Crafting the Path to Senior Leadership
The September edition of the Shenomics Mentoring Circle aimed at getting insights into what it takes to create a path to senior leadership. Deepali Naair, CMO for IBM in India and South Asia, was our guest expert for the session. Deepali is an award-winning leader in the space of marketing. She has won several awards including the 2020 CMO of the year award by The Economic Times Most promising Tech Marketers. She comes with more than 20 years of experience and has led Marketing and Digital at IIFL Wealth group of Companies. In her previous role – she was also a non-executive member of the Board at IIFL Wealth Finance.
Several key insights emerged from the candid and “straight from the heart” conversation with Deepali. Here is a summary of the most powerful takeaways from the session.
It all starts with a clear vision
Tracing back to what has helped her create maximum impact in her journey, Deepali emphasized on the importance of putting pen to paper and writing down certain key aspects related to one’s vision for their career, including:
- What one wants from their career, and articulating it with depth and detail about how one wants to contribute, as well as the kind of organizations that align with this vision
- One’s strengths
- Existing skills and those we wish to acquire and develop
A key insight that Deepali shared was that it isn’t enough to aim for a CXO role without aligning it with the kind of responsibility and contribution that one wants to make. Hence it is important to define one’s career aspiration beyond the role and reflect on the context and the content of the role.
Deepali shared that in her experience, working with a coach to distill reflections around one’s vision brings in immense clarity. In her opinion, it is best to begin working with a coach when one is doing well. Coaching is a process that brings results in the long term and hence requires patience and building rapport with one’s coach. The advantage of working with a coach when things are going well is that by the time one begins a career transition, there is a level of resonance that has already set in between the coach and the coachee.
Seeking support from the organization
While sharing her views on asking for support while working on one’s goals, Deepali shared three things we could do:
- Share our aspiration with key stakeholders within the organization so that they are clear about what we want.
- Ask for a mentor.
- Network within the organization to seek support, guidance, and skill-building.
Career Breaks
Having taken two breaks during her career, Deepali’s advice was to plan 6 months ahead about what one would do during the break to keep learning and stay relevant. Asking previous managers for projects to work on during the break is one way to contribute and keep learning. Opting for an additional degree could be another option to continue learning and return to the workplace with enhanced skills.
Top 3 insights from Interviews with CEOs
Sharing insights from her podcast Being CEO, where Deepali interviews CEOs, she mentioned three patterns that she observed among those she has spoken to so far:
- Commitment to remain life-long learners.
- Passion for reading.
- Focus on building their physical energy, because they believe their energy inspires confidence among their teams.
Insights on various ways to Learn and Grow
While speaking about the importance of being a life-long learner, Deepali shared 5 ways to add more dimension to how we learn:
- Reading books.
- Reflection – Deepali feels this is a brilliant way of learning. She likes learning through joint reflections with her coach. She also recommends 15 minutes of daily journaling.
- Learning from those around us – leaders, colleagues, and our teams.
- Classroom learning (through leadership programs and skill-building programs).
- Having a creative date with oneself – This one is truly unique. Quoting Roshan Abbas, she shared that she has set up creative dates with herself to learn modern art and storytelling.
Personal Branding
Being someone who has a strong personal brand and is often requested to speak about the subject, we asked Deepali for her advice on creating a powerful brand for ourselves. Her simple formula was to work on oneself to become the person one wants to be known as. The thought deeply resonated with us, given that at Shenomics, we believe in leading from within, and anchoring our work and our vision in our core values.
Thank you, Deepali for the wonderful session. Your candid approach won our hearts.
