Saturday, July 10, 2010

Go the Distance - An essay to my team

Yesterday, emotionally  would have been one of the toughest days in my corporate life. Last evening I told the team about my departure plans from the company. I knew it was tough to break the news to a team who've been bloody close with me and who gave 200%. I almost broke out, lost my voice and was lost for words. While understandably my team found it both shocking and sudden, in my mind I made this decision sometime back and I was fully prepared. However irrespective of all self mental conditioning, sitting in front of my team was lot tougher than I thought. I purposely chose Friday evening to break the news giving all of us couple of days of recuperating time. After the news they were all speechless. Dialogue was not an option.......

A person is judged by his deeds and in my case I've strive hard to groom a group of people who'd be self sufficient in their own right. I was a firm believer that as a leader you are as good as your team put together. In many fronts I think I was successful in this regard although I could have definitely done better. 

However for me the greatest test lies ahead. As a leader your efforts, your legacy is not determined only on what you did but rather what you've left behind. The capacity and capability of your team to continue at minimum and better if possible in their efforts at work that they have to do is the greatest tribute one can expect. In your aftermath if things fall or should effort dilute and does not stand up to the mark, you've failed as a leader!

Change is the only constant in life! You cannot run away from it, you cannot hide from it. You cannot avoid it nor neglect it. 

Adaptation is the only way forward! It's an universal truth. You cannot fight it! And you shouln't!

These can be confusing times for my team. I'm sure there'll be plenty of questions regarding this decision. However one needs to come to terms with realities in life pretty quickly. One needs to sum up the situation, take a stock of ground realities, be able to see the new opportunities and move on with life. Men are separated  from boys at these sort of junctures. 

There are times when one needs to do the complete opposite of what is generally expected in a given situation. That is the only way to move forward with life in a meaningful way. Change in leadership can be a situation (especially in this context ) where everyone around would naturally expect you to drop your shoulders, loose focus, loose sense of direction and above all expect you not to perform to your true potential. A person's character will be determined by how quickly they'll be able to move on with life. We all have a choice, we can worry about things that happened for along time or we can choose to act in a manner that is mature and realistic. Lets be wise with our choice. 

One needs to have inner strength, character and resolve to counter this. I believe my team constitutes of people who posses these qualities in abundance. Take the road less travelled. 

During the last several years we worked together to crystallize dreams and goals in corporate life. Individually were meant to be down the passage of time. However we are all travelling down an unknown road to embrace our fate. As in this case the road may wander but somehow you need to see it through. You cannot look back you need to stay on track.

As I've always said we can only be prepared to for the opportunities and evantiualities coming our way. Trust me this is one eventuality they've been groomed for, for a long time!   

Look beyond your current feelings, it is the hardest part, for a hero's strength is measured by his heart!

Go the distance! 





Feel free to share your thoughts or feedback on this posting under the comments column