I build organizations that perform through change.

For more than two decades, I’ve led and advised executive teams at Twitter, Lincoln Center, GLG, Verizon Media, Bloomberg, Deutsche Bank, and McKinsey on how to align people, strategy, and systems so that transformation doesn’t just start —it sticks.

My work sits at the intersection of HR, organizational design, and leadership behavior. I help CEOs, CHROs, and functional leaders architect operating models that accelerate performance, strengthen culture, and enable scale without chaos.

Through Leadership Rewired, I’ve worked with growth-stage and enterprise organizations to translate strategy into action, rebuild leadership alignment, and embed accountability where it matters most—at the behavioral level.

Whether leading from within or advising from the outside, my focus stays the same: clarity over complexity, systems over silos, and people at the center of every decision.

Specialties: Organizational Design | HR Transformation | Talent Strategy | Leadership Alignment | Change Enablement | People Analytics | Culture & Engagement | Executive Coaching

Allison Allen, ACC

Leadership doesn’t fail because people don’t know what to do.
It fails because the hardest behaviors are rarely practiced.

Listening.
Curiosity.
Genuine interest in other people.

We treat these like instincts, but they’re skills.
And skills don’t show up under pressure unless they’ve been trained.

In this clip from Leadership Rewired, Ken Fogarty MSc, CPSL, CEO, Dale Carnegie of Nevada, names the uncomfortable truth behind most leadership breakdowns:

Common sense leadership isn’t common practice.

🚩 Especially when conversations are tense.
🚩 Especially when stakes are high.
🚩 Especially when authority would be easier than curiosity.

Leaders don’t rise to intention in hard moments.
They fall back on what they’ve practiced.

🎙️ Ask, Don’t Tell: How Great Leaders Get Better Results
Full episode below in comments.

📌 Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
♻️ Please repost if this resonates and follow for more leadership insights.

Transforming Organizations Through People, Culture & Systems | HR & Talent Executive | Advisor to CEOs, CHROs & Growth Leaders | Founder, Leadership Rewired | Ex-Twitter, Expedia, GLG, Verizon Media, McKinsey

A regulated leader is a high-performing leader.

Calm is capacity.
Calm is clarity.
Calm is strategy.

You’ve seen it.
The leader who walks into the crisis and the room exhales,
not because they have all the answers,
but because their nervous system isn’t adding to the chaos.

They don’t need perfect information.
They just need enough regulation to think clearly
while everyone else is spinning.

High performance isn’t speed or intelligence.
It’s psychological capacity under pressure.

Consider this...
→ 71% of leaders report increased stress.
→ Stress management practices reduce burnout by nearly 2x.
→ Leaders with emotional regulation skills outperform their peers in every measure that matters...
→ execution, influence, decision-making, and team effectiveness.

Yet most leaders still treat regulation as a “nice-to-have.”
Something for wellness newsletters.
Something useful when things are calm, 
then abandoned the moment pressure hits.

Here’s what they’re missing:
→ Regulation isn’t what you do when pressure is low.
→ It’s what gives you capacity when pressure is high.

The cost of unregulated leadership:
🚩 When leaders lose capacity under pressure:
→ Panic narrows thinking — the solution becomes obvious only in hindsight
→ Decisions soothe anxiety instead of advancing strategy
→ Teams waste energy managing your emotional spikes
→ Reactivity becomes the operating system others must work around

What regulated leadership creates:
✅ When leaders stay grounded:
→ Thinking expands, you see options panic would hide
→ Strategy drives decisions instead of emotion
→ People bring you information early because they trust your steadiness
→ Teams stay focused on execution, not emotional cleanup

The pattern high-performing leaders understand:
→ Pressure doesn’t disappear.
→ Complexity doesn’t calm down.
→ Uncertainty doesn’t resolve.

What changes is your capacity to stay regulated inside all of it.

✅ The leader who can sit in a boardroom full of anxiety and not absorb it?
→ That’s who the board trusts with the hardest calls.
✅ The leader who can hear bad news without spiraling?
→ That’s who teams bring problems to before they explode.
✅ The leader who can feel the discomfort of the decision and make it anyway?
→ That’s who actually transforms organizations.

The compound effect:
Your regulation becomes your team’s capacity.

When you stay steady, they think more clearly.
When you stay grounded, they stop managing your emotions.
When you model composure, they learn how to navigate pressure themselves.

This isn’t “soft skills.”
This is organizational performance architecture.

Calm isn’t the absence of pressure.
Calm is having access to your full strategic intelligence
when pressure is highest.

👉🏾 How would your leadership change if you had full access to your strategic capacity, even under pressure?

📌 Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
♻️ Please repost if this resonates and follow for more leadership insights.

