Tag: defence services

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17: LEADERSHIP SERIES: TALK

Leadership Lessons From A Fighter Pilot

Friday, 16-10-2020, 05:00 pm IST (Duration 1 hour)

SPEAKER: Air Marshal Anil Khosla (Retd), PVSM, AVSM, VM

Former Vice Chief of Indian Air Force

 

The event went off very well.

Covered talk under three parts as follows:

Fighter Pilot Traits

“Fighter pilot is an attitude. It is cockiness. It is aggressiveness. It is self-confidence. It is a streak of rebelliousness, and it is competitiveness. But there’s something else – there’s a spark. There’s a desire to be good. To do well; in the eyes of your peers, and in your own mind.”

– Robin Olds, Fighter Pilot

    • It is not all glamour.
    • It involves lot of hard work – to become one and to continue performing as one.
    • It involves lot of Studies.
    • It is not as risky as it seems – safer than Indian roads.
    • It requires high level of physical and mental fitness.
    • Self discipline is an essential trait.
    • Qualities required are:-
      • Physical and moral courage.- 
      • Integrity & Loyalty
      • Reliability & Dependability
      • Passion
      • Dedication

 

Leadership Aspects

 

Everyone who has someone looking up to him or her is a leader. Some practical leadership aspects highlighted were as follows:

    • Lead by example, Follow adage : “Do as I Do rather than Do as I say”.
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    • Leader has to be honest, fair and transparent in his/her dealings.
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    • Change in style of leadership required in this information age. From TELL type to SELL type.
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    • As a leader delegation of tasks to subordinates is important. Task is delegated not the responsibility. Post delegation give space to work, rather than constantly overlooking their shoulders. Upward delegation should be avoided.
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    • Inculcate feeling of ownership amongst colleagues and subordinates for better involvement.
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    • Open communication lines are essential. They should not be linear and long.

 

Good Working Environment and Culture

 

Following aspects were stressed:

    • Team work and team building is important.
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    • Encourage initiative and involvement and habit of going beyond routine.
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    • Adopt proactive approach for planning and execution.
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    • Efficient feed back and monitoring system is a must.
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    • Encourage research, brainstorming, out of box thinking and innovative approach.
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    • Encourage healthy discussions. Difference of opinion should not be construed as dissent.
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    • Training, grooming and mentoring are  important for the organization.
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    • Promote safety culture.

 

Interactive Session

 

Interactive session was quite long  (extending almost to one hour). Questions and discussions were about following:

    • How to balance between delegation and ownership.
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    • China situation and solutions.
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    • Balakot strike experience.
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    • Decision making process.
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    • Quality of manpower and shortages.
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    • Compulsory military service.
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    • Procurement procedure and corruption.
    • Sharing of experiences related to 
      • Scary experiences.
      • Difficult decisions.
      • Most exhilarating events.
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    • Women in Defense services (Air Force)

Video Recording  Due to technical glitch entire session could not be recorded. Some portion of the Q& A session has been recorded. Please check out at:

Q&A Video

Shark in the tank theory of management was covered.

(will write about it in future under management series). 

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14: CHINA THROUGH USA’s PRISM

Annual Report to US Congress. Office of the US secretary of defense recently published the unclassified part of the annual report on military and security developments involving the people’s republic of china. The US Department of Defense (DoD) has been providing this report for the last 20 years.

Scope of these Reports. These reports assess the contours of China’s national strategy, its approach to security and military affairs, and potential changes in the PRC’s armed forces. They essentially include the following:

    • The current and probable future course of military-technological development of the PLA.
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    • The tenets and probable development of Chinese security and military strategy.
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    • Military organizations and operational concepts supporting such development.

2020 Report. This report is special because, 2020 is an important year for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) before the milestone of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) centenary in 2021. It is also the timeline for the Chinese broader interim goal to transform China into a “moderately prosperous society”. The report covers developments until the end of 2019. Developments in 2020, including the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, would be covered in the next report.

Report Analysis. The report is of 200 pages with a 15 page executive summary. While the report provides an insight into developments in China and the PLA, it analysis is from Sino-US point of view.

Analysis from Indo-China Perspective. It would be worthwhile to analyze the contents of the report from Indo-China point of view.

Coming up – Series of articles

On 

China Through USA’s Prism: Indo-China Perspective

Please click here for part 1.

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13: DRAGON’S BRAIN: DIFFERENTLY WIRED (PART 3: DEALING WITH CHINA)

This is the last part of the series of articles on this subject.  This one analyses aspects related to China’s vulnerabilities, her policy and attitude towards India and present day behavior.

Dealing with China

China’s Achilles Heel. China has a few vulnerabilities and insecurities. Her reaction becomes aggressive when these red lines get threatened or crossed. Some of these are:

    • Hunger for Natural Resources and Energy. China is a growing country needing a large amount of natural resources. China also has a very high demand for energy, making it heavily dependent on oil imports.
    • Extended Supply and Communication lines. China’s extended supply and communication lines, both on land and sea could become vulnerable to interdiction, disrupting her supplies. China has been working towards creating redundancy by developing alternate supply routes.
    • Belt and Road Initiative. This project has been initiated by China to revive the old silk route. Her endeavor is to create alternate trade and supply routes connecting various countries. A lot is riding for China on this project, which is already running into some rough weather in a couple of places.
    • Three Ts & Hong Kong. China is very touchy about Trade, Taiwan and Tibet. Even Hong Kong can be added to this list now.
    • Food Security. Recent pandemic and floods in the country have revealed the fault line of food security of the country. The food production is inadequate to meet the demand. Fishing in waters of other countries and leasing of land from other countries for cultivation are efforts towards mitigation of this problem.
    • Age Demography. To control the growing population, China had adopted one child policy. This policy was implemented very forcefully and was successful, however it has created an adverse age demography. The median age of the country is high with a large number of aged population. Each young person has to support two to three aged relatives. As a result it tries to avoid contact warfare, where loss of life would be high. Investment in long range weapons and unmanned platforms corroborates this observation.

Continue reading “13: DRAGON’S BRAIN: DIFFERENTLY WIRED (PART 3: DEALING WITH CHINA)”