The term “ownership” is used by leaders and managers most often to describe its absence at a time when it is needed the most, according to them.

The CEO who is reviewing progress of some of the major organisational initiatives that he and his direct reports had agreed to drive and implement is anguished to find that little progress has been made and his team members seem to be giving him all kinds of reasons for their not doing anything about it.

 Talk to the CEO and he would say “So, why don’t they take ownership?”

 When you listen to the CEO’s passionate plea, you are tempted to conclude that employees in general shirk responsibility and by nature have a low sense of ownership. Unfortunately the truth lies elsewhere.

 But what is ownership? A natural calamity like floods in any of our cities in a good place to witness ownership or the lack of it.

As soon as a city is gripped with floods, there are a sea voices trying to assign blame – is it the Government, the local authorities, the builders, the citizens who choose to buy or build houses in those areas, the businesses which did not act like good citizens and do something?

As this happens, you will also find a whole sea of people who are moved to act – someone is setting up a whatsapp group to share information, someone supplying foods, someone who is donating, someone who is volunteering to ferry people to safe places.

Cut back to organizations. Ownership is almost always evident in moments of crisis. There are no SOPs, no job descriptions, no departmental boundaries, no hierarchies. On the other hand, the most important things get done by everyone coming together? How?

Lets now get specific and try and define ownership behaviours or the lack of it.

 Ownership behaviour

 People who take ownership direct all their efforts and actions to achieve results. They can be completely relied upon to get anything done. They go beyond their role, exert extra efforts and do “whatever” needs to be done to get things done. They worry not only about things in their work area but also about the results that are finally necessary. They are conscious of consequences and are concerned about resources. Phrases like “I have done my best”, “this is not my job”, “what can I do”, “don’t ask me”, “it’s not my problem” are not part of their lexicon.

 Contraindicators of ownership

 People who do not take ownership typically feel victims of circumstances around them. They will always lament about how they were let down by the other person and can therefore not take any responsibility. The typical sales person will tell you how the operations folks cannot be trusted to fulfill their orders or delivery good quality and for that reason cannot achieve the numbers. The typical Quality head will lament about the lack of a quality culture in the company and how the “numbers focus” is making his job impossible and that he therefore cannot take responsibility for quality.

Responsibility is shared and those who take ownership take responsibility in a boundary less manner.

Do we have a crisis of ownership?

 Many believe that we have a crisis of ownership in the corporate world or even in civic life.

 While I do see some problems, I must confess that the general level of ownership today is far higher than what we have seen in the past. We are able to rely on one another to get things done far better today than ever before. We are far more results focused and feel like victims to circumstances a lot less.

 However, given the complexities of the world on one side and the far higher levels of empowerment (in terms of know how, resources, awareness, rewards and so on) on the other side, we could do much better. Given all that we do have today, employees are certainly not taking as much ownership as they should and they can. Why so?

A certain kind of leadership fosters ownership

 There is a huge body of research and empirical evidence suggesting that a certain kind of leadership style contributes to creating strong enabling conditions for high ownership. In other words, the problem of poor ownership is the result of poor leadership. Lets get specific here.

Show them the big picture and include them

 It seems easiest to hire people with the promise of a job, a brand and big rewards. Showing them the big picture seems the hardest and very few leaders have figured this out.

 While leaders do a great job of setting measurable goals, not many do well in inspiring people to buy into these goals. When employees see the big picture, they extend themselves and take ownership. For the thousands of start-ups, as they cross the magic 50 employee count, the “big picture” begins to become hazy. The pursuit of “scale” and “hiring more people” keeps leaders so busy that they forget that the real keys to scale is the “ability of every employees to continue to see the same big picture”. As businesses “”pivot”, the big picture changes and we grossly underestimate the need to do this.

 Not being able to see the big picture robs ownership. Think of the natural calamity – the big picture is clear. In my work with teams in early start up and crisis situations, I have seen a very high level of ownership simply because the big picture is very clear – they must survive and succeed. 

 On the other hand, I have seen complete lack of ownership in large, well established and successful organisations because very few can see the big picture or even if they can, only very few buy into it. With tightly defined verticals, high emphasis on political savvy and excessive emphasis on financial rewards, they push individuals to “do their bit” and not take ownership.

 I must clarify that when I say “show the big picture” I am not referring to the vision statements displayed in the office lobby.

 Showing the big picture is all about communication, inspiration and inclusion. What is easily understood in the early days becomes a problem as organisations grow in size. Big picture is also contextual. For a front-line retail clerk, big picture is being able to see the connection between his or her daily work duties and repeat customers. I say this because leaders are often unable to see the various shades of big picture and attempt to fix all of this through broad spectrum antibiotics like town hall meetings, newsletters and group mails.

 Assumptions about people

 Do leaders assume that their employees want to take ownership, want to do a good job, want to be self directed? Or do they assume that they will slack off, will shirk work and need to be closely monitored and micromanaged?

