ABSTRACT
Cases of organizations like British Airways, General Electric, International Business Machines (IBM), etc. have revealed the signifi cance of top leadership style and strategies in the process of organization change and transformation. Lord Marshall (1980-6) created a culture of employee commitment and customer focus in British Airways (Hopfl 1993 ); Jack Welch (1980-2000) took initiatives like work out, best practices, six sigma, etc. to bring successful transformation (Bartlett 1999 ); Louis V. Gerstner (1993-2003) emphasized the role of the workforce in making IBM more competitive and converting it from a loss-making to a highly profi table company (Weeks 2004 ). The literature suggests that one of the most important roles of a leader is to create, maintain, and reinforce the process of change and transformation for organizational excellence. The Mckinsey study of excellent organizations suggests the critical role of leadership in building a successful and effective organization (Peters and Waterman 1982 ). Schein ( 1992 ) has described the signifi cant roles of leadership during the various stages of organizational growth: early life, midlife, and maturity and decline. Other case studies like Xerox, Apple, 3M, etc. highlight the profi le of successful organizations and the role of leadership in delivering performance through nurturing talent and developing innovative work practices and customer-centric systems.
