Dr. V of Aravind Eye Hospital: A 'Level 5' Leader

Dr. V arrived at the hospital, as a part of his duty, and noticed her in the hospital. "What are you doing here?" he asked. "I am sick", she replied. Dr V said, "My fever is 104. How high is yours?" She had no option but to get out of bed and go to work. The same will made him one of the most respected eye surgeons in the world in spite of his physical limitations. It was this intense will that led him to mortgage his house to set up Aravind hospital, in pursuit of his dream.

C K Prahalad, a leading management thinker, has studied Aravind's operations over the years. He observed that Aravind generated a 200 percent return on capital employed. "We have a good medicine school at the University of Michigan, and they are amazed by what they saw at Aravind...

We had not known those management strategies. We are transparent, do not exaggerate anything to our patients and are truthful and sympathetic to them. We have nothing more than a helping attitude." Like a true Level 5 leader when he could not ascribe his success to someone other than himself, he attributed it to divine or some higher consciousness. "We feel that the higher consciousness is trying gradually to give us a system. We are all aware of the parts of the human body as they work. We take in food; we like the taste of it. Part of it is absorbed here, part of it there. But we are not aware of it. The higher consciousness works in the same way. Slowly, your system is built around it, but not according to human nature...