Our assumptions shape our actions, whatever our intentions might be.

Handling failures and genuine appreciation

How leaders handle failures will tell us a lot about whether employees will “go out of the way”.

I am improvising on what Mark Twain once said about the cat and the hot stove.

“We should be careful to help employees get out of a difficult experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we lead them to behave like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again and that is well but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.”

Of course, genuine appreciation of a spontaneous nature also is crucial. I am not talking about what you ask HR to do but what the leader does with humility, setting aside their vanity about exacting standards.

 Well, a discussion about ownership is not complete without talking about parenting. There is a general view that kids today do not take as much ownership especially at home (just helping around on a variety of things) as their parents did when they were young. Well, it might be true in many cases but the origin may need to traced back to our parenting styles!

Friends, I would like to talk about coaching, artificial intelligence and CFI’s position on this subject.

Maybe a year ago when there was a strong emerging evidence that artificial intelligence will play an increasingly strong role in coaching. Many of us at CFI went through a range of thoughts and emotions.

At one level, being deeply humanistic and believing in the personalized nature of our work, asked ourselves, how can AI play a role and should it? At another level, we realized the power of artificial intelligence and its inevitable attraction to individuals, both coaches and coaches, in embracing it. At a third level, as coaches, we are constantly coaching leaders to be adaptive, to respond to changes positively. And we told ourselves that we should practice that ourselves.

So a year later, I must say that we are in a fairly good place on this subject. What have we done?

We first set up a study group to understand artificial intelligence, to understand what role it can play in coaching. The study group consisting of many members of the CFI community put together an outstanding report, shared it with all role holders in CFI, at the end of which we were able to take a position on what artificial intelligence can and should mean to coaching and CFI.

At one level, we believe that AI can help coaches be more efficient in the work they do. It is possible that AI can also help coaches be more effective in the work they do. At a third level, we believe that because we are dealing with individuals, data protection, privacy, confidentiality, safety are extremely important and we need to have very strong guardrails to ensure that we do not cause any unintended harm.

Today, we have a strong ethical code on how we will embrace AI with responsibility. The foundation of which is that we will inform clients, we will inform coaches, we will ensure that they have the veto power in the use of AI. We have also launched a program to help coaches learn to use AI with a certain level of mastery and responsibility because ignorance can cause fear.

Knowledge and expertise can only help us do it with responsibility and competence. Today, we are in a position where we continue to celebrate the uniqueness that we as coaches bring but also recognize the value that AI can offer to a coach as an aid and as a support in the work that they do.

At a deeper level, I believe we have learned to adapt to what we believe is a significantly disruptive technological development and we feel quite proud about it.

Youtube link: https://youtu.be/QXbqQZtOZ0c

In the context of individual capability and performance, which is better?

Performance appraisals are one of those things that everyone loves to hate. From ‘recency effect’ to ‘personal bias’ to the most painful and ubiquitous of them all – the ‘bell curve’, there are many reasons for this intense dislike of this process among employees.
There are very few organisations, however, that have dismantled them. Most, driven by the maxim “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” believe that it is essential to measure every individual’s performance – and these measures drive many other things like compensation, promotions and so on. This is what is counted, and it’s important.
In both anecdotal and cited research globally, however, employees will highlight that what they want is useful feedback delivered frequently, and focused on future development rather than past judgment. That’s what counts for them.
So – the question: Should a leader focus on what’s counted (the performance metrics), or what counts (facilitation of future development)?

It is Both – And (not Either – Or)

For sure we need what’s counted, we need measurement, evaluation: to tell us where we are, how far we’ve moved, to motivate us to move further ahead, to benchmark/ calibrate ourselves and our performance with others’, and so on.

We also, however, need to prioritise and focus on things that count beyond what’s typically counted: our aspirations, development paths towards the best version of ourselves, our superpower, our potential, growth areas, improvement priorities, and so on.
Unfortunately, it appears that the balance is now strongly skewed towards what is counted, rather than what counts. It is critical, however, that we do not get so enamoured with metrics to the extent that we ignore human growth and potential.

There are four important ways in which they are different (what is counted, and what counts). Along with each difference, I have shared some ideas on what you can do differently to pay attention to what counts – as a Leader, and as an Individual.

1.Future <=> Past

Measurement is all about the Past. What happened in the past, how someone performed in the past. Growth, however, is all about the Future. How will the person grow and develop into the future?
The truth is that we cannot change the past, but the future is unwritten and laden with possibilities. And yet, we get so obsessed with measuring things from the past.

Employees, who are interested in the future, would prefer supportive, facilitative discussions, but a focus on metrics of the past lead to evaluative and judgemental outcomes.

