Leadership makes one feel lonely on top, I have gone through it: Narayana Murthy

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Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy on Sunday said leadership makes one feel completely lonely at the top and he has gone through it.

Addressing a gathering after releasing a book titled I Did What I Had to Do, a biography of industrialist Madan Mohanka authored by Anjana Dutt, Murthy said leadership is also about doing the right thing and raising the confidence of hundreds and thousands of people who look up to you for guidance.

"As they say, leadership feels completely lonely at the top. I've been through that, and I can feel it in both Madan (Mohanka) and now of course Mehul (Mohanka's son) when I heard from Madan yesterday that leadership is very, very lonely," he said.

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Madan Mohanka founded Tega Industries Limited in 1976 and serves as its Chairman and Executive Director. His son Mehul is the Managing Director and Group CEO of the company.

"Leadership is also about doing the right thing. It is about raising the confidence of hundreds and thousands of people who look up to you for guidance, people who are lost in concerns and worries about what will happen to my children, what will happen to their education, what will happen to my parents' health, how will I pay the rent of my house next month," Murthy said.

It is a leader's responsibility to provide confidence to these thousands of people, Murthy said. Talking about Mohanka's biography, Murthy said the industrialist "went into the deepest depths of melancholy and scaled the highest mountains of joy."

The book is in essence all about how a man did what he had to do, he said. "And I think it is a very apt title because mostly for outside the arena, they just do not understand why when you take a certain decision," he said.

The book is all about the story of how one man led thousands of people by giving them confidence, assuring them the rainbow and beautiful mountains and saying let's walk towards that, Murthy said. "I know the path is difficult, I know it's not easy to climb, I know I will go higher and higher as we find, but step after step it becomes more and more difficult to breathe. But that's how you reach the pinnacle. And therefore I am very happy that this book does all of that and much more," he said.