Is Dr. Sreedharan a leader or a manager?

1) Dr. Sreedharan has been inspirational leader, who has been strict with the plan
and schedules, who believed in ethical integrity and having top management team in
DMRC not only great accomplishers but also possess high ethical integrity, building
'Zero tolerance for corruption' attitude into DMRC's work ethic
2) As a way to keep his team and staffs motivated various sessions, workshops
were conducted and also developed an open collegial environment where staff could
interact with senior management on day-to-day basis
3) Dr. Sreedharan has been exceptional in executing the complex project like DMRC.
His weekly meetings with Heads of Department and Directors, Monthly meetings with
managers, Manager's meetings with contractors etc., ensured everyone in the project
were in sync with the organizational priorities, plan and targets
4) Dr. Sreesharan has the reputation for meeting the deadlines throughout his
career from rebuilding the portion of the Pamban bridge in 46 days, complete
building the railway network over Konkan terrain within the stipulated time of 7
years, completing the phase-1 of the DMRC project by two years & 9 months ahead of
schedule

From my perspective Dr. Sreedharan is an extraordinary Leader with exceptional

planning and very strong execution skills and all ingrained in ethical integrity.
This case study is an excellent reference for Managers responsible for very complex
projects

Trait perspective
2) What are Dr. Sreedharan’s traits as a leader?

1) By being Diligent and Resolute, throughout his career he has been completing his
projects within the stipulated time
2) Bias for action and getting the people to give their best, by delegating the
problem solving of issues, by including various members in decision making steps,
bringing the entire team including contractors be aligned to organization's targets
and goals
3) High Ethical standard - By setting the expectation on zero tolerance for
corruption and imbibing this culture in DMRC
4) Inspire others by being an example of all the traits of a leader

Behavioral perspective
3) Is Dr Sreedharan task-oriented or relationship-oriented? Where would you put him
on Blake and Mouton grid?

I would put him in 9,9 Leader square on Blake and Mouton grid. Following are my
reasons

Dr. Sreedharan is an excellent example of being Task-oriented and setting himself

as role model for his entire organization to follow suit.

He carried both Job-oriented behavior and Employee centric behavior to accomplish

complex project like DMRC ontime

By being task oriented, he gained credibility for delivering projects ontime and
was able to convince and create a working relationship with many government and
non-government groups like following
1) convinced GOI to give tax & customer duties exemption for the DMRC,
2) Convinced Ministry of Railways to give nod for Standard guage in Phase-II
3) Through Goodwill was able to convince contractors to coarse correct the method
of tunneling,
4) Personally got involved with the land owners understood their specific concerns
and was able to relook the land requirement for DMRC & revise his requirement
Contingency perspective
4) As per Fiedler’s model, what is your assessment of the situations that Dr
Sreedharan has had to manage? Favourable, moderate or poor? Should he be task-
oriented or relationship-oriented to be effective?

Leader member relations -Good - The degree of confidence, trust, and respect that
Dr. Sreedharan created within his team right from the day one and diligently
maintaining this relation is an amazing example of a Great leader

Task Structure -Moderate - Since the expertise required for the complex project
like DMRC was not available, task structure was created based on experiential
learning on the job. However Dr. Sreedharan with his experience and expertise in
building railway network ensured project monitoring and control tasks are defined
with set frequencies and carried out with rigor, however in an open format,
ensuring all the issues were discussed, actions were documented and further
implemented.

Position Power -High- Dr. Sreedharan through his position power ensured to set the
expectations on how the organization would be allowed to execute by his own terms
without any external influence and setting his expectations on work ethic within
his teams

5) Which of the styles from H&B’s situational leadership model do you see Dr
Sreedharan’s trying?
Dr. Sreedharan has mostly used Delegating, Participating and some selling styles in
DMRC project

Contemporary perspective
6) Does LMX theory describe Dr Sreedharan’s approach?
He selected people who are trust worthy & experts and created an entire team whom
he can trust and could be called as in group.
However there is no evidence in the case study to suggest that there is an out-
group, hence LMX theory could not be used to describe his approach fully

7) Is he a transactional leader or a transformational leader?

At the accomplishment he has achieved, definitely he is a transformational leader
and the way he achieved this transformation is through diligently taking care of
all the transactional events.

8) Can other contemporary perspectives describe Dr Sreedharan? Is he an authentic

leader, ethical leader or servant leader?

Dr. Sreedharan is definitely an ethicial leader and throughout the case study this
quality of his is evident.

He has also displayed servant leader on multiple occasions towards different

stakeholders like Land owners, Police, Contractors, in understanding their
concerns, while ensuring to go extra mile for greater good in a fair way