• Leader: When you do appraisals for your team members, ensure you spend separate, quality time on the future … don’t stop once you evaluate the past performance. Encourage people to talk about what counts for them. Ask questions like “What are your aspirations for the future?”, “Where would you like to be 1 year from now?”, “How can I help you reach there?” and so on.
• Individual: What are your goals? What do you thirst for? What counts for you? Think through your future – have conversations with your “Personal Board of Directors” and identify your desired destination and path forward. Specifically during appraisals, initiate discussions around the future with your manager … book time and share your aspirations and development priorities – and ask for inputs, observations, suggestions, support and help. Remember, nobody will be as invested in your future as yourself!

2.Personal <=> Structured within a framework

Sir Ken Robinson tells the story of the very successful choreographer (Gillian Lynne) who did very poorly in school because she was a natural at dance, which was not part of any curriculum.
Performance metrics are typically rooted in some framework, with specific outcomes and/ or behaviours being evaluated. But an individual’s growth and potential are very unique and personal things and cannot easily be boxed into a framework.

Leader: Take the time and effort to understand each of your team members as individuals – beyond the frameworks and structures of organisation performance models. Some managers I know keep a “little black book” with a page/ section for each team member … with information such as

• their background, context, family, growing up, culture
• their personalities, likes/ dislikes, what makes them unique
• their strengths, their ‘superpower’, their qualities and characteristics
• their aspirations, their dreams, their goals

This will help you support each team member with what counts for them. (and think about it, what will this do to their motivation and commitment, and consequent performance metrics?)

Individual: As the good book says, “Know Thyself”. Spend time and effort to introspect, understand yourself. Build your self-awareness. Invest time in practices like journalling and mindfulness/ meditation. Work on external self-awareness – ask someone you know well and trust to share their perceptions about you … and then have conversations around that to dive deeper.

Focus on similar areas as listed earlier – but introspect for yourself about:

• your background, context, family, growing up, culture
• your personality, likes/ dislikes, what makes you unique
• your strengths, your ‘superpower’, your qualities and characteristics
• your aspirations, dreams, goals

3.Subjective <=> Objective

Trying to count what counts can be problematic. For example, 360º feedback surveys are often used to ostensibly increase external self-awareness, but they tend to be skewed towards “counting” (evaluating) rather than helping with “what counts” (unveiling insights and perceptions).

On ‘Delegates work’, a fresher team member may give a very low score on this (say 2 on 5), while a senior and experienced team member may give a high score on this. (say 4 on 5). This is averaged to 3 on 5. This number is meaningless, tells a false story (“the person is an ‘average’ delegator”).

With “what counts”, qualitatives can tell richer stories than numbers. For the same person, one comment could be “This person is a great delegator – hands jobs over to others and does not micro-manage”, while another one could be “This person should have a finger on the pulse – oversight on what’s happening – rather than leaving things entirely to them”. Every strength has a potential problem contained within. A single scale, leading to a single score on the behaviour of ‘delegation’ does not tell the full story for this person, not the way the comments do.

Leader & Individual: Limit your belief in the numbers from such feedback surveys. Insist on well-designed feedback surveys, that capture insights and aspirations and understanding – rather than relying on ones that only evaluate with meaningless scores.

Consider setting up your own feedback survey that is more qualitative-rich, more ‘development’ focused rather than ‘evaluative’ in nature.

4.Work-In-Process <=> Final outcome

Carol Dweck talks about a school with a grade of ‘Not yet’, rather than static, fixed numbers or letters – emphasising that learning is a continuous process. Metrics invariably have date tags, but growth and development are always WIP.

What gets counted has “limited validity” – but often the metrics define the person and their abilities for time to come. People who get high scores are often seen as successful people, while people with low scores are seen as failures, losers and so on.

Leader: Avoid labelling individuals based on their scores/ performance metrics with generalised tags. Since individual development is a journey, help team members reflect on their growth curve and identify ways by which they can move faster and further on that curve towards realising their potential, becoming the best version of themselves.

Individual: Stay focused on learning and growing, moving forward. Convert experiences – good ones and more importantly bad ones – into learning opportunities. If you get a “low” score, ask What can I do differently going forward? rather than tell yourself I am a failure.

In summary – many corporate citizens tend towards the belief that ‘numbers don’t lie’. It is important to understand, however, that numbers may not tell the whole truth – especially in the context of individual development, capability, performance and growth.

As a leader and as an individual, it is imperative that you spend time on what counts – although it may not be counted (or even, in many cases, countable).
Remember

Not everything that can be counted, counts
And not everything that counts can be counted

About the Author

Anand Kasturi is an award winning Consultant Trainer and Executive Coach with over 20 years of experience in areas of customer centricity/services management. He has run workshops in countries spanning Asia-Pacific, Australia, UK, Germany and the USA.

A few months ago, I was in a coaching session when I realised something unsettling: I was going through the motions, nodding, listening, responding—but part of me simply wasn’t there. It was as if a fog had settled over my mind. My client was sharing something important, but I could feel my attention slipping. Not out of disinterest, but because I was emotionally worn out.

