An evening with Ms Sangeeta Shankaran Sumesh
On Friday, July 14, we had an insightful session by Ms Sangeeta Shankaran Sumesh.
About Ms Sangeeta Shankaran Sumesh
Ms Sangeeta Shankaran Sumesh, known as “The Gain Enabler,” is a highly accomplished professional. With over 25 years of corporate experience, including her role as the Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer of Dun & Bradstreet Technologies, Ms Sangeeta brings a wealth of expertise to her clients.
As a Business & Leadership Coach, Ms Sangeeta is passionate about high performance leadership. Ms Sangeeta’s mission is to help corporate leaders and teams shine and succeed.
Throughout her career, Ms Sangeeta has received numerous accolades for her outstanding contributions. She has been honoured with the Nightingale Award by The Society of Auditors. She has also been recognized as a Leading Woman Chief Financial Officer and an Innovator in Finance. Ms Sangeeta has also been named one of the “100 inspiring authors of India” and received the Outstanding Professional award by FICCI.
Ms Sangeeta is a Chartered Accountant, Management Accountant, and an executive education graduate from Harvard Business School. She is also a Professional Certified Coach from the International Coaching Federation (PCC), a TEDx & Global Professional Speaker, and a bestselling author.
Get high
Suppose we achieve something we thought we were not capable of achieving. Or say we keep getting and getting better at what we are doing. These are examples of what can make us “Get high.” All of us can “Get high”. It is entirely in our hands.
High performance leadership
Think of Kapil Dev leading India to victory in the 1983 World Cup. One man influenced his team members, inspired their confidence and made an unimaginable impact. Or take the example of former President APJ Abdul Kalam. He kept growing in stature through his career, even as he inspired people around him and went on to become the President of India.
The four pillars of business growth
The four pillars are:
- Leadership
- Strategy
- High Performance
- Finance
Leaders strategize for financial success.
Leaders build high performance teams.
Leaders and the teams together achieve financial success for the business.
The foundation for success is provided by business partnering. We must work together to achieve the desired outcome. No one person will have all the capabilities.
High performance is nothing but achieving superior results by performing at a high standard as per the set target. High performance leadership is about having a clear vision and inspiring others for growth.
An inspiring story
Consider the story of two princes. They were good friends and getting ready to take charge of their respective kingdoms. Unfortunately, the kingdom of one prince was suddenly attacked and conquered and his father was killed. The prince lost everything.
In desperation, the prince reached out to his friend. Like a true friend, the other prince came to the rescue. He provided 100 sheep to his friend in distress. Unfortunately, the prince did not take care of the sheep properly. Wolves came and devoured them in no time.
The prince once again approached his benefactor and narrated the story. This time, he was given 50 sheep. Again, the prince was not equal to the task. The wolves attacked and killed all the sheep.
For a third time, the prince asked for help. This time, he was given 25 sheep. But he was determined to do better. He watched all the other shepherds, learnt from them, and took good care of the sheep. Not only did the sheep survive but they also multiplied in number. Soon he had 1000 sheep. The prince went to report what had happened to his friend. The friend was very happy and told him he would entrust him with a portion of the kingdom.
This is a great example of how leaders can inspire others to do better. They do this not through micromanagement but by letting people evolve and find their way even as they continue to provide the necessary support.
The building blocks of high-performance leadership
Ms Sangeeta held a 2 day offsite for the pan India leadership team of the RPG Group. The group has realized the need for high-performance leadership and building high performance teams. Ms Sangeeta explained how this is possible:
Harness team energy: it is important to leverage the strengths of the team. Everybody’s energy should be channelised.
Freedom to try new things: People should be encouraged to try new things and failures should be tolerated.
Continuous improvement: People must keep getting better at what they do.
Learning drive: It is important for people to stay updated.
Emotional Intelligence: There is a growing recognition of the importance of EI.
Outcome orientation: People should know why they are doing what they are doing, i.e. be clear about the desired outcome.
High Performance and Leadership
High Performance Leadership and Strategy
Ms Sumesh introduced a handy acronym that links leadership to strategy.
S: Self- We must know how to lead ourselves so that we can inspire others.
T: Teams- We must lead our team effectively.
O: Organization- We must know how to lead the entire organization.
C: Change- We must be able to lead change.
K: Keys- We must define our own keys for high performance leadership.
In short, we must take “STOCK” of our strategy and leadership style!
Distinguishing high performance leadership skills
Leads by example: People look up to the leader.
Inspires the team: Leaders should inspire their team members and leverage their strengths.
Listens: Without listening, we cannot understand the team members, their aspirations, and what is in their mind.
Questions: It is important to ask powerful questions that make people think, reflect, and then act.
Builds trust: People should feel psychologically safe.
Support: Leaders should support team members especially in times of need.
Communication: Effective communication is the key to getting things done.
Connecting: Leaders must build rapport and bridges with the team members.
Leading high-performance teams
Ms Sangeeta summed up the deliberations at the CXO Club on growing leadership skills.
Listen: There is a need to improve listening skills.
Appreciate: it is important to appreciate the efforts of team members.
Learn: Continuous learning and updating is a necessity today.
Eg0: Ego tends to grow with experience. We must put our go aside and learn from younger people.
Mindful: We should be mindful in our behaviours.
