In a fast-paced environment where we are all focused on results, we sometimes forget how the work actually happens. We confuse “getting things done” with real leadership. True leadership is about moving people toward a shared goal because they want to follow, not because they feel they have to. While both influence and manipulation change behavior, the intent and the long-term outcome couldn’t be further apart.
A true leader acts like a Mala (garland) thread. They string people together to create something beautiful, keeping themselves invisible. On the other hand, a manipulator is the Puppeteer, they stay hidden too, but only to pull your strings for their own show.
Influencing or Manipulating?
It is all about Intent: The line between influence and manipulation is often invisible, but it’s anchored in motives. Influence is rooted in transparency. You share the “why,” appeal to logic, and respect the other person’s autonomy. It’s a win-win. On the other hand, Manipulation is rooted in self-interest. It relies on withholding information, playing on fears, or using “smoke and mirrors” to get a specific result. It’s a win-lose.
Dhanda Logic
To lead authentically without pulling strings, we must focus on logical appeal. In our context, this is the “Dhanda” logic, showing exactly how a decision or a new direction benefits the collective bottom line and the team’s growth. (Dhanda is Business in Hindi)
When we embrace influence, we are open about our goals. Manipulation thrives on hidden agendas and fine print. One approach empowers and grows the team, creating long-term loyalty; the other drains the team, resulting only in short-term compliance.
Characteristic
Authentic Influence
Short-Term Manipulation
Foundation
Built on trust and character.
Built on control and tactics.
Openness
Open about goals and methods.
Hidden agendas and “fine print.”
Impact
Empowers and grows the team.
Drains and diminishes the team.
Longevity
Creates long-term loyalty.
Results in short-term compliance.
“If my colleagues knew everything I know about this situation, would they still make the same decision?”
If the answer is “No,” you aren’t influencing—you’re manipulating. True leadership is the art of giving people a platform to excel, not a script to follow. Let’s make “Dhanda Logic” our foundation.
A great leader teaches you how to navigate the bazaar of life. A manipulator makes sure you can’t buy a single thing without asking them first. One gives you the map; the other keeps you lost so you have to follow their voice. Choose your leadership path.
The old factory gates of Bharat Steels had seen fifty monsoons and just as many scorching summers. Inside, the machines hummed a familiar tune, a rhythm known by heart to the men and women who kept them running. Among them was Ramu Bhai, who had started as a young lad sweeping floors and now, at sixty armed with an evening college Diploma qualifications, managed the finishing line with an uncanny knack. He could hear a machine groan moments before it broke down, smell trouble in the air before a batch of steel went bad. He was the living, breathing memory of Bharat Steels.
Bharat Steels was in a stage of transition. Gone was the existing Chairman who retired after carving a niche for Bharat Steels and also for himself in the industry. In his place stood Vikram, sharp-suited, and carrying an MBA from an Ivy League, but with a career spent entirely in high-end retail. He knew luxury margins and consumer psychology, but he didn’t know a blast furnace from a bread oven. Mr. Gupta had brought him in as the Professional Savior to lead Bharat Steels. Vikram’s first move was a massive digital overhaul. He wanted a real-time, cloud-based tracking system for every ton of ore. “Data is the new oil,” Vikram proclaimed in the boardroom, clicking through a high-definition deck. “By cutting our safety buffers and moving to an automated procurement model, we unlock 20% trapped capital. My predictive algorithms from the retail sector show we are overstocked.”
Among the few managers present was Subhash, hired about 8 years earlier from a competing, albeit smaller, steel company. Subhash was ambitious, eager to climb the corporate ladder, and quick to recognize which way the wind was blowing. As Vikram spoke, Subhash nodded vigorously, interjecting with affirmations like, “Absolutely, sir! Our legacy systems are far too inefficient,” or “A truly visionary approach, Sir!”
Vikram, buoyed by this apparent validation, saw Subhash as a kindred spirit, a modern thinker. He tasked Subhash with overseeing the implementation of the new, aggressive inventory reduction and automated procurement system.” Vikram announced, “This new system will reduce our raw material stock by 30%, ensuring just-in-time delivery and minimal storage costs.”
Numbers on the iPad and what happens on the Conveyor ARE NEVER THE SAME
Ramu Bhai, the plant veteran who had started as a floor hand in the 70s, listened quietly. He tried to catch Vikram’s eye, but Vikram was focused on Subhash, who was beaming. Ramu Bhai cleared his throat. “Sir” Ramu Bhai said, his voice like gravel. The algorithm, does it know about the Chakka Jam (roadblock) scheduled for next month? Or the fact that the local union leader’s daughter is getting married, and half our logistics team will be dancing in a procession for three days?”
