Leadership

Corporate life often teaches us to be serious, professional, and process-driven. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, that's what keeps organizations running. But every once in a while, someone asks a simple question that everyone else has accepted as impossible. "Why can't we make this happen?" That's often the only difference between someone who follows a process and someone who leads. I witnessed this more than once. A stakeholder was visiting our India office. As always, the preparations were in full swing. Presentation decks were polished. Meeting rooms were booked. Leadership teams rehearsed talking points. The schedule was packed. The management team would, of course, get ample opportunities to interact with the visiting leader. The engineers, analysts, testers, and specialists—the people building the product every day—would probably only catch a glimpse of the visitor walking past. Interestingly, they never asked for much. They didn...

I was in Bengaluru for a day and had reached the office much earlier than usual. The floor was almost empty. Unoccupied cubicles stretched across the room, and an unusual silence filled the space. I settled at a desk and began my work. After a while, I glanced at my watch. By then, she should have arrived. There was still very little movement around, so I assumed she might be running late. Then I thought, why not go and see if she was already in? I didn’t know where her cabin was, so I simply walked around, looking. I found her deeply engrossed in work. I knocked gently and asked if I could come in. What followed was a warm conversation filled with catching up and easy laughter. Before I left for my desk, we agreed to have lunch together. She was my manager, someone in a senior position, while I was only beginning my professional journey. Yet, she never carried the weight of hierarchy. She was approachable, warm, and genuinely interested in people. At lunchtime, we headed to the office...