Asia's Most Trusted Leader 2021 - Sanjay Chadda, Stanadyne India

In conversation with Sanjay Chadda, Managing Director, Stanadyne India

What makes a strong leader? What are your key leadership strengths are make the strongest attributes of success.

A strong leader should improve upon the overall productivity of an organization by creating a positive work environment for all his employees. Attitude of the leader is important & he should stay positive to carryout everyday tasks. A leader should be an inspiration to others & should be confident in his decisions on day to day operations.

Good leadership qualities involve being able to motivate and encourage your employees to work efficiently and go beyond what they are expected to do. When it comes down to it, a good leader will have a net positive impact in the workplace as a whole.

A leader should have a clear vision and should work for an achievement. Communication plays a vital role for a leader to fulfill his accomplishments. Profit is the primary goal of achievement but a leader should blend that with performance of his organization to fulfill his goals. How we extract this from the employees is the skill of a strong leader.

Good leadership starts by listening to others. This also gives opportunity to his employees to share their ideas by expressing their feedback & concerns. Leaders need to be humble to get their plan executed in the organization. Strong leaders have a firm grasp on reality and aren't easily swayed by criticism. This acceptance allows them to bring a greater sense of objectivity to their work. Good leader must put their egos aside & should strive to their goals determined for their organization.

My strength as a leader of Stanadyne India was more concerned with team building & better communication in the organization. Not only I was successful in building a strong team to carryout plant operations I personally feel that it makes a lot of difference for all leaders. A leader will have to get things done through his employees. This is the primary requirement for a leader to be successful. At Stanadyne we have a strong work force that run the day to day operations. Identifying the team to perform & carry out these operations is the skill of a leader which I feel I am successful.

Communication though simple to say is more important for a leader. A strong communication is a basic requirement for a leader to execute his ideas. Decisions taken even on day to day operations to the extent of investments related to business require communication skill to express the views. I should say that the command with which I operate my team has made the organization successful in achieving increased profits & also fetching new businesses. Morale of team plays a vital role in successful operation of an organization. Stanadyne has a system of Weekly & Monthly Review Meeting with Operations team to address the bottlenecks. Resolving the bottlenecks of the team is by itself building the morale of the team. Rest of it comes next. In this aspect I had been successful over the years in providing the solutions to key issues concerning with the plant operations & also new business.

Stanadyne has produced results in increasing profits every year . Whether it be the goals of the organization or the individual team member’s growth in the organization I should say that I had been successful in striking a balance. This I will always be proud of & would cherish my moments of success with Stanadyne.

Sanjay Chadda, Managing Director, Stanadyne India

An accomplishment that you consider to be the most significant in your career? What challenges did you face to reach to the success.

My significant accomplishments as a leader at Stanadyne are many since my joining as Managing Director of the organization. One accomplishment which I will remember all throughout my career is the increased demand from existing customers during the COVID 19 second wave. Operational Challenges during the past 2 yrs of pandemic were more difficult to handle. Lockdown - 2 for the 2nd wave of COVID19 was critical for Stanadyne since the business is dependent more on exports. The World recovered & started increasing the demand for products. Situation in India was severe & very difficult to manage. O2 cylinders required for the process were also critical. Considering the timeline of 11 projects in pipeline & the demand for existing products from the customer which need to be adhered, a cross functional team was organized by the OPERATIONS with other supporting functions to consider all the issues case by case on a 4M based analysis & the actions along with contingencies were listed. Daily Review Meetings through Microsoft Teams include 15 minutes of discussion to discuss the bottlenecks that may arise from the planned activities. All possible ideas from the members were taken to fulfill the customer requirements. Stanadyne saw an increased demand in sales during the 2nd wave & the company was able to fulfill the demands of all the customers during this period. The company made a record sales during the critical situation & the excellent team work of Stanadyne was exhibited during this period.

What is a role of leader in these challenging times. List 5 in order of priority.