Leadership - Rohit Prabhakar

The Tale Of Vintage Watch Gift And Leadership Principles

August 29, 2020 by Rohit Leave a Comment

There are moments in our lives that define or redefine our leadership principles and our lives. One such incident just happened and brought me back to my core values. One of my previous direct reports came to meet me and gifted something very special. He appreciated me for my leadership style of transparency, empathy, trust and getting the best out of people. It was a humbling and life redefining moment for me! As it was was a redefining moment hence thought of sharing here.

TISSOT NAVIGATOR SEASTAR T12, AUTOMATIC 24H — Vintage watch gifted by my team member

The Gift

This is a priceless gift for me as he invested thoughts, money and then loads of time. This is a 1970 vintage watch that he bought online for approx. $500-$1000. He spent lot of time cleaning the inside mechanism, restoring the outside/bezel and installing a brand new leather band. He loves to restore vintage watches and this one was very special for him. As per him he went through all this labor because he appreciates my friendship, leadership and the value I have added. I may never be able to repay him for this gift and I doubt if I ever added that much value into his life.

At this time you must be thinking, how is this vintage watch related to my leadership principles? Please trsut me and stay with me for another minute.

Leadership Principles

Since early childhood, I have lead teams at school, college, community and now in the professional world. All these years I have built my list of leadership principles that I lead with on a daily basis. These are leadership principles that I either discovered (not invented) in the process or learned from other leaders by following or reading books on leadership. Here are my top 10 leadership principles:

Be the example of the culture you want to build in your team and remembered for
Respect your team members in every situation
Lead with empathy and transparency as it builds TRUST in short and long term
Operate with accountability
Enable performance by promoting the culture of short term wins and celebrating them as a team
Focus on the strengths of your team members. Only coach them in areas of weakness if it is hurting or will hurt them
Feedback is a gift. Be vulnerable as a leader and allow your team members their feedback on you
Follow the principles of situational leadership
Be humble, invest in continuous learning
Have fun with your team. Culture is not built while you are working on the projects but when you are not. Find opportunities to have fun time, learn about them, their families, journeys, aspirations etc.

The connection

So here comes the link between the two that I promised you earlier......

We all live in real-world where we often swim with sharks. I have been going through some rough patches in my life and questioning my leadership principles. I have been questioning their validity in the corporate world where there is a cut-throat competition. What matters in those environments is goals/numbers in each quarter, your perception among your seniors and peers and much more. Questions that have been bothering me for months are: Do I need to change to survive and be successful in the corporate world? Do I need to change my leadership principles and be one of the “sharks”? Do I need to stop being that “Nice Guy”, “servant leader”, “Strength finder”?

...Here is the connection back to the wonderful gift. I am glad you waited and continued the journey to see how this all connects...

This thoughtful gift and the humbling incident brought me back on-track. It answered my questions that I must continue to be who I am. I am defined by the principles, beliefs and values that I have lived with. Yes, I evolve those to become better as per the North Star of my life but I cannot change them completely or in the opposite direction. These are the leadership principles that align with my True North.

This team member appreciated me and gave me such a thoughtful gift because he likes to be led with these leadership principles. These leadership principles have enabled him during those years when was part of my team and believed in him, trusted him and enabled him. We have always been a family that works hard, extra hard in times of need, backs-up each other, and then have fun together.

When I retire from my professional career, I will like to be remembered for the value I created in the life of my fellow co-workers and the organizations. I will like to be known for the value I gave back to the community that I helped me become better every day. I will like to be known for the smiles I brought, careers I enabled and dreams I helped to come to life for my family, friends and colleagues.

Closing thoughts

Only existing or new leadership principles can help me reach my True North and not some shallow principles that may help me be temporarily successful. This gift empowered me to continue believing in my leadership principles. It forced me to think again about my end game and not just this small destination which is part of my long journey. Once-again I believe in the power of my decades-old leadership principles!

I hope my story inspires you to question yourself and identify your leadership principles. What will you like to be remembered for? What are the memories you want to retire with? How many lives do you want to touch & add value? I hope you will share your story one day and inspire me!

Edification

June 6, 2012 by Rohit Prabhakar Leave a Comment

?Mark of the leader is the way he our she edifies others. Mostly we are in a habit of bringing down others most of the time. Rarely we see few who have a

Difference between Leadership and Management

September 16, 2011 by Rohit Prabhakar Leave a Comment

Management: Set of processes that aim to take an organization and make it functional as it was designed for.The processes like planning, budgeting, organizing, customer relationship, sales, automation, staffing, problem solving etc. Leadership: The ultimate aim of leadership is to visualize and effectively lead the organization to the next level. Processes like creating the vision of future, strategy to get there, communicate to people in a way that they buy into it and motivate those people to implement it, create and update the systems that managers use to manage. Hopefully you will not confuse the both with each other now and be sure that when recruiting for senior executive positions you are just not hiring managers but more importantly Leaders too!

