Leadership Trends in India: Personality Insights in Economic Context

As of 2024, India emerged as the fastest growing major economy in the world, with projected growth at 7% in 2024 and 6.5% in 2025.1 According to Deloitte, industry leaders have high confidence in India’s continued robust growth. Market indicators—such as strong growth in manufacturing, strong exports in services and high-value manufacturing, rural economy rebound, and robust bank balance sheets and credit growth—signal that India is poised for continued upward movement, potentially outpacing the rest of the world.2 With this economic growth comes change. For example, with a growing middle-income class, there lies a shift toward higher spending in luxury and premium goods and services; additionally, rural spending is catching up with urban counterparts.3 These changing spending preferences create new business opportunities for organizations at home and abroad. In an emergent, aggressive, continuously evolving market like India, the characteristics of leaders who emerge to develop India’s startups, chair their boards, and lead organizations remain a critical topic. In September 2024, Krista Pederson, managing director of Asia Pacific, and Ryne Sherman, PhD, chief science officer, visited ThreeFish Consulting, an authorized distributor of Hogan Assessments in India. Hogan and ThreeFish partnered to sponsor SHRM cocktail dinner events and breakfast round table events in Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi. This trip provided the opportunity to discuss leadership trends in Hogan assessment data from Indian leaders. Our benchmark of Indian leaders includes more than 5,000 executives spanning industries and locations across the country. Read on to discover more about leaders in India today: their values, approaches to life and work, and potential hindrances to their success and the success of the organizations they lead. The Hogan Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI) reveals that Indian executives are motivated by a variety of factors. Compared to Hogan’s global benchmark of executives, Indian executives score two to 15 percentile points higher on every MVPI scale. Across the board, Indian leaders value diverse work contexts and ways of making decisions. When looking at Indian leaders’ data, the Recognition, Power, and Altruistic scales emerge as key motivators. Recognition concerns an interest in fame, publicity, and being seen. These leaders may prefer to work in organizations and roles that offer high-visibility projects, public acknowledgement, and opportunities for self-display. Those who score high on the Power scale reveal a strong desire for influence and authority. These leaders may prefer working in and creating organizational cultures that are results-oriented, aggressive, and competitive. Compared to the global executive benchmark, Indian leaders score 15 percentile points higher on Recognition and nine percentile points higher on Power. Although Power and Recognition make up two thirds of the MVPI status cluster, indicating strong interest in a high social and professional position, the third highest motivator for Indian leaders is Altruistic, or a focus on helping others. Those who score high on Altruistic enjoy supporting others, coaching, and helping their organizations and society. These executives may enjoy and feel responsibility for the development and well-being of their teams and organizations. Additionally, Indian executives also score 11 percentile points higher than the global benchmark on Science. This suggests a preference toward analytical problem-solving and data-based decision-making. According to Pradnya Parasher, PhD, CEO of ThreeFish Consulting, most Indian leaders desire recognition and display brand consciousness. When it comes to employment, multinational brands, leading Indian companies, and emerging Indian brands are more attractive. Recognition programs that encompass all employees and not just sales functions are often implemented by employers to motivate teams and employees. At senior levels, networking at industry conferences and industry professional organizations are likely to appeal to high Recognition Indian leaders. However, when it comes to their team, Indian leaders should share the spotlight with team members. They should also remember that not everyone wants recognition, so it’s important to diversify and tailor ways to motivate employees. Current political and leadership environment in India appears to be aligned with the motivator of Power. Enterprise Indian businesses display global ambition through their expansion and acquisitions of overseas businesses. The value of Altruistic may emerge from societal norms of looking after the community; it also emerges within the world of business within two major areas. First, India is the first country in the world to make corporate social responsibility mandatory. As of 2014, Indian businesses hitting certain net worth or net profit metrics are required to spend 2% of average net profits on corporate social r