
[Vinita Gupta is a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur and was the first Indian-American woman to take her company public. Since retiring, she has propelled herself through her journalism, mentoring women entrepreneurs and playing competitive bridge at the highest levels. She has won several National titles in bridge.]
I was once invited to participate on a Pan Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) panel focused on the topic of leadership. IITs are the most prestigious engineering institutes in India, and the panel consisted of five successful leaders from prominent consulting firms and technology companies in the US—all IIT alums like myself. I was honored to be the only woman on the panel, and eager to share my experiences with the audience and my peers.
I shared that in my experience, effective leadership is learned by walking a tightrope. Unfortunately, my co-panelists did not share my view. They argued for leadership being a talent which you either do or don’t have — it is innate. The other panelists were also perhaps more articulate and relatable to the predominantly male audience. My responses fell flat. Perhaps if I could have expressed myself more effectively things would have gone differently. But at the time I did not have the skill to defend my own experiences to my peers and audience that seemed unwilling to understand me.
Fast forward twenty years, while serving on several not-for profit boards, in diverse areas of Healthcare, Mathematical research, US-Asia Geopolitical Relationships and its economic impact, and Fostering Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley, I get to rub shoulders with prestigious men and women who are invited to serve on these boards for their demonstrated leadership in their professional journeys as heads of divisions and CEOs. Their perspectives are learning moments for me.
Part of our fiduciary responsibility as board members is to evaluate the CEOs of these complex institutions. In doing so I have realized that day-to-day leadership begins by hiring a team you trust and managing time and resources wisely by and delegating effectively. But leadership is also much more than simply making sure things get done. Effective and successful leaders know how to take risk, how to balance focus on tactics vs strategy, and how to streamline their organizations for maximum efficiency. It also means conducting with clarity, and how to deal with market changes. Balancing empathy, communication and transparency are the underpinnings of successful leadership.
All of these skills are learned through experience. It is not enough to simply have the “innate leadership skillset”, whatever that means I had learned how to be a leader often by making mistakes. I recall a time when we had promised a delivery of new product to our largest customer, Worlcom. To motivate engineers to meet the deadline, we offered them financial incentives. However, because of engineering challenges, it was impossible to meet the deadline, We lost six months. By the end of the project, morale was incredibly low on the engineering team. The incentives meant nothing compared to the disappointment. We as leaders had focused on productivity, doing what we could to ensure quick delivery on our promise to Worlcom, when we should have slowed down to ensure our teams had what they needed to get the job done.
The lesson I learned through that experience was: that leadership is about juggling priorities, making decisions, and finding balance. It involves leading, being a follower, and becoming a teammate. It means commanding and listening-– knowing when to instruct and when to learn. The most challenging aspect of leadership is to be clear as well as kind. It also mandates clarity, communication, and conciseness.
As a budding entrepreneur on the panel, I had an intuition about what I now know to be true: Leadership is all about walking the tightrope, holding two things at once:
Humility with confidence.
Vulnerability with boundaries.
Decisiveness with collaboration.
Direction with flexibility.
Compassion with distance.
High expectations with grace.
Productivity with humanity.
Walking a tightrope takes skill and hours of dedicated practice. It requires a willingness to fall, readjust, and try again. The people you lead need the same from you: a willingness to show up everyday, knowing you will falter, and step out on that tightrope again, and again, and again.