By Malini Bhupta
Paresh Sukthankar, former deputy managing director of HDFC Bank, once famously said that had Lehman Brothers been Lehman Sisters, the global financial crisis wouldn’t have happened. Sukhtankar’s theory may have taken a few hard knocks, with at least two high profile women — Chanda Kochhar of ICICI Bank and Chitra Ramkrishna of NSE — in the dock over how they used the institutions they headed for their personal enrichment.
Though nothing has been conclusively proved as yet, serious charges on personal integrity have been pressed against them by regulators, investigative agencies and other stakeholders. This has expectedly led to murmurs in corner rooms and board rooms about whether Kochhar and Ramkrishna have made it difficult for India Inc to break the glass ceiling and see more women at the top.
There are only a few who are willing to go on record on such a sensitive issue, but the consensus seems to be that while greed is not gender-specific, women’s ability to navigate sticky situations will be under the scanner due to the outsized influence of a husband or a companion or even a godman.
A senior human resource executive said men are better at navigating difficult situations. There was a time when several women helmed banks and financial institutions because they were considered to be incorruptible. Unfortunately some of them have come under scrutiny and are not seen as role models anymore for younger women.
K Sudarshan, managing director at EMA Partners India, disagrees. “Boards will continue to look at individuals and not gender. For any leader it is important to navigate the environment and handle power and not succumb to pressure. How decisions are taken depend on a lot of factors — how you reach the top, your track record and how you are perceived both by internal and external stakeholders, etc. It is a fact that women always start from a position of disadvantage and they make it big by fighting heavy odds.”
Some women leaders believe that these developments will be used by people who want to discredit women. According to R.M. Vishakha, CEO and managing director of IndiaFirst Life Insurance, the storm some women CEOs have found themselves in will further feed into the bias against women. “People who want to put women down will use this. I believe people should be judged as professionals because leadership is not a gender-based trait. Women are good at conflict management.”
Vishakha said society nurtures aggressive men, but the same trait is discouraged in women. Several top executives that FE spoke to cited Indra Nooyi’s autobiography where she shares her experiences and the hurdles she faced as a woman.
Shriram Subramanian, founder and managing director of InGovern, said, “It is a complete bogey that women in leadership positions will be viewed differently. Greed is a human nature and it has nothing to do with gender. I don’t think women will be denied opportunities.”