A generalist who specialized each time

Tapan Singhel, MD & CEO of Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, deep dives and explains the leadership perspectives on specialization, standardization, innovation, empathy, etc:

- Ravi Lalwani

Ravi Lalwani: What differences in leadership capabilities do you see between generalists and specialists? Have the differences narrowed or widened over the last few years? Will Generative AI change this trend?

Tapan Singhel: In my opinion, both generalists and specialists have distinct and valuable roles. They are unique in their skill set, capability, and the tasks they can perform. Specialists possess deep knowledge in a specific area, making them indispensable for tasks requiring detailed expertise. For example, an automobile engineer handling motor claims would be more competent than a person who does not understand the intricacies of vehicles. Hence, a specialist in such cases is more skilled in their respective fields or specialized roles than a generalist. That does not mean that a generalist does not understand; it’s just that a specialist is someone with a specific skill set, which gets sharpened by doing a particular role repeatedly, thus gaining experience, unique perspectives, and mastery in some form of it.

Generalists, on the other hand, can take up multiple tasks, multiple teams, and multiple responsibilities. I look at generalists as great multi-taskers, but more than that, ideally, I see them as good managers of people. For example, I can have a generalist who understands sales, a generalist who can go and take care of product development (with a basic technical background), the same generalist who can go and handle human resources, or maybe even oversee projects.