Nervousness, lesson in leadership
& how I bought my first 10 shares of a company
For the first time, I heard my heartbeat
without the aid of any medical instrument. As I looked around the big conference
room full of people in business suits with their imposing demeanor, I wondered
when will all this be over, while I knew the meeting with CFO of one of our major
clients would last for a couple of hours, every minute looked like frozen in
eternity. Ninety percent of people in room had a tag of VP and above, and I was
outranked by a mile in every sense of the word.
Everybody was either fiddling
with a phone or tapping away their laptop, it looked like air got sucked out of
the room and I felt suffocated. Only reassurance was my boss, who was kind enough
to sit beside me while we waited for the VIP contingent to arrive.
Suddenly the conference room door
flung open and came a gentleman with a beaming smile, looking at everybody’s
reactions I understood he is the big boss, everybody smiled, shook hands and
assured him everything is in place. This
man took time to shake hands with everyone, and when it was my turn, I just
wanted to say “nice to meet you” and go back to being nervous, he shook my
hands firmly with the same broad smile that he greeted others with, enquired of
my name, what I do and how long I have been in organization, and took time to
say, “ I was on an ops call, and got late, you know how it is” and I was in
operations and then with a pat on my shoulder, he moved on.
Suddenly I felt a new belonging
to the place, my lungs were filled with fresh air and I was ready to do my bit.
Event went as per schedule; I did my part (a small presentation) and we headed
to a coffee break. The same man who infused a sense of confidence came back with
a smile to mention, it was a job well done and I felt the ranking gap close in (while
till today, I am still outranked)
I learned enormously that day without
the regular learning template.
1. As
leaders all you need to have is a smile, a warm word and the connect with
whomsoever you are interacting, it has a magical spell on that person
especially if he is junior to you.
2. Make
the interaction real, spend that extra two minutes knowing the person and use
it rejuvenate him if you can (the ops call comment)
3. All
it takes from a leader is having that humane touch at every point of
interaction despite numerous pulls and pressures. For sure it will have a
positive impact on the team, I am not sure I would have done that presentation as
well as I did without that two-minute interaction.
So, I bought 10 shares of Infosys
when the person who infused confidence took over as the CEO. Yes, the man who
made me comfortable that day and left a lesson to carry on for life is Mr. Salil
Parekh. We both back then worked for Capgemini.
