A leader I coach recently said something that has stayed with me for days: “Employees need to believe that their personal success is intertwined with the success of the company.” Profound, right?
As an HR professional, I meet people across the spectrum, some with sharp clarity and grounded expectations, and others… not so much.
What’s concerning is the growing trend of entitlement without impact.
People expecting frequent promotions or big hikes simply because they: • Have put in “enough” time • Took on stretch assignments • Are “committed” • Have stayed loyal, even in struggling companies
I’ve seen this across roles, even in enabling functions like HR and Finance, where the rules applied to others don’t seem to apply to oneself for many.
Here’s the hard truth: Promotions aren’t rewards for effort alone. They’re outcomes of demonstrated business impact.
Before asking why not me?, ask: • How did I impact revenue, margins, culture, or innovation? • What did I do to create tangible value for customers or shareholders? • If I left today, what legacy or measurable change would I leave behind?
In India’s high-pressure work culture, the survival mindset often pushes people to chase titles instead of growth. But here’s the thing, you can only “job-hop” your way forward for so long. Eventually, the industry sees the pattern. Impact (or lack of it) shows.
If you’re upset over a missed promotion, pause. Ask yourself: • Do I truly understand my organization’s goals? • Have I mapped my career aspirations to business needs? • Do I have a development plan for the next 12 months?
If not, that’s your starting point. Not sulking. Not quitting (at least not without clarity). Not waiting for someone else to solve it.
Growth is earned. Ownership is yours. Build the kind of career and reputation that makes others proud to have worked with you
Leadership is not just about intentions; it’s about tangible empathy and understanding. I’ve witnessed senior professionals with sizable teams fall short in showing kindness and empathy because they believed good intentions were sufficient. However, assuming that everyone interprets “tough love” the same way, especially during challenging times, can lead to disconnect.
It’s crucial to reach out, especially in tough situations like supporting an employee with a terminal illness, comforting a grieving family, or acknowledging colleagues in high-stress environments. Introversion or shyness should never hinder a leader from expressing empathy. True leadership demands stepping out of your comfort zone to serve those in need.
Unhappy girl sitting in depression and hand helping her flat vector illustration. Cartoon sad woman embracing knees in melancholy and waiting for support. Stress and psychology concept
If your focus is solely on profit and neglecting the human connections within your organization, you’re missing the mark. Building relationships should be a top priority for any business centered around people. Empathy fosters an environment where individuals can thrive, leading to sustainable, collective success.
Not too long ago, there was an unusual post on my mostly professional LinkedIn feed. It was a man’s video about his 17-year-old daughter who was suicidal because someone had circulated inappropriate pictures and videos of her on social media platforms. He had made the video as an open ask to anyone who worked in the social media companies to help him take down the racy pictures and videos and kept asserting that the videos and pictures were fake. Some good Samaritan took notice and within few days the posts were taken down, he mentioned in a new video. I hope life went back to normal eventually, I do suspect that those effected, especially the girl will carry trauma and scars to show for a while though. Why did he have to plead the ‘innocence’ of the girl though, it made me wonder? As a society why is it important for us that a girl (or boy) is not seen publicly in a certain way in order to have permission to live respectfully? Even if their personal or intimate side is being shared without their consent? What are these stupid rules that we have invented on the way of becoming an evolved society?
There is an increase in deepfakes; the necessary evil accompanies the new age tech defined by artificial intelligence and its growing impact. We’ve seen a lot of movie stars, women and celebrities vehemently justifying on news over past few months that a certain video or photo of them is fake. What made it important for them to invest their energies in so fervently denying that it in fact wasn’t them in the said clip, than focusing on their work and life? What does that say about us a society? The recent announcement of Sora which can make videos on commands and the samples they have shared are a great example of how AI can be misused by those evil.
I remember back in 90s small town India, one would see vulgar sketches of women in offices and girls in schools specially in public areas like washrooms along with rude comments. I vaguely remember a scandal from my small town where the scorned boyfriend of a respectable girl circulated her naked pictures and she hanged herself. Porn has brought its own pandora’s box with it to denigrate women. How many of you, especially women, have secretly not wondered that a clip of yours trying clothes in a changing room or bathing in a hotel or any other discreet activity maybe available on some random porn site that you aren’t even aware of? How many of you feel scared that once something like that is found, even if you haven’t done anything wrong, your life and family will get impacted in a major way and your social life will be destroyed? Wondered if you’d feel like ending your life if something like this happens?