Not long before that session, I had lost someone close to me. It was the kind of loss that quietly rearranges your inner world, even as everything on the outside seems unchanged. I hadn’t fully acknowledged how much I was carrying. I told myself I was coping, that I could function. And in many ways, I could. But the quality of my presence—that intangible but essential aspect of how I show up—had been affected.

That experience left me wondering: How often do we, especially those in roles of supporting or leading others, overlook our own emotional landscapes in the name of being strong, professional, or reliable? And what does that cost us—and the people we lead or support?

The Quiet Work of Being Present

Whether you’re a coach, a manager, or a leader of any kind, being present is part of your work. People may not always articulate it, but they sense it. When you’re truly present, others feel seen. When you’re distracted or depleted, they feel it too.

And yet, presence is not something we can manufacture on demand. It draws from our inner reserves—of attention, clarity, and emotional steadiness. When those reserves are low, our presence wavers.

The loss I experienced taught me that it’s not enough to simply show up. Being physically present isn’t the same as being emotionally available. And if we don’t pause to care for ourselves, to acknowledge what we’re going through, that absence begins to show—sometimes subtly, sometimes sharply—in how we relate to others.

I don’t have a formula for navigating grief or burnout or emotional overwhelm. What I do know is that it helps to make space for our inner lives—to notice what we’re feeling, to honour it, even if we don’t have tidy answers.

After that session, I began to check in with myself more deliberately. Sometimes it was a short pause before a meeting, asking myself, “What’s going on in me right now”?
Other times, it was about reaching out—to a friend, a mentor, or simply giving myself permission to take a break.

These small acts didn’t erase the grief, but they helped me stay connected—to myself and, gradually, to others. They reminded me that self-care isn’t a side activity. It’s part of how we show up with integrity and compassion.

This experience also gave me a new lens through which to think about leadership. We often talk about leadership presence in terms of confidence, clarity, or charisma. But there’s another kind—quiet, grounded, and emotionally attuned.

The leaders I’ve most respected are not those who always had answers, but those who brought their full attention into the room. They listened deeply. They admitted when they were struggling. They made it okay for others to be human too.

In that sense, presence becomes a form of leadership. Not by being perfect, but by being real.

This isn’t a call to retreat or become self-absorbed. It’s an invitation to include ourselves in the circle of care and attention we so readily extend to others.

Grief, stress, or emotional weariness don’t follow neat timelines. And yet, we keep showing up—in conversations, in decisions, in relationships. The question is: can we do so with honesty, and a little more self-compassion?

If you’re holding space for others—in your team, your family, your community—take a moment to ask: *How am I, really?* Not to fix anything right away, but simply to notice. That noticing, I’m learning, is where presence begins to return.

Author
Saroja Kannan, CFI Coach

About the Author

Saroja has worked extensively with C-Level Executives across various verticals, including Financial Services, IT, ITES, Education, and Digital Marketing. She has built powerful, high-growth brands.

“I believe, when it comes to work ethic, Gen Z are not different from any other generation but their priorities are different and their mode of expression is different. Today, Gen Z is the largest population in the world and in India (approx. 47 cr.) and it is in everyone’s interest to give them their space and right to redefine societal norms while channelising their energy for good.”

The French Open 2025 Final between Alcaraz and Sinner was one of the most intensely fought matches ever, a first where both players were born after 2000? Welcome to the new era…a new era of tennis and a new era of Gen Z around us.
The match was fought for 5 hrs and 29 mins. Can anyone argue that to play a tennis match, a grand slam final, of that intensity and duration is representative of Lack of seriousness? Lack of commitment? Lack of focus? Lack of preparation? Lack of mental toughness, etc.? I hope not. However, look around and these are the exact terms we often hear being used for those born after 2000, the Gen Z generation at workplaces (Gen Z is generally used for those born after 1997). Have you not heard that?

I believe, when it comes to work ethic, Gen Z are not different from any other generation but their priorities are different and their mode of expression is different. Why should anyone complain about it when every successive generation has redefined the rules set by earlier generations? Handwritten letters gave way to faster but impersonal emails as generation and societal norms changed, which gave way to even faster but shorter and cryptic text messages which are now giving way to shots and reels. Gen Z is the largest population in the world and in India (approx. 47 cr.) and it is in everyone’s interest to give them their space and right to redefine societal norms while channelising their energy for good.

Here are 5 hacks for leaders to ease this generational tension at work:

Change the lens

If you spent your initial years impressing your seniors, that same need (of impressing seniors) may not hold true with Gen Z. They don’t think it’s necessary to impress anyone, especially their seniors. The generation values equality much more. This is a chance to truly embrace that ethos and for that leaders need to change the lens of looking at Gen Z as juniors.

Walk in their shoes

If you are a leader, Empathy is your foremost asset and as Satya Nadella said in his famous interview, Empathy is not a characteristic one is necessarily born with, but a strength one can cultivate with patience. To walk in someone else’s shoes, we must remember to remove our own shoes. Try to see how the world with its varied and fast emerging opportunities and challenges, look from Gen Z’s perspective and not only your own.

