What Nestlé’s Crisis Management Teaches You About Leadership

You are not always at the forefront managing things on your own or calling the shots in a B-School. There are different minds at work when you are working on a project or solving a case. “If you are part of a club, you work with a team and you learn from the minds associated with it. You absorb them and evolve,” quips Anish Malladi, a first-year IIM Bangalore management student. Similarly, feeling the pulse of the organization and understanding the people in the overall chain during a crisis is a vital aspect while solving it. Mr. Narayanan followed this path by further empowering the more experienced people in the organization to serve as contact points with the local ecosystem. “Our people were constantly in touch with local food regulators through training programs and site visits. I was thereby sending a message that I have nothing to hide,” said Narayanan further in the article.

How under the able leadership of Mr. Suresh Narayanan, Maggi made a comeback remains amongst the most successful turnaround stories of India Inc. And the role of the leader just doesn’t end with a crisis. A true leader is also someone who sees what lies ahead. Just when the Maggi crisis was getting subdued, Narayanan decided to further extend the product line of Nestle in India. With over 42 new products in less than two years, Nestle aggressively renewed its focus on volume growth across categories under his able leadership.

Again, “As a leader, you not only have to manage the resources given but genuinely inspire and motivate people to do better.” says Niranjan Jha, an IIM Calcutta management student. And this was no better evident than recently when working under the aegis of a leader like Mr. Narayanan, the team at Nestlé communicated more swiftly, confidently and transparently the right message in light of the  Honorable Supreme Court’s orders in relation to interim orders passed by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC). Read more on this here.

As is evident through the narrative by Mr, Narayanan in the Forbes article, leadership is essentially about seeing the bigger picture and having unwavering faith in people who make up your ecosystem. And whether or not B-Schools can teach leadership continues to remain a topic of discussion, but leadership experiences such as those of Mr. Narayanan would continue to lend a wealth of learning to all budding leaders of tomorrow.