Concluding remarks
Ms Sangeeta concluded her presentation with another interesting story.
A group of traders who were crossing a desert lost their way. A guide promised to help them find their way. The weather was hot during the day. So he suggested that they would ride a camel during the nights and take rest during the day. The leader and the other traders agreed to the proposal. On the first two nights, things went smoothly as per plan. On the third night, the tired traders fell asleep as they were riding and the camels lost their way and came back to the starting point.
All the traders started blaming the leader. More so as there was no water left. The leader kept his cool. He saw a tuft of grass and realized that there would be water underneath. He asked the group to start digging. When they could not find water after digging for two hours, they again started blaming the leader. But the leader could hear water flowing and realized that a rock was blocking the passage. He asked his men to dig through the rock. Water started flowing out. Now everybody began to praise the leader.
This story, which ended on a happy note, illustrates that leaders should not give up easily. They must keep persevering and try to get people behind them so that they can achieve the goals with the support of their team.
Q&A
Ms Sangeeta spent 25 years in her corporate career. During the last 5 years, she started asking herself what her purpose was. She realized that she wanted to leverage her knowledge and coaching skills to help a business & leaders to succeed. So, she decided to become a coach. The decision was not easy as it is always difficult to give up a comfortable corporate job.
In response to another question, Ms Sangeeta mentioned that her days as an ICWAI student taught her important life lessons. She sailed through the Inter level with minimal preparation. This made her overconfident and she could not clear the final level in two attempts. The experience taught her that attitude is important. We must approach any situation with the right attitude to overcome hurdles in our way.
Others are usually better at identifying our strengths. As leaders, we should appreciate the strengths of our team members be it written communication, team management, conflict management or negotiation. It is important to realize that everyone has talent. Leaders are made, not born. By learning continuously through reading, reflecting, and taking feedback, everyone can develop into a good leader.
A mentor is someone who has been there and done it. A mentor chooses a mentee out of interest and advises the mentee based on experience. A mentor must be willing to accept a mentee.
Coaching is about acting as a partner and a sounding board to the coachee, enhance their awareness and facilitating reflection. The belief of coaching is that there is a solution to any problem. A coach helps us to take the path that needs to be taken.
All of us have some limitations. The key question to ask is whether the limitations are hindering good performance. We should not waste time dealing with limitations that are not relevant to our role. Eg. public speaking is not an essential skill for many managers. If a limitation needs fixing, it is important to have the right mindset to overcome them. We must constantly motivate ourselves to improve and surround ourselves with the right people.
Later, Prof Prasad added that we must have more conversations with people who lack confidence. We must show empathy. We should not hesitate to talk about areas of improvement, though in a professional way.
Leadership skills are not scarce in our country. But we need to channelize the energy of people in the right direction. We must align everyone with the common goals and objectives. If different people have different agendas and ego comes in the way, the desired outcomes cannot be achieved. A coach can facilitate the discussions and enable this alignment around a common goal. Unlike western countries, where coaching is accepted, it is still evolving in India. Many people are not coachable as they are not serious about getting better. We must make people aware of the benefits of coaching. Even Steve Jobs and senior Google executives have benefited from coaching. If they can benefit, so can we.
Burnouts come from stress which is often due to comparison and unhealthy competition. High Performance Leadership is all about “you vs you” and not “you vs others”. It is less about competing with others and more about ongoing improvement towards excellence. If we know what we want to achieve, give ourselves a reasonable time frame and support each other, there is no need for a burnout.
Leadership skills are not all that different across age groups. What is important is to pick up the skills that are needed. We must be clear about what we have and what is missing. The younger generation today is smart, intelligent and tech savvy. They are full of creativity and energy. But it is also prone to instant gratification and wants everything quickly. This generation is also not very responsive to criticism / feedback. And often they get distracted by social media and lose focus.
Young people should have role models. They could be family members, friends, professors, etc. They can identify traits that are important and try to develop them.
What works today is adaptive leadership. Young people have their own aspirations and priorities. We must adapt ourselves to achieve what we want. We should not expect the team members to adapt themselves. It is by adapting ourselves that we can bring out the best in our team members.
Insecurity is quite common. That is why some leaders feel threatened when some of their team members start doing well. Leaders need to shift their mindset from competition to collaboration. If more people work together, it will lead to great outcomes.
The job of a leader is to produce more leaders. That is possible when team members can start doing things independently. That is the only way to scale up leadership. Insecurity will only confuse team members and derail leadership development.
Despite doing well, we often rate ourselves lower than what we are. This syndrome is common and more so among women. We should step back and look at the reality. Then we will not be over judgmental. People who underestimate themselves also try to be popular among colleagues. They can leverage this goodwill to their advantage.
Some leaders push people hard and achieve results. Ideally, we should take people along and not put them under too much pressure. Level 5 leadership is preferable to Level 4 leadership. But the style chosen would typically depend on the culture of the organization. The behaviours of people at the top tend to get replicated across the organization.
This is an extremely important topic not only from the company’s point of view but from the point of view of sustainability of our planet. Organizations must have their own checklist (travel waste, etc) to assess how they are faring. Sometimes, environmental impact may be unavoidable. In that case, companies must offset the impact with initiatives such as tree plantation (particularly relevant for the aper industry.) It is also important to make people aware of ESG.