Nervousness, lesson in leadership & how I bought my first 10 shares of a company

 

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.