Leadership

Curating a High Peformance Culture

Premise: Let’s talk about culture. What is it? How is it built? Who is responsible for it? How to change it? There is a multi-million-dollar consulting industry that exists to solely answer these questions. Every leader worth following grapples with these questions constantly. They are trying to get the culture just right for their teams, so that they can perform at their absolute best, without burning themselves out. There are some who believe that the culture of any organization is created by their leaders. It mimics the leader and the value system of the leader. Some believe that culture is […]

Leadership

Which Kind of Leader Are You — Performative or Authentic?

Earlier today I read a blog post on Gapingvoid – Show Don’t Sell. In the post, they share stories of leaders (Gandhi, George Washington and Julius Ceaser) and how they found the cure for the skepticism of those they wanted to lead was but ACTION. It is not enough to state our intention but follow it up with action that is consistent with the intention. I see this happen all around me. Leaders have great intentions (or ideas). They call for innovation but are not willing to risk failure. They call for camaraderie but incentivize competition amongst colleagues. They call […]

Leadership

Why the Best Leaders Build Structures That Disappear

During my regular walk yesterday, I passed a building under construction and saw that it was surrounded by a web of metal poles, planks, and cross-braces wrapping the structure like a second skin or in a word – Scaffolding. And when I saw it and thought about what role it plays in the construction or maintenance of the building, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities with leadership. Here is what I think scaffolding can teach us about being an effective leader or a leader worth following. What Scaffolding Actually Does Before we stretch the metaphor, it is worth being […]

Leadership

The Path to High Performance in an Uncertain World

Premise: Last week alone, I’ve had at least 5 conversations with leaders in different functions, all complaining about how they see the engagement among their teams going down significantly due to various reasons, including but not limited to current socio-economic and geo-political situations. I see this growing feeling of helplessness and loss of agency at every level in our society, not just in the business world. What is interesting is not the disengagement itself. It was how the leaders described it. Almost all of them attributed it to things outside their control — geopolitical uncertainty, economic anxiety, post-pandemic fatigue. This […]