holdyourthoughts

There are tons and tons of books on leadership and what makes a successful leader. It has spawned an industry of "leadership consultants" who help manufacture leaders! But, stripped of all fancy nomenclature, I believe leadership boils down to four key traits. Here they are: Vision All great leaders have a compelling vision of the future that they use to energize people. They can visualize something which others cannot. e.g. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela could see freedom for their people. Steve Jobs could "see" his products before even it was on the drawing board. Conviction/Passion Vision without conviction is just a dream. Great leaders have always believed in their vision and have faced numerous odds against them. e.g. Henry Ford during his initial days of Model-T when no one believed in him. Warren Buffet, when he started his investment partnerships, when his father and his mentor both warned him against it. Integrity People may follow so...

From Fortune magazine: The Best Advice I Ever Got

I came across some very nice quotes on the web.  Some were really good and worth repeating. Figure out what the top five most important stuff is, focus relentlessly on that and keep iterating. Less is more. -- Daniel Ek, CEO, Spotify  My personal limit is upto 3 concurrent goals. It gets much much more complicated if it grows more than that. Have 3-4-5 (whatever suits you fine) goals that are top of the list and focus on them wholeheartedly. Don’t let people tell you your ideas won’t work. If you have a hunch that something will work, go build it. Ignore the haters. -- Dennis Crowley, CEO, FourSquare  There will always be naysayers. It's more important to believe in yourself and do what you think is right. End of the day you are only answerable to yourself, and no one else. Follow your gut. it may be wrong, but you won’t regret it if you fail. You’ll regret it if you ignore your gut and fail. -- Sarah Lacy, CEO, PandoDaily  Follow your instincts, but up...

I keep a list of things that I like doing. At the beginning of every week, I make sure I put atleast one thing from that list into my calendar. Some of the things I have on that list are: reading detective novels (preferably Agatha Christie!!),  watching a detective or thriller movie,  playing tennis,  watching tennis!!,  speaking to close friends (the good old adda ),  having a cup of self-made  darjeeling tea,  reading investment books and reports,  playing with my son, reading him stories listening to songs from Kishore Kumar the list goes on... It is important to do things that you love frequently. It refreshes and recharges you.

I came across this incredible presentation on doing the impossible. Each of the quotes is soul-inspiring. Do The IMPOSSIBLE

Here are three tips that i have personally benefited a lot from at work. Read through your emails 2-3 times a day Stop checking your emails every few minutes. I use Lotus Notes for work emails and had replication set to 1 minute. Now, I have moved away from those crazy days and check mail between 2-3 times a day. Once at the beginning of the day and once more around around 3 pm in the afternoon. What this has done is left me a lot of time to do "actual work". I am now no more a slave to my emails.  Stop multitasking This is really critical. Multitasking is crazy. There are tons of research on the ill-effects of multitasking on attention, concentration and ability of recall information. So, to really do quality work, just focus on do one thing at a time. If you are really keen, you can use the Pomodoro technique . I use it fairly regularly and think it brings in a good deal of focus as it forces you to work against the clock. Put your important tasks on your cale...

In a discussion with the leaders from Indian industry, Indian Prime Minister let his displeasure known.  " It is a little disappointing to hear negative comments from our business leadership or be told that govt's policies are causing slowdown and pessimism . Such comments have added to uncertaintyand have emboldened those who have no stake in our economic growth." It is like a school child who has failed in a class but is petulant and saying that why are you all saying that I have failed, it makes me look stupid in front of others !! The problem, Dr Singh, is that whether you like it or not, the govt and by extension you, have been performing miserably. No amount of talking tough or big is going to change that. Instead of raising your voice to these people, better do it with your coalition partners and your party members and get some real work done!