Up their game

Gen Z as a category is more confident and the people are resourceful too but that does not mean they don’t need help. Tagging their confidence as overconfidence or their resources as unreliable in the organisational context as most of the resources are informal and crowdsourced, neither helps the organisation nor the Gen Z associates (they are associates not employees). They represent over 30% of the society and hence organisations that adapt and mend their ways rather than expecting Gen Z to mend their way will be much seeked out as an employment source in the future. Upping their game would entail explaining the objectives and giving them the responsibility, responsibility not just of the outcome but the method and resources as well.

Suspend self interest

Most of the leaders who lead Gen Z were born before Google was born. Gaining Knowledge, then, was equal to gaining Power. This equation has been rendered redundant by Google, smartphones, and now ChatGPT/AI. Gen Z knows it well that no one knows everything that is required to know and hence they tend not to show respect to acquired knowledge and power acquired through such knowledge. They value quick learning and relearning. Getting them to work to make you look good is the surest way of losing them. Suspend such self-interest and instead co opt them into the value chain and watch performances grow.

Work it together

Gen Z have been consulted much more at home than previous generations for their opinions. A stark departure from this experience at work creates discomfort, detachment, and distrust. As leaders, consult them, take their views, work with them. Their expressive nature should be used to let them disagree constructively rather than disengagement.

I know these may sound easier on paper than to practice, but who says leading is an easy job? A great leader knows that she has to look forward to the future and the next decade belongs to Gen Z both as employees and consumers, the two fundamental pillars for any company.

Gen Z doesn’t want a boss who throws main character energy. They need a real one who listens and leads.

Author: Sachin Paranjape, CFI Coach

About the Author

Sachin Paranjape is a strategic thinker and has vast experience of working with multiple clients, across several sectors, on risk management, internal controls, and governance. His forte is building teams, nurturing talent, and developing people networks.

Dear Friends

Modern Times is a 1936 American part-talkie comedy film produced, written and directed by Charlie Chaplin.

This was Chaplin’s last performance as the iconic Little Tramp.

Working in an assembly line, the Tramp in this film depicts the struggles of survival in the (then) modern, industrialized world!

The Tramp is depicted as suffering greatly due to the stress and pace of the repetitive work. He eventually suffers a nervous breakdown and runs amok, getting stuck within a machine and throwing the factory into chaos; he is then sent to the hospital.

In 1936, Chaplin seemed to suggest that authority takes advantage of the working class and prioritizes efficiency over humanity.

“Modern Times” also depicts the difficulties of American life at that time!

90 yeas later, I am wondering what has changed?

Are today’s modern times any different?

Why do I constantly keep reading terms like “toxic work culture” and “psychological safety” “mental health” all the time?

Is humanity now prioritised over efficiency today or is efficiency still prioritised over humanity? Is it the same or worse?

Interestingly, it appears that one of the inspirations to produce the movie was a conversation with Mahatma Gandhi where they discussed modern technology. They apparently agreed that “machinery with only consideration of profit” had put people out of work and ruined lives. Wow! so what about AI?

What have we accomplished after all these decades of research, after the thousands of books being written?

No better way to celebrate my 101st Tuesday Greys post, I thought!

If you wish, please do watch this 4 minute clip from the film.

https://lnkd.in/gtVQRWYE

“At its core, AND thinking empowers leaders to navigate paradoxes: stability and change, results and relationships, performance and well-being, decisiveness and consensus, assertiveness and empathy. Rather than seeing these as trade-offs, resilient leaders view them as complementary forces that when balanced lead to more sustainable outcomes.”

In today’s increasingly complex and uncertain world, leaders face a constant stream of challenges: economic uncertainty, shifting market dynamics, stakeholder expectations, technological disruptions, regulatory changes and geopolitical shocks amongst others. In such a climate, resilience—the ability to adapt, recover, and thrive in the face of adversity—is not just a desirable trait but an essential leadership capability. Resilient leadership requires more than decisiveness; it demands the capacity to embrace complexity and ambiguity. One powerful yet often overlooked, mindset that fosters resilience is “AND thinking.”

What is AND Thinking?

Unlike either/or thinking, which forces leaders into binary choices, AND thinking encourages a mindset that holds multiple truths, tensions and possibilities at the same time. This inclusive approach is key to building long-term resilience. At its core, AND thinking empowers leaders to navigate paradoxes: stability and change, results and relationships, performance and well-being, decisiveness and consensus, assertiveness and empathy. Rather than seeing these as trade-offs, resilient leaders view them as complementary forces that when balanced lead to more sustainable outcomes. This mindset shift opens the space for creative problem-solving and long-term possibilities in a high- stakes, high-pressure environment. Leaders practicing AND thinking ask: “How can we achieve both?” It is a mental shift from trade-offs to integration.

Two recent coaching experiences highlighted the enabling power of AND thinking to me more than anything else.