If you can’t do everything next week, 
choose the thing that will move anything.

Sunday night.
The week ahead is already too full.
The priorities are competing.
The urgent is screaming.
The important is shrinking into the background.

So here’s the question that cuts through all of it:
❓ What’s the one thing you could do next week that would unstick something else?

Not the biggest thing.
Not the loudest thing.
Not the thing that makes you look productive.
The thing that creates movement.

Here’s what I mean:
→ The conversation you’ve been avoiding that’s blocking three other decisions
→ The email you need to send that would clarify direction for your whole team
→ The 30 minutes of thinking that would save you an hour every day
→ The boundary you’ve been delaying that would protect your capacity

You already know what it is.
You’ve been circling it all week.

For the week ahead, try this:
Before you dive into Monday’s chaos, identify your one unlocking move —
the single action that, if you did it, would make everything else easier or unnecessary.

Not your whole to-do list.
Not your full list of priorities.
Just your unlock.

Then protect it like your most important meeting.
Because it is.

The difference between leaders who create momentum and leaders who manage overwhelm?
→ They don’t try to do everything.
→ They do the thing that moves anything.

And here’s what compounds:
When you consistently identify and execute your weekly unlock... 
 ✅ You stop drowning in tactics.
 ✅ You start seeing the levers that actually matter.
 ✅ You build the muscle of strategic action, not just strategic thinking.

Next week doesn’t have to be perfect.
It just has to move.

Your Sunday Practice:
What’s one thing you could do next week that would unstick something else?
→ Write it down.
→ Block time for it on Monday.
→ Do it before anything that feels more urgent.
 ✅ That’s your week.

👉🏾 What’s your unlock for this week, the one move that would create momentum for everything else?

📌 Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
♻️ Please repost if this resonates and follow for more leadership insights.

Sometimes I wonder if we’ve got leadership backwards.

We chase development like it’s a fix,
more training, 
better frameworks, 
sharper models. 

As if clarity only comes once everything is perfectly defined.

But real leadership doesn’t happen in the polished moments.

It happens in the messy ones. 
The uncertain ones. 
The days when you’re not sure if you’re doing it right.

Building resilient cultures during change isn’t about avoiding chaos.

It’s about staying present inside it. 
Letting disruption teach you instead of rushing to control it.

I’ll be honest, there are moments when leadership feels like translating strategy into action without a clear map. 

When you’re making calls with imperfect information
and trusting your judgment more than your certainty.

And maybe that’s the work.

Leaders who are willing... 
To ask questions. 
To stumble a little. 

To admit they don’t have all the answers, but stay engaged anyway.

So if you’re feeling a bit lost today, you’re not behind.

You’re in it.

And sometimes, that’s exactly where growth happens.

📌 Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
♻️ Please repost if this resonates and follow for more leadership insights.

We’re entering a world where everyone is certain, and many are wrong.

AI tells us the “truth.”
Data reinforces our beliefs.
Opinions are louder than ever.

And that’s exactly why the most important leadership skill of the future isn’t intelligence.

It’s humility.

In this clip, Ken Fogarty MSc, CPSL, CEO of Dale Carnegie of Nevada, names a principle leaders rarely practice:

If you’re wrong, admit it — quickly and emphatically.

Imagine how different teams, organizations, and cultures would feel if leaders were willing to say:

 “I was wrong.”
 “Here’s what I missed.”
 “I’m changing my mind.”

That’s not weakness.
That’s credibility.

🎙️ Ask, Don’t Tell: How Great Leaders Get Better Results
Full episode below in comments.

📌 Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
♻️ Please repost if this resonates and follow for more leadership insights.

Exhaustion makes every leader reactive.
I watched it happen in real time once.

A client — brilliant strategist, 15 years building the company, universally respected.

She called me because “something felt off.”
〰️ Her leadership wasn’t landing. 
〰️ Her team felt distant. 
〰️ Her decisions felt heavier.

She kept talking about the transformation, the pressure, the board expectations, the market demands.

After an hour, I asked one question:
“When’s the last time you slept more than five hours?”

She went silent.
She couldn’t remember.

And in that moment, it was clear:
The issue wasn’t her capability.
It was her capacity.

She’d been operating on fumes for so long that depletion became her normal.
She forgot what it felt like to lead from a full tank.

Here’s what I’ve noticed after twenty years with leaders:
Exhaustion doesn’t show up with a dramatic collapse.

It shows up in a thousand micro-reactions:
→ The midnight email that creates problems you didn’t intend
→ The meeting where your tone lands sharper than you meant
→ The decision you rush because uncertainty feels unbearable
→ The strategic conversation you can’t think clearly through because your brain simply has nothing left to give

None of these moments feel connected.
You tell yourself it’s a bad day. 
A tough week. 
A heavy quarter.

