Leadership after Al: Why clarity, not speed, will decide India's next decade

“Bharateeya Strategic Intelligence (BSI), is a leadership thinking framework aimed at restoring clarity to decision-making. BSI is not a philosophy; it is a practical structure that helps leaders slow down at the right moments and move decisively when it matters”

- Kuruva Venkataramana Murthy, founder, One in the Universe

Kuruva Venkataramana Murthy, founder, One in the Universe

In recent years, conversations around leadership in India have begun to sound strikingly similar. Almost every discussion circles around technology adoption, artificial intelligence, and the urgency to 'move faster.' While these conversations are necessary, they often miss a more fundamental issue playing out quietly inside organisations. The real challenge Indian leaders face today is not lack of intelligence, ambition, or effort. It is a growing absence of clarity. Across startups, family-run enterprises, and large corporations, leaders are surrounded by data, dashboards, and expert opinions. Yet decisions take longer, alignment is fragile, and execution frequently drifts. Teams are busy, but outcomes feel uncertain. Al has only intensified this condition. When information becomes abundant, judgment becomes the scarce resource.

THE HIDDEN COST OF SPEED

India has benefitted enormously from borrowing global management frameworks over the past few decades. These models brought discipline, structure, and scale. However, they were largely designed for organisational contexts very different from ours. Indian enterprises operate in layered ecosystems—deep relationships, informal influence networks, emotional legacies, and long-term stakeholder memory. In such environments, leadership is less about control and more about discernment. Speed without discernment often creates short-term wins and long-term instability. What many organisations are experiencing today is not a strategy gap, but a thinking gap. Leaders move quickly from information to action without sufficient clarity about context, consequence, or responsibility.

FROM INTELLIGENCE TO CLARITY