As a company recognised for being one of Asia’s Best Places to Work and boasting of a culture demonstrating great leadership, Airtel Lanka recently saw three of its department heads take home accolades at the recently concluded Great Manager Awards 2021, hosted by the Colombo Leadership Academy (CLA).
Through progressive manager development initiatives such as “Lead Right”, Airtel Lanka aims to advance its managers to become effective and transformational leaders. The company often engages in such initiatives through partnerships with local institutes and the Airtel Global Leadership Academy.
“While we are being proactive in our journey to convey excellence in our offerings, we also strive to nurture leadership and strategic expertise among our key managers and senior staff members. Today’s achievements certainly mark a milestone in our relentless efforts towards developing learned and multi-talented leaders,” commented Airtel Lanka Managing Director and CEO Ashish Chandra.
From Airtel Lanka’s Finance Department, Eranda Siriwardena – Head, Business Planning and Analysis and Fawaz Nizamdeen – Head, Contact Experience were awarded in the “Aligning Organisational Vision” category, while Duminda Akalanka – Senior Manager, Channel Accounting was awarded in the “Driving Results & Execution Excellence” category.
Airtel Lanka’s victory came following the successful recognition under two rounds of selection, where in the first round, a survey was conducted among each participant’s peers and subordinates. In the second round, the selected persons underwent interviews with the Governors of CLA.
These three participants stood out for their leadership styles, team management skills, strategy execution, focus on personal development and more.
Sharing his views on the victory, Eranda Siriwardena said that, “An effective strategy coupled with spot-on delegation of duties is a key winning factor seen at Airtel Lanka, and I am happy to have played a part in it.”
Fawaz Nizamdeen shared a similar remark to his win, “Without the support from management, that centres its operations on excellent customer satisfaction and a fantastic team that shares the same view, any business would fail to deliver a stellar customer experience.”
Furthermore, Duminda Akalanka noted, “I have always believed that relationships, maintained well over time, will bring about fruitful returns to all parties concerned. I am thankful to Airtel Lanka for accepting, supporting and nourishing my leadership which has in return brought us many successful long-term collaborations.”
On an individual level, the Great Manager Awards serves as an opportunity for each company to learn of its own managerial and leadership effectiveness quotient and assess itself when placed against the best in the country, identifying overall strengths and areas of development for the managerial pool within the company. In this there is also an opportunity to evolve higher engagement levels through building stronger managers and strengthen the manager community in the industry. The awards also serve the greater purpose of assessing the eco system of nurturing great managers and best practices amongst a wide spectrum of organizations in the country as a whole.
