Name: Navleen Sehgal

Title: Chapter Lead - Analyst

Organisation: ANZ Bank

Successful IT career of more than 18 years started with engineering and now a chapter lead in ANZ bank, leading the team of analysts in Payments.

Prior to ANZ, I held lead analyst positions with NBN and Telstra.

I live in Melbourne and have 2 lovely boys who keeps me busy. In my free time I enjoy going out for a walk, spend time with my boys, and watching some Netflix.

Thank you to the 2,000 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 Questions on Leadership!

I hope Navleen's answers will encourage you in your leadership journey. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Jonno White

1. What have you found most challenging as a leader?

No one is a born leader. Leaders also have leaders to learn from.

My mentors and leaders always gave me the stage to make mistakes and then find the solution myself.

Best learning a leader can give to team is giving the team the capacity to solve their own problems.

I learnt it with my experience that helping people by giving them the solution is not helpful rather than, there be times when is better to help them solve it themselves.

2. How did you become a leader? Can you please briefly tell the story?

I always wanted to be a leader, and I had my own struggle to become one. I had been working with ANZ for quite a while so that helped obviously.

Me being a working mom with 2 kids helped me a lot answering most of the questions in the interview on team management. If I can manage a teenager at home, trust me I can manage anyone in the team.

3. How do you structure your work days from waking up to going to sleep?

My day starts at 7 am with a cup of tea with my loving husband. Being a Indian mom pack fresh lunch for boys, then my husband takes over and drops kids to school.

I check my emails and responds to emails and ask my team if they all are doing fine or if there are any issues.

Then I do BodyFit training for 1 hour, that's a non-negotiable in my routine followed by breakfast.

Work Work Work till 5 pm. I keep my evenings free to spend time with my family and take kids to classes.

I again sit at my desk at 8:00 pm and finish the pending things.

Enjoy my turmeric milk and then sleep around 10:30, Get ready for next day.

4. What's a recent leadership lesson you've learned for the first time or been reminded of?

One key leadership lesson one learned leader told me "You have to create your replacement first, before you want to move up the ladder" and I always follow that.

Other important lesson is "Always know when to stand up, stand besides, stand firm and stand down".

Stand up for the team and build the trust with your team to inspire two-way confidence.

Stand Besides the team you are working with. Leadership simply requires you to listen, to support, to accompany - to stand beside someone when they need it most.

Stand Firm, as a leader, you are ultimately responsible for the decisions you make or the direction you take. No decision is going to please everyone, nor should it be designed to do so.

Stand Down: Saying sorry, admitting mistakes or oversights.

5. What's one book that has had a profound impact on your leadership so far? Can you please briefly tell the story of how that book impacted your leadership?

While I am not a book reader, I love listening to podcasts/TEDTalks whenever I get time. I find them more engaging and motivating.

Generally, I listen to Indra Nooyi, Priyanka Chopra, Michelle Obama, Steve Harvey, Warren Buffett, Women leaders in ANZ.

6. If you could only give one piece of advice to a young leader, what would you say to them?

It's never too early to become a leader, don't think you are not ready yet or you yet to learn alot.

Being a leader means things are under your control as you get to plan your day, set the strategy and work on it.

At any stage of life and career, you must continually increase your learning, the way you think, and the way you approach the organization.

7. What is one meaningful story that comes to mind from your time as a leader, so far?

If you manage a team, most challenging part is to delegate the work within the team considering their interests, capability and growth plan.

In today's world everyone needs flexibility to work, how to accommodate their work choices with the company policies is also a challenge for leaders.

In the end, trust your team and make a connect with them. Talk to them regularly, understand their professional as well as personal challenges and work on them.

Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.