In the first, a senior IT Leader and CIO, knowledgeable and well experienced in his domain, is a real people-leader, empathetic and supportive, and well regarded and respected by his team, colleagues and peers. He has an important development need. How can he be more assertive and demanding of others not only for his greater effectiveness but for his team’s performance?

In the second, a growing and successful Leader again in the IT domain, who was recently promoted and recognized for her capability and expertise, and for her relentless focus and drive for results, a stickler for process and quality, had an unexpected expectation from her 360 respondents. Could she shift her emphasis from drawing results from processes alone to drawing them from empowering people among her team and colleagues for her greater success & growth?

Two striking examples with complementary strengths that the other could benefit from. Could each build the apparently contradictory AND strength to amplify and positively impact their businesses? Can the first leader combine his valued People strengths AND be assertive to ensure achievement of the business goals? Can the second leader combine her valued Process skills AND the sought-after people orientation. The necessity for AND thinking was clearer to me than ever.

AND thinking enables leadership resilience which is much sought after especially when managing conflicting stakeholder needs – clients, employees, business partners and other players in the ecosystem. AND thinking allows leaders to validate competing perspectives without paralysis. It can foster empathy, strategic patience, broader decision making that keeps people aligned even when solutions aren’t simple.

Further; AND thinking cultivates emotional resilience. Leaders who can accept discomfort – holding success and struggle, clarity and uncertainty, joy and pain – develop greater psychological stamina.

Fostering Resilience Through Integration

It is about agility, adaptability, and strength under pressure. AND thinking nurtures these qualities in several ways:

• Encouraging Flexible Thinking: In a volatile business environment, rigid either/or thinking can lead to tunnel vision and missed opportunities. Leaders who adopt an AND mindset are more open to diverse perspectives, more capable of seeing hidden synergies and opportunities, and better able to pivot when conditions change. This cognitive flexibility is at the heart of resilience.
• Balancing Competing Demands: Leaders often grapple with paradoxes—transparency and confidentiality, control and empowerment, speed and thoroughness. AND thinking allows leaders to navigate these tensions creatively, maintaining equilibrium without falling into extremes. This balanced perspective supports psychological resilience and effective decision-making under pressure.
• Driving Innovation Amid Constraints: When constrained by limited resources or tight deadlines, the resilient leader asks, “How can we innovate AND stay within limits?” This fosters a problem-solving culture that sees challenges not as roadblocks but as opportunities to reimagine processes and strategies. In doing so, leaders create environments where teams remain engaged and proactive, even in difficult times.
• Sustaining Relationships and Results: Resilience is relational as well as individual. Leaders must manage performance and preserve people. AND thinking helps navigate tough conversations, ensuring accountability without sacrificing empathy. This builds trust and morale, essential ingredients for team resilience during crises.
• Aligning Ethics & Purpose with Profit: In times of disruption, values-driven leadership becomes a stabilizing force. AND thinking enables leaders to pursue business goals AND uphold ethical standards.

Cultivating an AND Mindset and coaching

Developing AND thinking requires conscious effort.Leaders can cultivate it by

• Practicing reflective questioning: “What am I missing if I think this is an either/or?”
• Encouraging diverse voices to surface integrative ideas.
• Framing challenges as paradoxes to be managed rather than problems to be solved.
• Modelling curiosity, openness, and humility in decision-making.
• Coaching has been found to enable AND thinking.

Conclusion

In an increasingly complex and high-stakes business world, resilience is not built solely through grit or endurance. It is also about perspective. AND thinking equips leaders with a mindset that embraces complexity, nurtures adaptability, and finds strength in integration. It is not merely a technique—it is a way of seeing that turns adversity into possibility and stresses into progress.
Author Dr. Raj Swaminathan, CFI Coach

About the Author

Raghu has been an industry leader and is now giving back to the field of management as a Coach. He has partnered with Marquee Indian and Global clients across the world. He is a visiting faculty at premier management institutes including the IIMs.

“This pattern—of leaders becoming overly attached to their own ideas, even when they are no longer viable—is more common than we think.”

“He would hold on to an idea, try to make it work somehow, even if all forms of evidence point to impracticality of the idea.”

This was part of the feedback shared by a sponsor about one of my coachees. In another instance, a patriarch of a family-run business I was consulting with, refused to discontinue a loss-making product, which was close to his heart, despite mounting evidence and repeated pleas from his team.

This pattern—of leaders becoming overly attached to their own ideas, even when they are no longer viable—is more common than we think. There seems to be a moment when conviction morphs into rigidity and idea becomes identity. And from that point on, letting go of an idea that may have well started off as a bold or a thoughtful one, is not just a business decision—it becomes emotional, personal, even an existential threat.

The Idea = Identity Trap

Why do some leaders struggle to pivot, even in the face of obvious failures? A few underlying patterns can explain this behaviour:

The Resolve–Flexibility Conflict: In leadership stories, unwavering resolve is often a much-admired trait. Perseverance is placed top on the virtue pedestal. Flexibility, by contrast, is sometimes perceived as dilution or even weakness. When leaders equate flexibility with backing off, they miss the opportunity to correct.

