Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the former President of India joined the Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi as an Adjunct Professor on December 22, 2007.

The first lecture focused on Leadership Qualities and essentials required for a Creative Leader. In an interesting discourse to the bright students, Dr. Kalam illustrated graphically how Creative Leadership can help transform India into a developed economy and the various links in the entire chain of transformation. He also spoke at length on his personal experiences with creative leaders like Prof. Vikram Sarabhai and Dr. Satish Dhawan. He urged on the managers of tomorrow to challenge the rapidly changing scenarios and change their traditional roles from commander to coach, manager to mentor, from director to delegator and from one who demands respect to one who facilitates self-respect. According to Dr. Kalam, leaders accept failure and manage it and when they succeed, they pass on the credit to the team.

The entire lecture was full of real-life examples and showcased Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam as a great scientist and an even better manager and not just the dynamic President we all know. The lecture ended with an assignment to the students. As part of this, the students need to answer questions on their experiences of managing failures and success, facilitating nobility in management and capabilities that needs to be built through the education system to create creative leaders.

Today’s lecture was attended by the selected 90 bright students from the Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi, a delegation from South Korea who are on a visit to FMS and the Lahore University of Management Studies (LUMS) who are here to attend the first international business school sports meet(Altius 2007) organized at FMS. The lecture was the first in a series of eight to ten lectures that shall be delivered as a part of the course ” Economics, Technology and National Development”.