Malik said that a leader is effective when he knows what he wants and makes it clear. He said that he had decided then that the army must be prepared to launch forces across the border. This was counter to government’s instruction to not cross the Line of Control

NEW DELHI: Leadership is knowledge, attitude, character, taking on challenges and a result of hard work, former Army Chief General V P Malik said, while explaining how leadership played a key role during the 1999 Kargil War between India and Pakistan.

Malik while explaining that there are three types of leadership— junior, middle and senior— said that it is necessary to train leaders at all levels. He was speaking at the ET Global Business Summit- 2020.

Malik explained whether war or business, people are the core concern. “It is the man or woman behind the gun, which makes most of the good human capital,” he said.

He added that he has five takes on leadership. He said that leadership is 30 percent knowledge, while the rest is attitude and how you deal with people and make them do what is on your mind. “The next one is your character, a sum of good and bad, which forms a component of trust. If people don’t have trust, they won’t follow you,” he said.

Malik also said that a leader takes challenges, adding that he doesn’t believe leaders are born. “They are a result of hard work, self belief and opportunities they get,” he said.

His remarks on leadership comes at a time of what he calls a VUCA- Volatility, Unpredictability, Complexity and Ambiguity.

While speaking on the Kargil war, Malik said that a leader is effective when he knows what he wants and makes it clear. He said that he had decided then that the army must be prepared to launch forces across the border. This was counter to government’s instruction to not cross the Line of Control.

“Prime Minister Vajpayee in public had said that the armed forces will not cross the border. I later asked him to not say that. He asked me why. I explained that if we cannot vacate the intruders, we will have to cross the border. Later, the then NSA had said in an interview that not crossing the border holds good today, we don’t know about tomorrow,” he said.

“I had prepared the army to cross the border in six days' notice. Our strategy was to show that we are capable of crossing the border anywhere,” he said.

He adds that as a senior officer one should not interfere with junior leaders, but it is important to motivate people. “Leadership training has to happen at all levels. We start only at the Vice President level, but have to train at all levels,” he said.