philanthropist, and, as of early 2008, the worlds richest man. Known for being unpretentious, Buffet lives in Omaha, Nebraska in a house he bought in 1958. Leadership is about shaping expectations of all the stakeholderscustomers, employees, investors, suppliers, the community, adds Sheth. Management is about delivery and executing those expectations. They are different skill sets. Great leaders like Premji, says Sheth, do both well. Striving for excellence is also a Premji standard, and he realizes that he, and leaders like him, set the tone for their organizations. During his lecture at Goizueta, he touched on several things he believes Wipro can improve upon and talked about the steps being taken to make such improvements. Excellence is not an act, its a habit, he states. In a global economy, Wipro not only competes with similar companies in India, but across the globe. Premjis goal is for Wipro to be the best at what it doesperiod. To aid in this accomplishment, Wipro leadership must be globalized. This requires a huge adjustment, notes Premji. With 80,000 employees15,000 of them located outside of Indialeadership needs to be culturally sensitive. Working in teams is also an integral part of how Wipro does business, and an employees ability to be a contributing member of a cross-cultural team has become increasingly important to the companys success. Premji is a champion of education, and he sees the shortage of science and technology talent in the U.S. as a huge problem. Western education is not doing enough [to get students] into science and engineering, he says. This year, India, with a population of 1.13 billion people, will graduate approximately 500,000 engineersor one engineer for every 2600 citizens of India. With a population of 303 million, the U.S. will turn out 75,000 engineersone for every

4040 of its citizens. The company employs approximately 8000 people in the U.S. and recently opened its first American software development center in Atlanta, GA. Within the next year, Wipro plans to hire 200 employees for its Atlanta office. That number is estimated to jump to 500 in the next three years as Wipro recruits IT graduates from local schools, trains them, and puts them to work. Your business will have a base wherever it can find the best value of talent and cost, explains Premji, who is also building capacity in China and the Philippines. Our biggest challenge is scaling and maintaining uniformity of culture. The uniformity of customer experience has to be the same. It has to be consistent. One of Premjis greatest talents, observes Sheth, is his ability to recognize talent. Hes just like a good coach. Good coaches can get more potential out of an athlete than the athlete realizes, Sheth says. The coaching model of leadership is important. Its essentially a tough love message. You invest in talent to get more out of someone. This has proven true of Premji. According to Sheth, more than six-dozen former Wipro employees have launched successful businesses around the world. Not surprisingly, Premji believes self-confidence is a necessary part of good leadership. That confidence allows leaders to take risks and learn from them, including lessons gleaned from the occasional failure that accompanies risk taking. Premji recently told a group of graduates in Chennai India, Selfconfident people assume responsibility for their mistakes and share credit with their team members. Remember, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. A lean 62-year-old, Premji is big on regular exercise. You need tenacity and energy to be in a leadership position, he says. One of India's leading providers of system integration and outsourcing services, Wipro also manufactures a variety of consumer products, including hand soap. Operating in nearly three-dozen countries, the companys Wipro Technologies division offers software development and business process outsourcing (BPO) services, management consulting and product engineering. http://www.jagsheth.net/opinion_wipro_azim.html According to Ajim Premji there are 10 steps to leadership which goes as below:First, leaders must develop powerful personal credibility . This means they should not only beconsistent in what they say and do -but must deliver on their commitments. The leader has togenerate a collective enthusiasm for the team, and the team must

have faith in the leader beforethey commit to his or her dream. All research shows today that personal credibility-is the mostimportant ingredient of leadership.Second, great leaders tell people clearly what they expect from them, whether it be in terms of performance or values . The more that is expected from people, the more they tend to deliver. Low xpectations can lead to low ambition and hence low performance. Winning leaders aredemanding leaders. They demand discipline, accountability and continuous increase in performance and productivity.Third, great leaders are great teachers and coaches . Expectations alone are not enough. Neither are rewards and punishments. People need guidance on the path they need to follow. This doesnot mean that the leader should spoon-feed his people. It only means that the leader must havethe capacity to look ahead and give the right amount of guidance at the right time. At Wipro, weencourage our top management to address our high potential managers. I personally invest half-a-dayof my time in every leadership development program in Wipro.Fourth, successful leaders need to have energy and be able to energise others . Leadership demandsextraordinary physical, mental and, some would say, spiritual energy to remain on top of thedemands made on them. I have found that my own job has become amazingly complex in the lastfew years. There is no longer any debate on whether a person should work smart or hard.Leaders must work both hard and smart, long and intensely. In a recent survey at the WorldEconomic Forum, ninety-nine per cent of the leaders attributed their success to hard work.Fifth, leaders do not always have to be in the limelight. One has to realize that leadership isnot privilege but a responsibility. Think of birds flying in a formation. At different times,different birds l ead the formation. The leader must know where to lead and where to step back.I remember this story which someone told meSixth, winning leaders face reality. They do nut dither. Leadership is about making tough yes-no decisions. Winning leaders are willing to decide with imperfect data, if needed, becauseleadership is about making judgements that others, are either unwilling or unable to make.Seventh, leaders keep renewing themselves

. They constantly learn from their ownexperiences and those of others. They constantly learn from their own experiences and thoseof others. They create knowledge capturing and sharing processes and methods in theorganization.Eighth, leaders surround themselves with people who err on the side of optimism . If people arealways in the company of cynics, they will soon find themselves becoming like them. A cynic http://www.scribd.com/doc/24306163/Leadership-Style-Wipro