Tag: Leadership

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

Lessons in Life and Leadership from the Game “Snakes and Ladders”

When I was young, we used to play this game of Snakes and ladders. It was one of the best pastimes I had. So, I look at it with a lot of fond memories. Yesterday, I stumbled onto this version of the game and it made me think a lot about how insightful the game was at multiple levels. The game offered insightful glimpses into life, risk and a lot more. As I have mentioned before, as humans, we are meaning making creatures. As leaders, we would all do really well to make our own meaning of this game and […]

Leadership

Stories Provide Emotional Transport for Ideas!

Stories are powerful because they provide emotional transport to ideas. Emotions, specially strong one’s, have the ability to leave their imprints on our psyche. So, if we are in the business of spreading ideas or innovation, we need to get better at telling stories. If we are in the business of building influence, we need to get better at telling stories. If we are in the business of leading and want to share our visions, we need to get better at telling stories. If we are in the business of inspiring people, we need to get better at telling stories. […]

Leadership

Leaders are Not Great, Leadership Could Be

I stumbled onto an interview with Simon Sinek where he shared his thoughts on what does it take to become a great leader. You can watch the video here. One of his core insight is that leadership requires courage, courage to do the right thing under pressure, courage to stand up to what we think is the right thing to do, courage to make the tough decisions with limited information, courage to set a direction and march forward (believing that it is the right direction), courage to give credit when things go well and take the heat when things don’t […]