7 More Questions on Leadership with Anisha Roshal Rodrigues
Name: Anisha Roshal Rodrigues
Title: Pharmacist
Organisation: Nitte
I'm a Pharmacist by profession. I'm a Lead Like A Girl Fellow, a Podcast host on Swell and Research scholar at Nitte. I center my beliefs around allopathic as well as ayurvedic system as well while giving lots of importance to yoga, sustainable living and renewable energy.
Thank you to the 2,000 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 Questions on Leadership!
We’ve gone through the interviews and asked the best of the best to come back and answer 7 MORE Questions on Leadership.
I hope Anisha's answers will encourage you in your leadership journey. Enjoy!
Cheers,
Jonno White
1. As a leader, how do you build trust with employees, customers and other stakeholders?
We don't need to do extreme things to build trust with the people around us. One of the ways to build trust is by listening to what they have to offer and guiding them accordingly. Establishing rapport by actively listening to them, engaging in the conversation and showing empathy where needed can go miles in building a strong trust with everyone no matter the relationship status you have with them.
2. What do 'VISION' and 'MISSION' mean to you? And what does it actually look like to use them in real-world business?
Mission is defining the aspects of organization and myself which I want to focus on at the present timeline.
Vision is defining the aspects of organization & myself I'd like to ideally become and a timely goal that I'd like to achieve over different timeframes.
3. How can a leader empower the people they're leading?
By giving them authority and power over certain tasks and duties and ensuring that they complete them within a specified period of time.
By giving all the people in the team different responsibilities & In-charge ship to facilitate equal leadership opportunities among all.
4. Who are some of the coaches or mentors in your life who have had a positive influence on your leadership? Can you please tell a meaningful story about one of them?
I've had a lot of coaches & mentors guide me all throughout but the best one I've had is Prekshya Saraf Maharana. She was my coach all throughout my fellowship in Lead Like A Girl Cohort 2023. The best story I can recall as of now is of the time when she took a session on how to deal with confrontation. As a people pleaser I have always found it difficult to say no and confront people. While I was sharing a personal experience of mine, I recall how she reinstated the fact, "Keep the intent neutral and everything will fall in place." This helped me a lot and now confrontation is a lot easier.
5. Leadership is often more about what you DON'T do. How do you maintain focus in your role?
As leaders we constantly have to segregate a lot of tasks in our brain and Calendly can go only so far. The key to maintaining focus is to actually write down actionable steps that you will be doing every day and assign time and a schedule for everything. Assign different responsibilities to different people and trust everyone to do their work. That way your focus won't be shaken and you will have a flow to everything.
6. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Everyone plans differently. How do you plan for the week, month and years ahead in your role?
I have three different plans, one for the year, the month and the day. My daily plan is just carried out by my efficient brain which plans out everything and has a flow on its own otherwise I write down everything on a work journal. The monthly plan has time slots blocked for every other activity and a schedule planned accordingly. The yearly plan is actually divided into quarterly plans and then progresses further.
7. What advice would you give to a young leader who is struggling to delegate effectively?
Delegation is very important. Start by handing over something easy and quick that you can do in very little time even if you have to do the task again but hand it over to somebody and tell them to do it. Repeat the process until you learn to delegate and trust others work effectively.