The Backfire Effect: A close cousin of confirmation bias, this is the tendency to dismiss contrary evidence and double down on existing beliefs. The more challenged a leader feels, the more fiercely they cling to the original idea.

Fear of Judgment: Admitting that a decision was flawed can feel like exposing oneself—particularly in high-stakes, competitive, or hierarchical environments. The fear of losing credibility can override rational assessment.

Hubris Mind: Sometimes, ego and power play a larger role. The pursuit of recognition, status, or legacy can take precedence over the greater good. When leaders start to believe their ideas are inherently superior, dissent is easily dismissed.

The Eternal Bond: Some leaders fall in love with their ideas. The emotional investment is so high that separation feels like betrayal. Even when abandoning the idea outright is necessary, they may continue to support it subtly, through backdoor efforts.

Lessons from the Real World

There are numerous examples of this trap playing out in the real world. The story of Kingfisher Airlines, where personal passion overrode financial viability, or Tata Nano, which couldn’t find its market despite its noble intentions, come to mind.

An extreme and cautionary tale is that of Theranos, once valued at USD 9 billion. Its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, promoted a revolutionary, minimally invasive blood-testing solution. The narrative was so compelling that few questioned the feasibility of the technology—until the truth came out that ended in her imprisonment. What started as an audacious idea became an illusion, propped up by greed and systemic silence.

What is the Antidote?

There is no single formula to prevent the Idea = Identity trap. But leaders can consciously cultivate habits that build awareness and bring changes. Here are some helpful approaches:

Decoding Feedback: Actively process feedback from diverse sources. Rather than using it to confirm assumptions, treat it as a mirror. Dissenting voices, in particular, often hold the most valuable truths.

Staying Grounded: Maintain clarity about what’s really happening. Leaders benefit from sizing up the environment openly and adapting accordingly. Being grounded is about seeing the world as it is—not as we want it to be.

Being Reflective: Take time to introspect: Why am I holding on to this? Is it about the idea itself, or what it represents—success, pride, fear of failure? Practices like journaling can help build alternate narratives and recover from personal beliefs.

Building Psychological Distance: Changing the narrative from “my idea” to “an idea I’m exploring” can create just enough distance to evaluate it more objectively. The idea no longer defines the person—it simply becomes one of many alternatives considered.

Normalising Course Correction: Consider course correction as a strength. When teams see their leaders course-correct based on evidence and introspection, it builds trust, not doubt. Stepping back can be a sign of learning, not weakness.

Closing Thought

Ideas can be powerful. But when they become fused with ego, they can become dangerous. While resistance is natural, stubbornness can hinder progress and damage the cause. As coaches, we may also fall prey to this trap by engaging in a course of action even when we realise it is ineffective or not challenging leaders enough who are victims of this behaviour. For leaders, it may pay to remember that who they are is always bigger than what they have built—and that adaptability is not the opposite of strength, but it is a quiet companion.

Author – S. Raghuram, CFI Coach

About the Author

Raghu has been an industry leader and is now giving back to the field of management as a Coach. He has partnered with Marquee Indian and Global clients across the world. He is a visiting faculty at premier management institutes including the IIMs.

I have a rather tough-minded question to ask of leaders.

The question is this: Is the offer for investment in developing a leader a perquisite, a privilege or a responsibility?

For a long time, when organizations offered any development to a leader, be it feedback, executive education or coaching, it was positioned as a privilege. The narrative was, “look, you are the chosen one, you have potential and we believe in you, we would like you to develop”.

The second narrative was around development being voluntary. “This is voluntary, you take the initiative, own your development because the sense of agency is important. If you are busy and not interested, it’s okay”.

There is truth in both these stances. But I think in overdoing this, we are missing a third and less articulated narrative around responsibility. “Very few organisations would say, “It is your responsibility to constantly develop yourself. It is not a choice because too much is at stake for us”.

Let’s imagine a leader who has been hired or chosen to lead an extremely important business at a huge compensation. This leader has been given a large team and the freedom to hire even more people at huge costs and the freedom to shape the business and the whole Board and the business now expects him to make this a success.

If the board believes that the leader has blind spots or development needs but the leader refuses to believe that he needs to receive feedback, needs to change his views and opinions and his style or says he has no time for development. Imagine the huge risk the leader is exposing the business to. Imagine the organisation climate the leader might be negatively impacting. Imagine the poor decisions the leader might be taking. Imagine the lack of guidance his leaders might be suffering from.

Quite often, when organizations approach us for coaching, it would appear to me that the sponsors are more serious about development than the leader is and there are no consequences to this stance. This to me is a serious situation.

I am imagining a day when in addition to the employment contract or the letter of pay increase, organisations also sign a developmental contract with its leaders where it is emphasised that being open to receiving feedback and seeking developmental support is a responsibility that the leader must fulfil.

