Reflecting on life lessons in Leadership

On Friday, I had the opportunity to be a Guest Speaker for a "Women in Leadership" class at University of Colorado Boulder - Leeds School of Business .

Leadership is a topic that you can never learn enough about. One of the courses in my Executive MBA curriculum is Leadership, and I am amazed at how many new concepts I learn from it. So, in this session, I focused on sharing my leadership development journey and lessons life has taught me so far.

As I walked out of the session. I was energized. The well-articulated questions from the young, to-be engineering and business grads illustrated the clarity and enthusiasm they had. I am optimistic for what the leadership scene looks like for the next generation!

These were some of the perspectives I talked about and I was thankful for the events and people that taught me these.

• Align towards a common goal by creating clarity, taking responsibility and promoting teamwork
• Build trust and leverage relationships
• Work through others - coach, support and delegate
• Confidence in self and others, but watch out for ego
• Emotional intelligence - Self awareness, adaptability, empathy and communication
• Integrity and Bias for action

And finally, a topic I have written about before?- Leaders needs to adjust their styles based on the situation!?

Since this was a Women in Leadership class, I also thought about what, if any lessons I have learnt being a woman leader. In spite of being applicable to all leaders and not just women, these two thoughts stood out:

• Facts over emotions - Using arguments rooted in data and not feelings
• Leverage your unique strengths - Alter the mould, do not fit yourself in it

Preparing for the session made me realize that each one of us have events shaping us throughout our life that are more powerful than any text or article on leadership. What are some leadership lessons life has taught you ? And what are some qualities you think are important as a woman leader?