A SESSION ON AND WITH LEADERSHIP VALUES N.R. NARAYANA MURTHY

Continuing with its focus on leadership and values, Aspen Institute India organised an interactive session with Mr. N.R. Narayan Murthy, Chairman, Infosys Technologies Ltd. on March 7, 2011 in New Delhi. The conversation started from his childhood years, about how his parents, teachers among others, consciously or unconsciously, engrained those values that he still holds and has helped in transferring to Indian industry. Mr. Murthy spoke of how his large family helped in later years to make him understand sacrifice, sharing, and an attitude of concern for others and other values that makes a leader. He explained his origin thus “I come from a very large family as most families in India tended to be in the 40s. I was born in 1946 and we are 8 children- 5 sisters and 3 brothers. Father was a high school teacher, very strict, a big disciplinarian, always focussed on honesty and in Aii Newsletter Vol-2 tegrity, good work ethic, etc. Mother was hardly literate in the sense that she had just studied uptil standard 5. She could sign in Kannada which is my mother tongue. She was about compassion, generosity, concern, care, and even today, she is 90 now. She was the one who made sure that every guest had dinner, whatever time they arrived. She was the one who taught us how to SOUTH-EAST ASIA, ASEAN & INDIA …………………more GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS: WHY HAPPINESS MATTERS & HOW WE CAN GET MORE OF IT …………………more IDEAS INDIA 2010 ……………..more ASPEN INST TUTE INDIA contents share. In that sense we were very average family. Honesty, good work ethics, credibility, all these things seemed to be somewhat of a novel set of attributes today but in 40s, 50s, 60s these were taken for granted in India. We were all lower middle class people at least those I knew and in that milieu generosity, sharing, understanding they were all just given..”