Technology, modes and levels of threats have become more twisted but the basic nature of toxic side of patriarchy where the last resort to fight back a strong and powerful feminine force is to shame, denigrate and defile her remains constant. Parents of girl kids of all ages even today worry about dangers looming around them; how delicate the girl’s ‘honor’ is and how her standing changes with one tiny leak of an intimate moment, an indiscretion. God forbid, if a respectable woman is seen by others naked or kissing or in the act of copulation – her whole character is assassinated for life. How on the contrary, senior Male politicians of current opposing national party were found in intimate acts in videos that went viral and those gentlemen are still relevant, worshipped, rich and powerful – very much the political figures in parliament. How a certain president of a powerful country was found exploiting an intern still smiles shamelessly remaining a man of power while the woman is to date judged for being the culprit. It is because this difference in how we judge women so much more than men, that the father of the teenage girl was left overtly justifying that the videos are deepfakes. In a better world, it wouldn’t have mattered for the girl that her unintended videos were uploaded, and the perpetrator would have been identified and punished along with those who participated in the circulation. With AI now this issue will become even bigger. Any scorned guy or girl who is pissed at another can create a vulgar deepfake and make it viral. What is the solution then? Keep trying to prove that a video or photo is genuine or not? Lock women int homes? Ask women to be super cautious and on guard?
Here is another way to look at it. What if we as a society stopped judging women on any explicit photos or videos or any other artefacts of them? That our opinion of them didn’t change a bit based on that information? Picture this – you see a colleague, friends, family member or acquaintance in a link that shows them in a sexual way meant to harm their reputation and it didn’t matter to you. You didn’t want to know whether the video or audio or photo is real or fake. It’s the one circulating it who’s punished, than the woman herself. She can still be your daughter in law, wife, boss, colleague, sister, sister-in-law or whatever it is that defines your relationship with her. Let us take the power away from the very act of baring a woman’s body, associating her honor with her sexual conduct – real or perceived. What if like men, we associated women’s honor with what kinds of humans they are? How they contribute to the society in the working or homemaker roles they are in? What their talents and hobbies are? With the way deepfakes amongst other AI features loom large – it is common sense, humanity, courage and a shift in perspective for good that will make us a better society. We don’t need to be spending our time identifying real from fake for this issue- we need to be changing our thinking on what defines goodness or badness; someone’s acceptance and respect, dignity and honor.
What if we killed the mal intention itself than judging someone who is a victim of having their privacy breached and misused?
There is a short movie called ‘sleeping partner’ that features Divya Dutta in an OTT short story series called ZindagiinShorts. Do watch it for how she coolly and powerfully responds to a scorned lover threatening to make their intimate videos viral. It’s like watching the Goddess at her work! THAT is the fearlessness we need to enable in our girls. We need to ensure the environment in our houses makes them fearless, powerful, and not anxious about someone trying to show them as immodest. Modesty is not something to be proven. It also isn’t without power. We need Madonnas and Devis in our daughters, mothers, sisters and women who cannot be broken by stone pelting evil minds so easily. They need to accepted in various divine feminine forms that celebrate thier femininity rather than shaming it.
As I write this blog, an AI icon hovers on my screen asking me to help write as if I the obsessive thinker and possessive writer will let AI write for me(!); AI is everywhere! Compassion and empathy and goodness in our toolkit is what will help us survive the madness. If the feminine is denigrated, we will dive the depths of darkness very soon as a society. Let’s kill the need to verify if an artefact meant to put a woman in corner is real or deepfake. let’s measure people on their humanness than trivialize them on a scale of sexual morality which by the way keeps changing every 100 years in human history.
Our girls need to be able to breathe. They need to be able to be validated for their talents than their looks. They need to feel empowered without worrying about what is available online about them to ogle. Let’s kill the power, enigma, titillation and scandal around explicit imagery used without the consent of a person and orient our kids towards what makes them better human beings, one step at a time. And this change begins from our own homes. What do you think? Can you do that?
It’s been a few months since (Jun 2023) the Titan submersible operated by the American expedition firm ‘Oceangate’ imploded while on an expedition to the Titanic wreck in North Atlantic Ocean off the Canadian coast killing all five of it’s passengers – a British paid explorer, an Asian British paid explorer along with his 19 year old son, a French technical expert and the CEO of Oceangate. It’s notable that each of the three tourists would have paid a hefty $250,000 for their seats for the experience so it was a big ticket business indeed.
Since the discovery of the titanic wreckage which got insanely elevated after the Cameron movie in the 90s, there has been deep interest from experts and noobs alike in going to the titanic wreckage site as a bucket list activity. The fact that it lies 3810 m below sea level is not a deterrent but seems to egg on enthusiasts more, just the way a climb to Mt Everest does at 8848 m above sea level in the death zone. Clearly a heady mix of money, social media’s impact and lack of meaningful life goals leads those who haven’t spent a hot minute training to brave the elements, want to go to depth of oceans or peaks of the world. Or on the other side you could define the marvel that human curiosity and courage is through such pursuits. Guess this one is a write up of the paradoxes!