A leader who refuses to embrace developmental investments overtly or covertly can in today’s world be a serious liability.

Youtube Link: https://youtu.be/lwOLSS7tJGU
Video Link: 20250507_095406000_iOS.MP4

“I had some concerns at work, and at the point when they got really serious I decided to move on. I advised my manager accordingly. Suddenly I was the cynosure of leadership’s eyes. High-level meetings with senior folks filled my calendar – folks who wanted to explore what they could do to support me at work. People I had never met were now keen to engage in conversations with me about my career!”

Sounds familiar?

The old adage goes “The crying child gets the milk”. To engage with employees and have meaningful conversations around careers. aspirations, growth and development is always a good idea. Listening to employees who have concerns, understanding and then resolving those concerns is, again, always a good idea. The problem arises when this happens only when an employee says s/ he wants to quit – i.e. milk is fed only when the child cries.

This kind of situation sends many negative signals.

1.Employees will always be there.

It indicates that employees are typically taken for granted – a belief that “they want the job more than we want them to stay on the job”. Perhaps this arose from those days of yore when demand (for good people) was lower than supply, and so employees tended to hold on to a job no matter what.
A related problematic signal – we see the value in things and people only when we are about to lose them, or have lost them already.

To take employees for granted is not healthy – it will likely end in a lose-lose situation for the individual and the organisation.

2.A threat works best.

In such a case, employees tend to believe that the easiest way to get what they want is to threaten to quit. This is in the opposite kind of reality, where demand may be higher than supply. The belief is that organisations will do anything to hold on to people – and will tolerate even threats!
Other aspects –

• Encourages manipulative rather than authentic engagement
• Rewards attention-seekers, attention-seeking behaviour
• Recognition is about who threatens, who cries out loudest – not who deserves it the most

Again, this is unhealthy – it can lead to a slew of dysfunctional behaviours from employees (and leaders).

Focus on engagement

Authentic, human engagement at work has many benefits; I want to focus here on prevent (or minimise) this ‘crying child’ problem.

Here are three questions for leaders:

1.Who do you have conversations with?
2.What kind of conversations do you have with your people?
3.When do you initiate engagement, conversations with individual employees?

Who do you have conversations with?

People tend to have conversations with …

• People they like – with whom there is a rapport, some human connection, good ‘chemistry’
• People like themselves – who have similar interests, backgrounds, likes/ dislikes, and so on (this also includes people of the same gender, same generation, same qualifications …)

At work, leaders tend to have conversations with high performers, and of course very different kind of conversations with poor performers.

But no one can like everybody they work with. And any workplace is likely to have a mix of people (rather than an all-alike team of minions). Performance-wise, there is usually a big group of just ‘ordinary’ employees who show up, do the work, keep their heads down and get on with things. And this group, in my opinion, is the one that is least likely to have any conversations with the manager/ leader.

Observation/ Reflection: Who do you have conversations with? How can you expand the catchment area of people you have conversations with?

Action: Initiate conversations with people you are typically unlikely to engage with (you may need to do some planning and logistic manoeuvring). Start with the work environment … you can extend this practice to people beyond work as you go forward.

What kind of conversations do you have?

The pressure is high – for delivery, for efficiency, for waste-elimination. An outcome of this (maybe unintentional) is that people have less and less time for conversations. In the super-sensitive diversity-rich environments in offices today, there are additionally many rules of engagement (for example, “avoid topics like religion or politics”). Huge shifts in patterns of engagement with younger generations who live in the world of social media, shrunken family/ community, and AI add to the problem of “What to converse with people about? And how?”

As a result of these, it is easy for a leader to spend whatever time s/ he has for engagement solely on transactional and/ or superficial conversations.

Observation/ Reflection: What kind of conversations do you have? How much of time is on transactional or superficial topics? What non-transactional topics can you engage people on – even work-related but beyond transactions?

Action: Initiate conversations on topics you are typically unlikely to talk about. Remember, conversations are always two-way … you need to talk and even more importantly, listen.

When do you initiate conversations?

Once you expand the range of people you engage with, and the topics you engage with them about – it is an easy matter to plan when to initiate conversations. There are many possibilities (not mutually exclusive)

• At random, spontaneous
  Periodically (e.g. every month, or once in two weeks)
• Before or after a big personal event for that person (or yourself)
• Before or after a big work event/ outcome – especially a negative one

Observation/ Reflection: When and how often do you initiate conversations? What is most comfortable for you? (e.g. planned, or spontaneous?)

Action: Initiate engagement with employees. Don’t wait for the baby to cry. Invest the time and effort, and build an open mind. The rewards will be massive.

Author – Anand Kasturi, CFI Coach

About the Author

Anand Kasturi is an award winning Consultant Trainer and Executive Coach with over 20 years of experience in areas of customer centricity/services management. He has run workshops in countries spanning Asia-Pacific, Australia, UK, Germany and the USA.