Being a Leader!!

It's been a while since I picked a topic to write, this is one of the closest topics to my heart as I have been lucky enough to have worked with some of the greatest leaders in the industry who have taught me many important lessons on leadership!!

"Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others." -Jack Welch, I hope to inspire many young leaders & first-time managers with some of the life lessons that have made me one of the sought after mentors today;)

Lesson No.1: Be child-like "Curious" - this is one the biggest lesson I have learnt since a lot of times we will be under this bubble that Iam a leader & should know the answers for every problem, which only builds unnecessary stress & nothing else. Its ok not to know all the answers, it only builds your team bonding & trust to look for the answers "together". Now with more Gen Zs at the workplace it's very important to be more open minded interms of the ideas & learning since trust me on this you will get to learn a lot from them:)..

Lesson No.2: Celebrate Success, hold their back during failures: This is one of the most valuable lessons I learnt from one of my earliest mentors at Scaleneworks, even if you miss being there to celebrate success never miss to be there by your team's side when they fail since this is the most painful experience for anyone to go through.

Lesson No.3: Be approachable, humans are social beings which means communication is one of the most important aspect for people which also includes your team members, this not only builds an open culture where they not only feel heard & valued but also builds the team morale & collaborative work culture.

Lesson No.4: Listen, many of you would agree with me that this skill is loosing its true sense in today's fast paced world..how many of you can resonate with me that our grandmothers & mothers made better listeners than us, its surely not because they didn't have other things to do but because they genuinely cared about us & our lives.

Lesson No.5: Empathy is generally described as the ability to take on another's perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience, this becomes an important skill if you have to win your team's trust & build strong bonding since I think that its human to do mistakes but it takes courage to learn from it, take feedbacks positively & implement the one's necessary.

Lesson No.6: Invest Time, Iam sure you will agree with me that it takes time for a seed to grow into a sapling & then into a tree or a flowering plant. Likewise, I strongly believe that it will take countless hours that you spend with your team to inspire, help & encourage them to grow into great leaders.

Lesson No.7: Lead by Example, “Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others, it is the only means.” – Albert Einstein, this quote beautifully explains the topic - one has to be ready to make your hands dirty before you influence others to follow you.

Lesson No.8: Courage, as a leader life puts you through challenging & tough situations where you will be left alone to make the choice between two options - though you may not always be able to make the winning choice, but you should always have the courage to make the choice.

Lesson No.9: Integrity, this is nothing but the true values we learnt from our parents & teachers - to be honest and trustworthy no matter what situation you are in. It basically defines one's character, which is always valued with utmost respect from everyone right from your family to workplace.

Lesson No.10: Strong Purpose, trust me guys this by far is one of the greatest aspects of leadership since being in top needs a lot of sacrifice & efforts. Sometimes it can be a very lonely experience too, hence unless you have a strong reason why you started it all - it can get very stressful & hectic but if you have a true purpose this journey can be most fruitful with a sense of achievement.

Lesson No.11: Delegate, this is again one of the most important lessons to remember especially for early managers to realize that no matter how heroic you are, you cannot win alone - you will only win as team & loose as a team. Hence learn to delegate & ask for help always.

Lesson No.12: Keep Learning, as you move over from Project A to Project B we build the project, find solutions to the problems we encounter, learn from our mistakes, build stronger & more robust process, document & relearn - we call this "Project Memory" which acts as a repository for future projects.

This apart life is all about learning, I would like to leave you with this thought "The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing." — Voltaire