Name: Juthika Mehta

Title: Chief Program Officer and Chief of Staff to Adille Sumariwalla.OLY

Organisation: Center of Excellence at Transstadia Institute

As the Chief Program Officer at Transstadia Institute, I am responsible for ensuring the academic undergraduate programs run efficiently in collaboration with the oldest university in Mumbai, the University. The running of sales, admissions, marketing, and all other supporting verticals for this center too. However, the key to holding this piece together is the running of the Center of Excellence in Sports Science and Sports Management, which is a state-of-the-art sports science facility for athletes and students alike.

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 Juthika'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?

Trust building is the hardest yet the most primitive way of successful leadership. Transparency is key in building trust. If your employees know you always have their backs and they have yours, then no matter what the challenges, you will always work as a team. As a leader, you will be forced to function diplomatically on every occasion, but a healthy mix of transparency will allow you to do so effortlessly.

2. What do 'VISION' and 'MISSION' mean to you? And what does it actually look like to use them in real-world business?

Vision is a large goal set by the founder, board, and senior management for the company, and mission is the roadmap of sorts to achieve the same. However, application of them in the real world is where an individual's creativity comes into play more often than not. This is where companies look for intrapreneurs to tackle the team, the management, the obstacles, and still ensure all milestones leading to the larger vision are met.

3. How can a leader empower the people they're leading?

Avoid micromanaging; every individual needs to be given space to make mistakes, learn, show creativity and yet be accountable as a leader if you are unable to give individuals or your team space to do all of the above sooner or later they will be unsatisfied and find that satisfaction elsewhere. There is immense empowerment in allowing an individual to find their own strengths and weaknesses even if you may already know it.

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 have worked with my current boss for over 11 years now, and the reason we are successfully able to do so is because he truly allows me to run the ship as I would like to; he only ensures we sail in the right direction. I have understood his working style and adapted to the same, he has left enough room for me to make mistakes and grow.

He built trust by leading by example everything he expected me to do he has done and spent time teaching me how to do, if I had feedback on how to do it better he heard instead of fighting me back on my way is better sometimes he anticipated the challenges but yet let me do them my way and helped me through the challenges for us to discover another way together, his patience to teach, his love for sport, his discipline, hardwork and his transparent leadership allowed for me to built something I called my own under him.

This is one of the reasons I am able to lead successfully today. One advice find yourself a mentor you look up to and pick from them the learnings you would like to apply to your personal style, adapt, incorporate, and don't imitate, make it your own.

5. Leadership is often more about what you DON'T do. How do you maintain focus in your role?

Leadership isn't about skill development - it's about fine tuning your already established skills and providing a resolution for things your team isn't able to resolve. As a leader the team expects you to listen, conflict resolve and provide support not anything else.

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?

When an annual milestone/goalpost is given by your board/management/boss/senior, you get each division/vertical to align with the same. Now, each team needs to draw out a plan on how they will help reach the goal post with budgets, operational plans, implementation plans, and impact assessment.

Once each team submits their plan, a larger plan is placed by me to all HOD's pushing them to achieve their annual goals, and together as a team how we work towards achieving the annual goal. This planning method is a monitoring plan, a crisis management plan, and other anticipated obstacles, which are worked on by the senior management and me.

7. What advice would you give to a young leader who is struggling to delegate effectively?

No one will ever do things as efficiently as you, but they will also never be able to do so cause you don't allow room for them to try and fail. Always remember everyone is dispensable, including you For the company, the only thing that will matter is that the work doesn't stop Hence when you are efficiently able to learn the art of delegation you are also able to take a backseat and support as a leader versus choosing only your way is the right way. You then also start building on your process, your team, and your legacy as a leader, and this is immensely powerful.