Title : Leadership with Conscience

Abstract

The revised Companies Bill 2011 has been recently (2013) passed and one of the debated aspects of the Bill is clause 135 which places a high priority on Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) for business. This clause makes it mandatory for companies with net worth of Rs500 crores or more or turnover of Rs 1000 crores or a net profit of Rs 5 crores or more during a year to spend 2% of its average net profits during the three immediately preceding financial years on CSR activities. There is a need for conscience leadership in the corporate sector to execute this mandate willingly. This paper discusses the approach of the management of large scale companies in Pune towards CSR before it was made legal. Most of these companies have been engaged into CSR much earlier than the mandate was formulated, mainly because the founder and management of these companies strongly believe in doing business by doing good. They consider social contribution equivalent to economic gains. Their actions are not governed by law , and it is this quality of leadership which effects excellence in business.This paper is based on empirical, qualitative research to comprehend the leadership approach through various management actions.