As promised, I am back with another blog on the difference in qualities and responsibilities between a corporate and an MSME leader. As explained in the last blog, while there are many common elements, there are many substantial differences between the two roles. 

Corporate leaders play a mentor’s role in shaping the culture of their organizations. A good leader will promote a culture of innovation, collaboration, and diversity, which can be challenging but necessary for a large, diverse workforce. In the MSME environment, leaders directly influence the organizational culture and often get directly involved in daily operations and interactions with employees. They create a positive work environment, fostering teamwork, creativity, and mutual respect. It can be said that it is easier to implement a cohesive culture in an MSME than in a corporation.

Given the size and structure of their organizations, corporate leaders may adopt a more formal and hierarchical leadership style. They must rely on established policies, procedures, and protocols to guide their decision-making and employee interactions. MSME leaders, on the other hand, need to rely more on an informal leadership style. Since they are closer to the team and more involved in day-to-day operations, they must often lead by example and stay more accessible to their teams. It does say, though, that corporate leaders stay detached from the employees, but they need to juggle around constraints of time, location, and other dynamics.

Be it a corporate or an MSME, risk management is a critical part of every leader’s KRA. In large corporations, the risks are typically diversified across multiple business units and regions. Before implementing robust risk management strategies to protect the organization's interests, the leader must consider various factors and implications in different associated departments. In an MSME, the risks are more concentrated due to the operations' scale and lack of diversity. A vigilant MSME leader can identify and mitigate risks promptly and locally before they cause a significant impact on the business. The associated impact on other business processes may not be significant, or at least will be controllable for the MSME.

Leadership style in an MSME is more of individual charisma, which can also impact employee retention or attrition. It is synonymous with that of a senior manager of an isolated subsidiary of a corporation, the difference being that the ownership of the business decisions directly impacts the leader’s career, who seldom has the option of quitting when the days get tough. On the flip side, the corporate leader may have to carry the burden of leadership goof-ups of the senior management layer below. However, in such situations, the personal impact or liability of the corporate leader may be much more limited.

The objective of these blogs was to emphasize that all the management and leadership lessons being dished out in digital media may not be directly applicable to all of us. While it is always beneficial to learn from them, it is not necessary to change our style based on a non-qualified delivery. As a leader, ultimately, we need to do what our instinct guides us to do, backed by evidence and data.