India, Aug. 17 -- Questions about employee attrition have become increasingly common in leadership discussions. Organisations invest heavily in understanding why talented people leave and what it takes to persuade them to stay. During one such conversation recently, I found myself reflecting on a very different workplace culture I had experienced more than four decades earlier, when I began my career in the Railways.

A senior officer accompanied me during the daily rounds of the maintenance shed for the first two weeks. At the end of the fortnight, he simply said, "From Monday, you are on your own." The shed and its staff were now my responsibility. Yet I was never really alone. Whenever difficult issues arose-whether with the trade unio...