There comes a time in our lives when we need to move on. All

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great sportsmen have to move on one day, so do all corporate leaders.

Time does not wait for us to get our strategy right and to put the perfect processes in place.

How many of us might have thought cricket would never be the same after Sunil Gavaskar signed off in style.

But Indian cricket saw a number of young and dynamic cricketers emerge who turned Indian cricket on its head and took it to the pinnacle of glory.

Amongst these is Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. For him to have shone in an era when India had some of its greatest batsmen is by itself a testimony of his greatness. Many times we tend to confuse the word "good" with "great". If we sit down and analyse the quality of some of these men and frame "takeaways" for the corporate world, the results are enlightening. I have shared here my thoughts and if you actually set your mind you may find a lot of icons and begin to notice what contributed to their greatness.

So what is in Sachin's DNA that corporate leaders must note. The first and foremost quality that stands out when one thinks of Sachin is his humility. Simplicity is a great attribute for people who understand and know their job well since they can articulate what they want in a crisp and concise manner and lead the flock to the destination. When we hang up our boots, it's not the money that we have in our bank accounts that counts but the respect that we have garnered and the impact that we have created on individuals whose lives we have touched.

Passion for excellence -that difference between the 99 per cent that many people give in their corporate lives and wonder why they are not in the premier league because of that 1 per cent that someone else did. It is "the fire in the belly" that continuously eggs us to excel in anything we undertake and stretches our earlier challenging boundaries that we ourselves set.

The passion to excel has its roots in having pride. People who have a sense of pride would never settle for the next best option.

Quality is not an act, it is a habit. Quality may be viewed as a subset of dedication to excellence and, in my view, it is an art and not a science. One of the essentials to sustain in any environment is the ability to deliver anything with appropriate quality and consistently deliver to the promised quality. The other paradigm to quality is to remain relevant to the needs of the environment.

Disciplined preparation to face the match is another aspect. To quote Sachin here would be apt ­ "At least with me, the match starts much, much earlier than the actual match." Sehwag on Tendulkar mentioned ­ "He never comes late to any practice session, never comes late to the team bus, never comes late to any meeting -- he is always five minutes ahead of time. If you are disciplined, it shows you are organised. And then he is ready for anything on the cricket field." When we are disciplined and professional in our approach -- one would get respect not for the title we have but the manner in which we conduct ourselves. As corporate leaders we should learn to walk the talk and set an example for our people to follow.

If you turn to board rooms and review how many of us actually prepare for those two-hour meetings meticulously weaving through details, what would the honest answer be?

Concentration and dedication are intangibles, the deciding factors between who won and who lost. Recent scientific findings have proved that the brain cannot multi task beyond a certain degree. Some times people in the corporate world vie for positions and confuse it with dedication. Dedication often causes disruption in personal lives.

Ability to play on strengths of the team rather than focus on weaknesses would only enhance the team to give off its best. How many of us fail to work in teams recognising that for certain aspects? Are we bitten by the wrong attitude where we would rather deliver a 98 per cent alone rather than deliver over expected 100 per cent by focusing on individual strengths within the team? There is something unnerving about teaming up for certain larger-thanlife corporate leaders and they would rather focus on themselves. The only question is: Is that sustainable?" The experience that leaders get in an organisation needs to be passed on to its upcoming employees. It is important to have a good mentoring programme to pass on our experience to the younger lot. This would enable them to improve the quality of output.

While many management gurus advise us to "drop what worked in the past," mentors play a key role of providing an important emotional cushion for a leader to turn to in times of need.

In conclusion, for sustaining across various eras in this fast paced globalised corporate world, one must not stop shy of continuously reinventing oneself. To end with a Sachin's quote ­ "I always had a dream to play for India but I never let it put pressure on me. I hate losing and cricket being my first love, once I enter the ground it's a different zone altogether and that hunger for winning is always there."

The writer is deputy CEO and head, advisory services of KPMG, India.