Tag: culture

Leadership

Good Leadership

I found this note and a bottle of perfume in my hotel room, given as a gift by the housekeeper, one with whom I had a short interaction. I don’t know if this was something that he did on his own or was asked to do this as part of a process. Irrespective of that, I felt good. I wrote a thank you note, told the cashier when I was checking out, shared this story with at least 10 of my colleagues and now I am sharing it here. If this was a personal initiative of Kunal, it shows that […]

Leadership

7 Powerful Questions Your Team Needs You to Ask

Premise A long time back, my first manager asked me a series of interesting questions. I had all but forgotten about them. I recently stumbled onto my old notes and realised that I had listed down those questions. I am adding a few questions of my own, based on my experience, both as someone who reports to a manager and my experience as a leader. I think all of us leaders could learn and would do well if we ask these questions to those we lead. Questions to ask and Ponder 1. How stressed are you? What is causing the […]

Leadership

Failure happens. What can we learn from it?

In this comic drawn by Michael Meier, Sanjay Khosla, a senior fellow and adjunct professor at the Kellogg School, lays out lessons that you can take away from five common leadership failures. Below is the comic strip. Conclusion: In conclusion, I am reminded of something that I once shared with my team: “If you are not making mistakes, you aren’t pushing boundaries and so not growing. If you are making the same mistakes, you are not learning and so not growing” Mukesh gupta

Leadership

Storytelling and Leadership

As leaders, one of our primary responsibility is to share ideas and our vision in a manner that those we lead can not only remember in full but also be able to spread it further as and when required. The best way to do so is through the medium of stories. Over the next few posts, we will explore the kinds of stories we need to be able to tell and on the art and science of storytelling and how we can get better at it.

Leadership

Being a Good Leader is Hard Because

Effective leadership demands mastery in various areas: making tough decisions with limited information, fostering self-awareness, ensuring the welfare of others, practicing active listening, cultivating high performance, upholding organizational culture, remaining humble yet driven, building trust, managing conflict, aligning team and individual goals, hiring sagely, bringing appropriate energy, learning from successes and failures, treating everyone equally, inviting feedback, seeing potential, setting high standards, expanding influence, clearing team obstacles, taking accountability for failures, and adeptly switching between numerous roles as required.