Subhash quickly interjected before Vikram could properly respond. “Ramu Bhai, we’ve moved beyond anecdotal evidence. Mr. Malhotra’s models are statistically robust. We can’t let every local event dictate our global best practices!” Vikram nodded, approvingly, to Subhash. The new system was rolled out with great fanfare. Initial reports, filtered through Subhash, showed promising “paper savings” due to reduced inventory. Vikram was thrilled. He even gave Subhash a commendation.
Then, the monsoon hit. Hard. Roads to the main iron ore mine became impassable, just as Ramu Bhai had predicted years ago. The new just-in-time system, without its traditional buffers, ground to a halt. The core of the plant, the massive blast furnace, began to cool. Subhash, with his “statistically robust” models, had no answers. He was nowhere to be found when the real crisis hit. The cost was astronomical. The specialized brick lining of the furnace, designed to withstand constant heat, began to crack. Reheating it would take weeks and millions. Production plummeted. Orders were missed. Bharat Steels was bleeding money.
Blast furnace began to cool & brick lining began to crack.
Vikram, pale and desperate, finally sought out Ramu Bhai. He found him on the factory floor, supervising the emergency, makeshift repairs as best he could with limited resources. Vikram stammered, “Ramu Bhai, I… I made a terrible mistake. I listened to the wrong people. The furnace… it’s dying.”
Ramu Bhai looked at him, not with an “I told you so” expression, but with a weary understanding. Wiping grease from his brow, he replied “Sir, in the retail world, if a shirt is late, a customer waits. Here, if the ore doesn’t arrive by Tuesday, the furnace cools. Do you know what happens when a furnace that has run for ten years cools down? The brickwork cracks. The heart of the plant dies. Reheating it costs more than your trapped capital is worth.” Vikram swallowed hard. “Can we… can we fix it, Ramu Bhai?” Ramu Bhai paused, looking at the cooling behemoth. “It will be difficult, Sir. Very difficult. But we will try. And this time, we will not listen to anyone who hasn’t felt the heat of this furnace on their own skin.”
Vikram spent the next few months not in his air-conditioned office, but on the factory floor with Ramu Bhai, personally overseeing the painstaking, costly recovery. He learned that the true cost of efficiency without resilience was devastating. He learned that in Bharat, the average was only in books, and the unexpected was the only thing you could expect. He realized that while his spreadsheets showed the WHAT, Ramu Bhai showed him the HOW and, more importantly, the WHY. He built a system that was efficient, yes, but also resilient, with buffers for the unpredictable realities of Bharat. He proposed strategic partnerships with local transporters, an emergency local stock, and a more robust communication network. He understood that sometimes, the old-way wasn’t inefficient; it was just incredibly wise. To his credit, Vikram didn’t retreat to his air-conditioned cabin. He traded his brogues for safety boots. He spent weeks shadowed by Ramu Bhai, learning that in India, a “supply chain” isn’t a series of nodes on a screen—it’s a web of relationships, monsoon cycles, and local politics. He saw Ramu Bhai settle a potential strike with a single cup of tea and a shared memory of the 1998 flood. He realized that the inefficiency he saw was actually insurance.
Inefficiency that he saw earlier, was actually insurance
Vikram went back to his slides, but the tone shifted. He didn’t scrap the tech; he localised it. He used his B-school logic to create Buffer Intelligence, a system that used high-tech tracking but allowed for Ramu’s Margin. He built digital bridges with the local community, turning the unwritten rules into a formal, yet flexible, strategy.
Bharat Steels not only recovered but became more robust than ever. Vikram still used his fancy models, but now, every line on his spreadsheet had the silent nod of Ramu Bhai’s experience behind it. The young brain and the old heart had finally found their rhythm, beating together for the future of Bharat Steels.
B-School leader are the high-tech Compass pointing toward the future, while the veterans are the Map showing the safest, fastest path to get there.
Lessons
Never confuse a digital dashboard with the actual shop floor. Algorithms can predict trends, but they can’t smell a cooling furnace or sense a local strike.
In volatile markets, inefficiency is often just another word for buffer. Optimization is great, but resilience keeps you alive when the monsoon hits.
Surround yourself with people who have felt the heat of the furnace, not just those who nod at your slide deck. Ambitious sycophants will vanish the moment the crisis turns real.