The CEO of OceanGate Stockton Rush was notorious for flouting regulatory requirements when he could as he believed and has publically stated them to be a hindrance to innovation. He’s quoted in a 2022 interview calling ‘safety, a pure waste’ at one point. You can google away his passion for innovation and notably his belief that safety is a ‘hinderance’ to innovation.
So I come to my questions, 1) At what stage does does the desire to innovate and do something different become so intense that human life, basic safety sense and common sense leave the building 2) Do we as a society celebrate the wins without proportionately weighing the ‘how’ of those wins? Do results overweigh the values which were at work to achieve them? 3) Where does the buck stop with risks? When do we know in our life and work that a line has been crossed with risk which puts not ourselves but others’ life, livelihood, health or other fundamentals on the edge without them knowing about it? 4)Is there a proportionality between the cause for which the risk is being taken, and the size of the risk?
For instance, soldiers risk their lives knowingly to protect the life of civillians, firefighters, cops and such also do for a noble cause. But there is little merit in putting people through same level of life risk for a toy making company testing path breaking innovative AI based toys.
There are those who speak about Rush’s passion for innovation and mention that titan would have been celebrated along with his risk taking capability had things not gone fatefully wrong. But that combined with the history of his attitude towards safety show that enough education to ALL his customers and general public wasn’t given about safety risks and facts were moulded. Otherwise the 19 year old who solely took the trip to please his father, terrified as he was, didn’t have to die.
There is a big yet simple lesson for us all as leaders, employees, entrepreneurs, humans et al from this tragedy. It is not to not take risk. But weigh the cost of the risk on our stakeholders and be clear about it to them. And then when they come onboard it makes sense. Integrity and passion when put together on a scale – passion will always be outweighed by integrity. Those who put their lives, savings, loved ones, health or anything crucial on line for you as they play beside you need to be educated about what they are putting on line and be ok with it. When that happens – it’s true Leadership and Camaraderie at play. When you have to hide what people are having to bet to go along a risky journey with you that can be labelled many different vices, none of them deserve to have the word innovation, leadership or vision around them. It can be Machiavellian to get people onboard on a risky project or vision without telling them about the risk but then you don’t deserve the credit of the win as much as you totally are responsible for messing up for yourself and them.
There is also courage and honesty in sacrificing the innovation so as to not cross the line of life at risk or anything that your conscience or value system doesnt allow you to hedge away. If that wasn’t true, animal testing of cosmetics would still be normalised and not a topic of debate. Corporate integrity maybe a touchy topic but personal integrity is never one.
What’s your views on this topic? Did this tragedy evoke any thoughts or insights in your mind? Did you take any lessons and reflections from it back in your life? Do share with me, I’d love to chat on this further.
It’s a given that these are times like no other that we have seen in our lives. Who would have thought when this year began, that this is how life will be globally. I wonder how many people had new year resolutions that can still be pursued as life went tipsy turvy. I read somewhere recently that this is not ‘work from home’ – it rather is us ‘attempting to work’ as we try to survive. And as we move further in these uncertain times, I have a question for you
Are you being Kind?
To your family, to your coworkers, neighbours, friends, your surroundings?
More importantly, are you being kind to yourself?
Whether you are 5 or 85, not many rules of the normal life apply these days. Most of the free world has not seen a government imposed lack of freedom in their lives – I am not saying that is not for the right case right now. But in these unusual times of mental, emotional and perhaps physical stress and fear – are you still measuring yourself and others by the same standards of last year and thus burning out? If yes, perhaps, this is the time to understand what leadership is – and forego the inner need to be a ‘manager’ and ‘administrator’ – you see, before you try to control or even judge others and yourself on what is being achieved or not currently, it is important to understand the changed rules of the game in the current times. Leadership precedes Management in uncertain times. And thus the courage to accept that we are still trying to figure out this ‘new normal’ means you are being honest, being authentic.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself
Are you giving yourself breaks, sleep or any other kindness that your body and mind asks for? Are you listening to yourself? Are you forgiving yourself often?
Are you reaching out to people important to you, one to one? Listening to them? Sharing how you feel?
Are you letting kids and younger ones know that its ok to be scared or grumpy in the current situation? Are you letting them express their emotions?
Are you managing your colleagues by objectives and impact? OR wrongly so,policing and monitoring them for hours they spend in front of the laptop replicating their office life at home?
Make no mistake, if you are not kind to yourself, accepting that these are unprecedented circumstances, conscious that many around us will go through the harrowing experience of contracting this disease, children will lose months of education, there will be loss of life – you will keep being cruel to others around you too.
