Leading GCCs with Marine Mentality

Did you know that in the U.S. Marines, a leader's promotion depends on their ability to groom new leaders to take their place? Marines intensely mentor others, viewing leadership as a debt they must pay forward to the next generation.

Like the Marines, investing in future leaders is an ethos that heads of Indian Global Capability Centers (GCCs) need to make their own. In our last newsletter, we talked about how GCC leaders must focus on the long game of nurturing their next-in-line leaders. But now they must do it in a systematic way. GCC leadership roles today are global – this may mean managing APAC/EMEA/LATAM regions or being responsible for a function across the globe – like a global CTO or CIO or GBS head. In fact, our analysis shows that the number of global leadership roles in India GCCs has grown more than 40-fold since 2013, from 115 to more than 5,000. This is despite the complexity of managing multi-lingual, multi-cultural, and multi-structural teams across the globe.

A recent article in the Times of India featured how India is fast becoming the epicenter of global leadership. Commenting on this, Pari Natarajan, CEO, Zinnov, said, “This transformation is due to the maturing capabilities of India’s centers of excellence and how technology has enabled deeper data-driven customer insights.”

To have continuous success – organizations can’t rely on inherent skills alone – it has to be a combination of instinct and training, just like the Marines. How can companies train GCC leaders to take on global roles? In this edition, we will shed light on this and point to how organizations can nurture Intrapreneurial Leadership and make it a part of their culture.

Setting the Flywheel in Motion

Many of you have read about the ‘PayPal Mafia,’ those founders of PayPal who went on to create multiple hugely successful start-ups like LinkedIn, Tesla, and YouTube. India’s GCC ecosystem has seen a similar phenomenon. Over the last decade, multiple GCC leaders have come out of the Dell EMC India, Bosch India, BMC Software India, and PayPal India stables, to name a few.

It has taken years for Indian GCCs to move from a cost-arbitrage play to a skill-arbitrage play. But now that India has so many highly skilled GCC managers, the country has gained another advantage: a leadership arbitrage. Only a few other countries can boast of having as many highly experienced GCC leaders.

For India to sustain its leadership arbitrage, GCC heads must double down on paying it forward – nurturing talent not just for their company but the Indian GCC ecosystem.

We won’t explain this step by step; instead, we’ll point to a few highlights.  The playbook is for building intrapreneurial leaders.

Everyone knows what entrepreneurial leadership means. The PayPal Mafia – which includes Peter Thiel (Palantir), Reed Hoffman (LinkedIn), and Elon Musk (you know what he founded) -- exemplify this to the max. They start new companies. In contrast, intrapreneurial leaders know how to reinvent from within the long-established cultures, business models, processes, and systems of businesses that have been around for decades, sometimes centuries. This can often be more difficult than starting from scratch. How can GCCs develop intrapreneurial leaders?

From our experience, GCCs must have an adaptive culture, one that embraces rather than rejects change. It necessitates building robust skills in business acumen, communication, global collaboration, and other domains.  But the most vital element of developing highly effective global GCC leaders is something else. It’s the continuous assessment and recalibration of new skills to develop. You can’t always predict tomorrow’s skill needs today. For example, no one talked about “prompt engineering” before November 2022, when the first commercially available Generative AI tool (ChatGPT) emerged. Many more skills we can’t see today will be vital tomorrow.

For instance, Unilever's Future Leaders Programme provides global team projects and international placements with senior leader mentorship. Participants are regularly assessed on their strategic thinking, innovation, and cross-cultural skills. Those who need help are assigned coaches and put through training. 

One-size development programs don't fit all

Developing intrapreneurial leaders is complex yet rewarding. Drawing on the Marine mentality, leadership demands:

• Adaptability and Resilience – handling unexpected challenges and pivoting strategies when necessary.

• Discipline and Consistency – maintaining discipline in their approach, decision-making, and strategy implementation is vital for setting a good example for the team.

• Mission-focused – always keeping the end goal in sight and ensuring that every action taken is in service of that goal.

• Courage – making tough decisions under pressure.

• Physical and Mental Stamina – maintaining physical health and mental sharpness, for better performance and endurance in their roles.

Just like the Marines, these qualities might not be inherent in every leader. They have to be built or developed. That’s why building a leadership program requires an explicit playbook.

However, each organization has a unique culture, challenges, and aspirations. As a result, customizing your leadership development program is key.

 Having developed more than 100 GCC leaders and organizations, we have specialized expertise in developing custom leadership programs.

To learn more, speak to our experts today at info@zinnov.com

Also, download our comprehensive report on India - A Sandbox for Global Leadership