Experience isn’t anecdotal evidence; it’s a living database of past failures. Before you disrupt a legacy system, understand exactly why the old way was built in the first place.
Leadership cannot be practiced from an air-conditioned cabin. To lead a team, you must understand their rhythm, the web of relationships and local realities that a GPS can’t track.
The most powerful organizations pair the High-Tech Compass (Vision/Data) with the Old-School Map (Experience/Execution).
My Boss’s cabin in Nashik smelled of old monsoon rain and cigarette. He was my immediate boss in my 1st job, Ramesh, a man who had survived three corporate restructuring and a heart attack. It was 4th month of my job and obvious butterflies when your boss calls you over for a discussion. I was hired by him from the campus and obviously offered me extra care (maybe because both hailed from Bengaluru).
Reassuringly, he told me to relax and offered me a cigarette. It is not about work, I am being promoted and moving to Mumbai next month before which I wanted to give you a friendly advice, which you are free to ignore. This is something they didn’t teach you in your MBA and certainly not mentioned during your HR induction.
You see that guy Shashank in the corner cabin? The one always offering to buy everyone samosas, the one who calls you ‘Beta’ and smiles like he’s your own uncle? Keep your guard up. In this corporate jungle, the guy screaming at you is rarely the one who’ll finish your career. It’s the one who shoots over your shoulder while giving you a hug.
Take Rohan, a fresher I hired three years ago. Sharp boy, worked like a horse on ‘FTL Assembly Line.’ He had everything ready, solid data, clear ROI. But he made one mistake: He trusted a Shashank. Shashank spent weeks mentoring Rohan. He’d sit him down and say, ‘Beta, you’re young. Kapoor (our MD), hates overconfidence. Add more slides on the risks. Show him you’re cautious. Thinking he was getting insider gold, Rohan gutted his winning presentation.
However, when Kapoor got annoyed by the negativity, Shashank did not defend the strategy he helped create. He sighed, looked at Rohan with pity and told the MD – “Sir, I tried to tell the boy to be more positive, but you know how these youngsters are so focused on the problems, no vision.” He simply threw Rohan under the bus. Shashank kept his own reputation clean and branded Rohan as lacking leadership. All while smiling.
Ramesh said, “Listen carefully, there are two types of people who will ruin you – Openly Evil and the Slimy.”
The Openly Evil are people like Rajesh. He growls. You see his claws. You know exactly where the attack is coming from. You can prepare, duck, or fight back. He’s honest about his malice.
The Slimy are people like Shashank. He doesn’t have the spine to hold his own weapon. Instead, he fires off someone else’s shoulder.
He muttered “A slimy chap doesn’t leave fingerprints. He whispers a secret in your ear, waits for you to repeat it, and then watches from the sidelines while you get fired for spreading rumours. This is like sitting on your shoulders and biting your ears off. He plays the good chap so well that when the building is burning, everyone reaches for his hand not realizing he’s the one who leaked the petrol. “The man who smiles while pointing out your enemies is often the one creating them. He uses your mouth to speak his venom and your face to take the punch. Avoid the man who is everyone’s friend but stands behind everyone’s back.”
That was precious lesson from Ramesh and in days to come I realised he was dead right: the snake you see is a danger, but the slime you slip on is what breaks your neck.
Don’t be a ‘Meetha Churi’s’ target: If someone gives you friendly advice to change your work, send a summary email immediately. “Thanks for the input, as discussed, I’m pivoting the strategy to focus on risks per your suggestion.” Rest assured, they will backpedal when there’s a paper trail. And today there are so many avenues to keep it on Record, WhatsApp, Mails or in the worst case – A call recording!
In India, we value politeness, and these chaps who deploy their smile as a shield, use that against you. Don’t let their vibes stop you from asking hard questions in front of others.
Own your Voice. If you let someone else narrate your work, they’ll eventually narrate your exit.
The world is full of people who will use your back as a tripod for their own gun. Don’t offer them that!
PS: I changed just a couple of names but every word written above is something that I was so privileged to learn so early in my career. It has stood me in good stead, till I decided to call it a day. Thank you Ramesh! Though on the day, I thought you were just being possessive (and also thought you were jealous of Shashank – I realised you were way above his pay grade and NATURE too). During our latest meeting in IISc guest house, where I recalled this anecdote and a couple more, that smug smile just said “Don’t Mention”
Thank you! Watching me from wherever you are up above. I hope I lived upto your trust in my abilities
