To execute and achieve something big, we need to work in a team

Asgar Ali, Founder, President and CEO of eSewa Fonepay has been an IT professional for over 12 years and has specialised experience in areas of software product design, roll out plan execution, business operation and strategy. After six years as J2EE software architect, he conceptualised, created and is leading eSewa as a mobile wallet in Nepal. Ali has been associated with F1Soft International since March 2006 and has worked in different capacities like General Manager and Vice President before co-founding eSewa. Ali believes in motivational leadership and has a strong focus on team building and motivation, general management, corporate and product development, business operation and strategy, product marketing and non-profit governance. In this issue of Business 360, Ali talks about leadership and its facets. Excerpts:

What is leadership?

For me, leadership is an organisational context. It is an act and process of inspiring, motivating and grooming a team for the delivery of the organisational goal.  Every organisation has its own mission and vision and people in the organisation are generally from different schools of thought, nature, expertise and expectations. Its leadership that binds people into a single unit, and allows successful resource sharing. I would consider a leader to have the core characteristics of the ability to inspire, to be a visionary, and to be innovative and communicative.

How is leadership linked with success?

To execute and achieve something big, we need to work in a team and its leadership that defines the success or failure of the team. Ultimately, the core fundamental for any organisation’s success lies in its leadership.

How do you view the status of leadership in Nepal’s corporate sector?

We have a very brief history of industrialisation in. We lack multinational corporate houses so there are very few best practices of leadership in Nepal. Different types of industries require different nature of leadership. Industries and corporate houses are scaling their sizes and diversifying their business groups today. This would definitely create a bigger playground for leadership to develop.

How do you assess yourself as a leader?

I am basically from the IT background. It was my not my choice to move into management. Since we are running a FinTech company, it’s a techno leadership practice. My primary focus in the team is to make ourselves clear about what we are doing and why we are doing it, and then ask the team to find the best approach to execute it. In this way, I don’t know what stage I have reached in the leadership ladder.

Any three persons you truly regard as leaders…

Leadership is basically a package of being confident, have the ability to delegate, take responsibility, focus, passion, mentorship and guardianship. I have many personalities who inspire me in each of these components separately. To name them: Birendra Bahadur Basnet for creating a robust team to operate Buddha Air. People see Buddha Air as successful aviation company but I see Buddha Air as a company run by a sound team. Other names are Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba.

How do you connect leadership with happiness?

Happiness in professional career is being in a joyful state of mind to do what you want to do and do it repeatedly. Happiness for me would be to create people who could completely replace me from my current position since leadership is all about inspiring, motivating and grooming as well.

Books you would recommend…

I am sorry to say that I find very less time to read books but I do follow blogs and read articles regularly.  The last book I read which really inspired me were ‘How Google Works’ and ‘Start with Why’.