Recently featured on Pitney Bowes intranet in Manager Soundbites series

Manager soundbites - Sagar Belkhede

Sagar Belkhede - Senior Manager, Product Support has been with PB since June of 2013. He and his team of 51 are based out of Pune, India. Belkhede's team supports approximately 40+ products including IOP, GCS, GSP (XBEC), SendSuite, Confirm OnDemand, Spectrum OnDemand, Sendpro, components of Pb Commerce Cloud, Borderfree Retail and others.

 Sagar picked the topic of leadership.

 What is one leadership lesson you learned/practice in your career that you feel is the key driver behind your team’s engagement?

During my 3 years at Pitney Bowes, I have learned many lessons about leadership. During this time, I have also been trusted with independence & autonomy to carry out the responsibilities of leadership for my team.

If I analyse these 3 years, the core aspect that helps me keep the team engaged is to focus on the growth of individual team members. When a team knows that their leader’s primary concern is their growth (of both themselves & the team) they naturally put out their best effort.

Here are some key bullet points outlining what I practice in terms of growing my team both individually and collectively:

•  Unlearn certain listening patterns: Usually we hear what we want to hear which may often result in incorrect conclusions. I am trying to practice listening without adding my own personal filters.
•  Losing Prejudice: Analysing people and situations as they are rather than doing so based on preconceived notions.
•  Social Connections: Trying to understand everyone’s growth needs and expectations by connecting to all the team members at personal level. I also try to understand the support system they need to grow.
•  Losing “Control”: To create team leaders, the current leader has to lose control and pass it on the team so they can learn to function independently. The leader has to be a guide, an advisor and a safety net for them while in transition.

Another aspect that is key to being a successful leader is practicing technical and operational excellence. Without these basic skills, leaders would spend more time putting out fires than accomplishing goals.

I firmly believe that these aspects help me as a leader and keep my team engaged. 

To keep my own engagement levels high it is my opinion that there is no such thing as work-life balance (meaning separation). To me, work is a part of life so you must be engaged in all aspects of your life!

 What was the last book you read that you found interesting, and why?

Currently I am reading a book titled “Inner Engineering” by Sadhguru. This book talks about how we Engineer things around us; a science for our own inner engineering. It focuses on how to align the body, mind, emotions and our inner energy to tap into the limitless power and possibilities of human existence and how one can be a source of his own joy and well-being.