What makes a good leader? Someone who has the standard qualities including public speaking and charisma? Two executive women coaches have a different opinion.
“Each one of us has strengths. You need to rediscover that quality, use it to look for opportunities, create a personalised plan and be the best leader you can be. Because there is one goal — success. It doesn’t matter which path you take to reach it,” explains Anita Gupta (63) and Supriya Padmanabhan (47), the managing partners of My Persona.
The idea dawned after their years of marketing and advertising experience at J Walter Thomson. From co-workers, acquaintances and friends to business partners, the duo considers their 15-year-old relationship perfect and complementary to each other. “We combined the knowledge we had. Supriya went ahead to pursue phychology, parenting and hypnotherapy and I got into counseling and therapy. It was this magical combo of what we learnt that made us capitalise our strength to build a brand. We realised the exact need in the world. All we had to do was leverage the forgotten strengths in people,” says Anita and thus My Persona was started in 2011.
But isn’t it necessary to have certain qualities than just betting a plan on one’s strength? Isn’t it necessary to fill the gaps? “People believe in the stereotypes of a perfect leader. Someone who is good at public speaking is bold and is organised. Because of this, they are stuck in an awkward position where they try to fill those gaps and ignore their strengths. Each of us have our own style, and are different from one another; use that quality in you to your advantage. We don’t say ignore the gaps, but don’t operate out of them or get obessessed. We are trying to make authentic leaders, not someone who they are not,” explains Anita.
If you believe in their methods or want to give it a try, take part in their first one-day workshop of the Master Me Series, Sharpen Your Leadership Presence on February 19 at Raintree, Alwarpet. For details, call 28252728.
The Process
After a pre-workshop assessment, the real workshops begin with little lecturing. Then, they provide a set of tools and exercises for you to find your inner strength. Once you rediscover it (which is your ‘Aha!’ moment), you are put into small groups and given case studies. You are made to have a one-on-one with Supriya or Anita and at the end of the session, you have a personalised plan based on your strength and what kind of leader you want to be.