Resilience & Leading: Learnings from Mithali Raj's talk at JFWTC

Sports and wars or sports-persons & military leaders – have always been great source of learning in leadership and management. We had a privilege and honor to host Ms. Mithali Raj – India’s cricket team captain for WODIs – and perhaps the most accomplished batswoman of all times – at our campus earlier today.

During 1.5 hours of moderated Q&A (moderated by my colleague Rwitam Mitra) and questions from audience, Mithali engaged and connected with audience through her candid & direct yet compassionate style. As she discussed her journey from a 14-year-old probable to the most accomplished Indian Captain (now 15th year running) – she left the audience with a lot to think about on various aspects of resilience, leadership & continuous learning. Here are a few nuggets I learnt today during those one & half hours:

1.      Passion vs. Emotion: Being passionate about profession/career/any aspect does not mean one has to be emotional about it. In fact, one should keep emotions out of any important decisions!

2.      Mentoring & Coaching: It could be about skills, but in today’s day & age of analytics & data, individuals may get quantitative data on their skills more easily than in the past. In such cases, role of mentors & coaches becomes nurturing mindset of young talent so that they learn to give their best in the face of adversity. I think this is an excellent way of looking at roles of mentors and coaches in any setting.

3.      Role of a Leader: Leaders’ role is to ensure his or her team members continue to learn and grow. Everyone can reach their full potential – but – will need different style of mentoring & leading, most will need space that their leaders have to provide. Insights & feedbacks are important, but compassion is more important. Insights without empathy is just criticism.

4.      Performing is key: Leader should lead by example. When one is in the game, one’s title, role, age, stature do not matter. What matters is whether one is giving their best. There will be ups & downs in performance – in any field. Must learn to move on and give your best every time. One can only control one’s effort and grit – not the outcome (win or loss) which depends on so many external factors beyond one’s control.

5.      Being judgmental is human: Let us remember we tend to be more judgmental about others – let us first look into ourselves.

6.      Inspiration & motivation: We don’t need to look for superheroes in Newspapers. Inspiration can come from anyone. Learn to appreciate beauty & magic of the world around you and you will never be short on inspiration.

7.      Receiving Feedback: Listen to all feedback but prioritize which ones you act upon. If the feedback is given to “bring you down” – don’t let it bother you; if feedback is given so that you can do better, do spend time thinking about how you would act on it.

And last but perhaps the most powerful advice of the day: On winning – Thank God and call your mother.

This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own views & thoughts and are not related to any of the organizations & institutions that I am/have been associated with and do not represent the views of the organizations or individuals mentioned & cited in this blog.