What do leaders do? Leaders inspire. Leaders mould character, personality and mindset. Leaders ooze an aura which rubs off on others who come in contact. And best of all, leaders build more leaders all the time. Strong leaders uplift and empower people in every one of their interactions while the bozos drain confidence and engagement of the individual and the team.

Frankly, after working all these years, I can't emphasise more the importance of the opportunity to work with a great leader. I would go so far as to say you've probably got be be lucky to get this opportunity. It's like having great parents. You really can't choose your parents. But who would deny the huge importance of the role a parent plays in the child's upbringing? Just as a child learns from early observation, from what the parents value, how parents really walk the talk, it's exactly the same in the workplace. And lest you forget, just like at home, the initial years are really the formative ones where most of the values and attitude is pretty much formed for the rest of your career.

In the early stages of my career, I was stepping into the industry with enthusiasm but an equal portion of nervousness and a bunch of uncertain questions - What does it mean to work for a company? What would I be required to do? Would I be successful? I didn't know then but I think I was plain lucky to have had the chance to meet one of the outstanding leaders and mentors at the initial stages of my career. He was the Head of a Customer Support function in one of the early companies I worked for. Here, as someone new to the trade, I got my first lessons on leadership.

So - what set him apart really?

A Role-Model: The confidence with which he could take on any problem, his knowledge about the domain(he could rip a whole line printer apart and put every screw back as it was complete with all the alignments), his patience and stamina to keep working at a problem tirelessly for hours until he could put his finger on the source of the issue, his passion and curiosity to tinker with stuff to discover more were a source of inspiration to just about anyone who worked with him. One of the other things I remember about him was his fearlessness. Being in the Customer Support function, facing the heat on urgent Customer problems was a normal feature. Even in the most intense situations, he would completely shield his team from all the fire to ensure we worked peacefully on fixing the problem without getting perturbed with the heat. I can tell you it wasn't easy especially when I see I lot of "leaders" today who are quick to pass pressure to the team to keep looking good when things go rough.
- Question to ask ourselves: Do I inspire commitment, performance in my people by example? Am I hands-on at the core? Am I truly fearless when it comes to doing the right thing for the company even in the most challenging situations?

A Coach: Encountering problems of all kinds was an everyday feature in our jobs but no answers to problems would be served on a platter - not from him. While working on a design of a toubleshooting fixture I approached him with a challenge I was facing. He wouldn't give me the answer rightaway even though he knew it all along. He instead would ask a series of questions which would eventually lead me to the best approach. When it came to giving feedback, especially negative feedback, he wasn't soft with words. I recall he banged me real hard once after I made the same mistake twice while I chose a wrong size screw for fixing a hard disk in the computer chassis. I was of course heartbroken, but almost immediately he was back with a pack of peanuts as if nothing had happened and we were back on the job. "Use the right tools and the right components for the job. Don't take short cuts." he'd say. I remember the lesson to this day.
- How many of us take a genuine interest in mentoring someone today and can handle giving negative feedback periodically, immediately and with authenticity?

You learn faster about leadership watching a leader in action than from the books and in my case these invaluable elementary lessons stuck with me all through these years. More on this later,

Till then, My Best,

-Deepak