Success Plan: Tuesday Morning Coaching

September 15, 2011 by Rohit Prabhakar Leave a Comment

“In just 2 days of reading the chapter “Focus inside the boat” I have seen a big change in myself as I always thought the time management is a skill that I need to work on. But the reality was I need to learn attention management!”

This book is among the top ten books in my reading list. Every chapter is worth reading and especially the one which asks to focus inside the boat. This book is must read for anyone who looks forward to improve in all domains of life. Anyone who is going through some professional or personal challenges must read it right now!

Here are the eight lessons that the books shares as a Sucess Plan:

No matter what – I accept responsibility and move forward.
And then some – I give what is expected and then some.
Consider it done- I am consistent and dependable
Above all else- I adhere to my values
From now on- I learn from my mistakes and welcome change
See it, feel it, trust it, do it – I am a champion goal setter
Focus inside the boat- I manage my attention and defeat procrastination
Knowledge is power – I am a lifelong learner

All Thanks to

Lessons from a CEO, Multi Millionaire and a Visionary

May 20, 2011 by Rohit Prabhakar 6 Comments

1. Weekly Self Assessment of things well done!
2. Change as soon as you find things are not working.

The following is how I understood these 2 lessons:

Sometime every week we should regularly asses our self for not only what we did wrong but especially what did we did right. Once we get into a habit of this we can know what we can continue doing for better and better results. As with time with things working well we forget the basics. This is all about keeping the basics that made the things go North. It is all about persistence and the power of compounding.
As soon as you find things are not working as expected, change the factors in the equation. It is all about facing the challenge face-on and not delaying it to further time in a hope that it may get resolved on its own.

Uplift and Inspire

October 4, 2010 by Rohit Prabhakar 8 Comments

I watched them tearing a building down,
A gang of men in a busy town,
With a ho heave ho and a lusty yell,
They swung a beam and a side wall fell
And I asked the foremen, “Are these men skilled,
The men he’d hire if he had had to build?”
He gave a laugh and said, “No indeed!
Just a common laborer is all I need.
I can easily wreck in a day or two
What builders have taken a year to do.”
I asked myself as I went my way,
Which of these roles have I tried to play.
Am I a builder who works with care,
Measuring life with rule and square?
Or am I a wrecker as I walks the town ,
Content with the labor of tearing down.
-Unknown Author

I read this wonderful poem and could not stop myself from sharing this. From a book titled “8 Attributes of Great Achievers” by Cameron C. Taylor

Duck can never become an Eagle: Accept the reality if you are a leader!

June 8, 2010 by Rohit Prabhakar 7 Comments

If you love to train people and motivate them to a higher level of performance remember one golden rule “Ducks never become Eagles”. I have wasted many hours while trying to motivate some ducks as I always failed doing that.

The first obvious question should be “How to identify a duck?”Ducks always have one or the other excuse. Some of the common duck sentences are:

Oh! I can’t do more I am too much busy. (Busy doing what? Playing Farmville/ Poking friends on Facebook!)
Oh! I don’t think this is the right time
Oh! I am comfortable doing what I am doing
Oh! I think I can’t do it
Oh! This is not made for me / I am not made for this

Even if a Duck will say yes it will love to swim and expect the team to fly!

The reason why a duck cannot be an Eagle as it has been made that way and it has lived that way. Duck will always like to Swim rather than fly but an Eagle will always fly, NO MATTER WHAT! If you try and use your best resources to make a duck fly like eagle, it will not.

You will not agree to me and say that “the leader should think for the positive and the best for others! Leader takes people from where they are to where they want to go!” I totally agree but my dear friend you must also remember that Leader’s first responsibility is to define REALITY- AS IT IS! And the reality is that duck is a duck and it only wants to swim not fly. It will only fly for a very short term and for a very short PERSONAL gain. A duck does not want to go anywhere except somewhere in the small lake it is in.

As a leader I always first identify who is the right person for the right thing. Once I identify that a person is an Eagle I work on taking that person to the next performance levels. I have practiced this in my profession as well as in the team at the social organization where I have lead since I was 15. Over there I helped in finding and mentoring leaders who performed to impossible limits. It was only there when I was 21, that I figured that I can never make duck an Eagle. Since then I have never tried to work on making a Duck and Eagle as it is against the Laws of Nature as they are two totally different species.

As John Maxwell says “Never try to do this, you will make the Eagles feel frustrated!”