Everyday, try to write down what you are thankful for. Gratitude is powerful and that is a topic for another day, But in simple words – remembering what you have that is important to you will give you motivation to face these unusual days head on. Try to nurture life around you if possible, even if it means you plant a little something at home. Try to do breathing exercises even if for a minute at a time. Do what makes you happy. And some days when the clouds are darker, take a break from all of this. Sleep, allow yourself to feel bad, let your mind tell you its grumpy and then gently decide to come back. If it gets difficult to tackle, seek help. Talk to someone. If you have no one to talk to, drop me a mail. I am here to offer support , help, coaching, dialogue and help you see more clearly.
This too shall pass.. But how you treated yourself, and thus, how you treated others will define who you are – your true character and mettle. What you will remember for the rest of your life is whether you grumpily waited for the ‘Storm to Pass’ or did you ‘Dance in the Rain’?
I haven’t had a work from home this long in my life, neither have most of us. Even those who do work from home for a living may not have witnessed the other factors attached to it that are there these days – complete lack of social life, no place to go out to after work, homeschooling children and lack of many services available on normal days.
It’s been more than four weeks that I have stepped out of home or met anyone but my family and few next door neighbours. People have been pushed to two extremes while working. There are those isolating with other people – spouses, roommates, families etc and are looking forward to get some distance from them once the lockdown ends. Those isolating all alone craving for some in person human interaction – I am not in this category, but believe this is a trickier one to handle. It can be difficult to differentiate between work and home and life can become really monotonous – I am going to share some tips and tricks which have ensured, this lockdown has not overwhelmed me too badly. There are good and bad days, but these tips from people who are making it work, me included are sure to make prolonged WFH during isolation more bearable, daresay, even enjoyable for you
Dress up for work. Make the effort to take an early bath, put on nice clothes, do your hair and put on some makeup(if you do put on makeup), fragrance and accessorise – it will make you feel a whole lot better and make changing into pajamas at the end of work day all that much better. My go to is a bright lipstick and bandanas
Have a start and finish time for work, and force yourself to cut off from office calls and emails beyond a point. It’s so much more difficult to do it while being stuck at home, but resist the temptation to open your laptop when you have nothing else to do. If you must do something in non office time, pick up something to read or learn
Play a sport. If you are alone – dance, do yoga or anything that works for you – that makes you move. The goal isn’t to lose weight. The goal is to keep your limbs moving and healthy
Ok, this will sound counterintuitive – but have a routine. Mothers are told to keep babies and young children on routine to calm their restlessness and to channelise their energy. For some reason, this nugget from child psychology also works on us humans in dark times. A routine and its predictability gives a sense of familiarity in an unpredictable world and calms stress and anxiety. A routine doesn’t have to mean monotony – it has to mean well spaced out and consistent daily activities
Have a workspace. Even if it means a tiny space you create on your bed while working. Put a pen/notebook, some water and a nice picture or book or visual next to you to self – motivate. Maintain your ‘workspace’ during ‘worktime’ by keeping it mess free and food free as much as possible
Block some time out for strategic pieces of your goals, so you aren’t just reacting to work but responding to it
Neither overwhelm yourself with meetings, nor avoid them altogether. Make effort to be seen and then decide when you want to put the video off
A lot of my colleagues are avoiding taking leaves – thinking they will be wasting them as a leave simply means one is still stuck at home. I have taken physical rest and mental health days to make up for troubled sleeping and just to get some ‘do nothing’ time and it has worked wonders. The importance of taking a break on a working day during these times is underrated
When you talk to colleagues in similar situations, as you speak about how different it is from usual working – speak about what you are grateful for in your life and what you find positive. Positive affirmations are good for our mind as well as they beget positivity. Avoid negative talk and if someone is only indulging in that, avoid talking to them if they refuse to change. If you cant avoid them, practice breathing and meditation after speaking to them. 😉
Make time for self pampering AND for a creative pursuit that you either want to learn or practice -that can be cathartic for you!
Lastly, nice stationary, visual boards and ambient music put me in a mood to work like a boss!
These are some tips and tricks that I am practising – some on my own, other by watching other positive people around me. There could be many more and I would love to hear what you are doing to keep yourself positively engaged.
Lastly, some of the startup’s founded during 2008-2009 recession as I have been told are Slack, WhatsApp, Airbnb, Uber, Pinterest, Square and Venmo. Some of the greatest scientific discoveries were made during pandemics of last centuries. Can you create your own masterpiece (a music, a food, a dance, a song recitation, a poetry, a painting) or anything that would be your medal that will leave you with good memories of these times for the rest of your life?
Nehapedia 