🚩 But your team?
→ They see the pattern long before you do.
→ They start managing you instead of trusting you.
→ They adjust their behavior to your exhaustion.
→ They work around you instead of with you.
And exhaustion compounds.

👉🏾 Reactive leadership creates messes that generate more pressure.

What helped that client wasn’t more strategy.
It was one question:
“What would it take for you to lead from capacity instead of depletion?”
✅ She blocked three days.
→ No email.
→ No Slack.
→ No “quick check-ins.”
→ Just space.

When she came back, she said:
“I didn’t realize how reactive I’d become until I had enough rest to feel what regulated actually feels like.”

Her team noticed before she even told them.
Not because she changed her strategy —
but because she stopped leaking instability into the system.

If something feels off this weekend…
→ Maybe it’s not your strategy.
→ Maybe it’s not your team.
→ Maybe it’s not the transformation.
→ Maybe it’s your capacity calling for protection.

The work will still be there on Monday.
The pressure isn’t leaving.
The complexity isn’t easing.
But your ability to lead through all of it?
That depends on a nervous system that isn’t running on fumes.

Weekend Reflection:
What would change if you gave yourself permission to rest, not as a reward for finishing everything, but as the foundation that makes your leadership sustainable?

📌 Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
♻️ Please repost if this resonates and follow for more leadership insights.

Sunday night. You’re looking at the week ahead and it’s already overflowing,
 → back-to-back meetings,
→ strategic decisions, 
→ team dynamics, 
→ fires to put out, 
→ problems waiting for your brain.

All of it matters. None of it works if you show up depleted.

👉🏾 You can’t think strategically when your nervous system is running on fumes. 👉🏾 You can’t regulate your responses when you’re already overstretched. 👉🏾 You can’t hold the room when you can barely hold yourself.

The week doesn’t need your exhaustion. It needs your capacity.

For the week ahead, try this:
→ Identify the 10 minutes that protects everything else.

Not the 10 minutes you hope you’ll find. The 10 minutes you will actually protect even when the week goes sideways.

For some leaders, it’s 10 minutes before the day begins to ground themselves. For others, it’s 10 minutes between meetings to reset their nervous system. For some, it’s 10 minutes at day’s end to process before going home.

It doesn’t matter when. It matters that you protect it like your most critical meeting. Because it is.

Why 10 minutes matters:
Not because 10 minutes fixes everything, but because 10 minutes of protected space changes everything downstream.

→ It’s the pause that lets you respond instead of react. → The reset that keeps stress from compounding into impatience or reactivity. → The quiet moment that prevents your team from absorbing pressure you haven’t processed yet.

Ten minutes sounds small. But it’s a leadership leverage point, a tiny hinge that moves the entire week.

🚩 Leaders who don’t protect capacity:
* Leak stress into every interaction
* Make reactive decisions they undo later
* Burn out teams trying to compensate for their depletion
* Lose clarity by Tuesday and momentum by Thursday

✅ Leaders who do protect capacity:
* Think more clearly
* Regulate better under pressure
* Make decisions from strategy, not stress
* Build environments where teams can do their best work

The difference isn’t working less. It’s protecting the space that makes the work sustainable.

Your Sunday practice:
What are the 10 minutes you will protect this week, the space that keeps you leading from capacity instead of depletion?

→ Write it down. → Block it on your calendar. → Protect it like a board meeting.

Because how you lead next week depends on it.

👉🏾 What’s your 10 minutes this week and when exactly will you protect it?

♻️ Repost to promote taking 10 minutes…
📌 Follow Allison for more leadership insight.

Consistency is a strategy. 
Intensity is a gamble.

The leader who works 80-hour weeks for six months and then burns out.
The team that launches three major initiatives at once, then abandons two.
The executive who’s “all in” until the pressure hits, then disappears.

This isn’t commitment.
It’s unsustainable theater.

Long-term leadership isn’t built on heroic sprints.
It’s built on small, compounding decisions most people never see.

Transformations rarely fail because the strategy was wrong.
They fail because leaders can’t sustain the consistency required.

These efforts are “punishing in their relentless need for consistency, consistency, consistency on the part of leadership.”

Yet intensity gets the applause.
Consistency gets ignored.

We glorify the late nights.
We praise the “whatever it takes” mentality.
We mistake exhaustion for dedication.

But the math doesn’t lie:
Intensity burns out.
Consistency compounds.

What intensity-driven leadership actually creates:
🚩 The intensity trap:
→ Unsustainable patterns that guarantee burnout
→ Teams that sprint, crash, and disengage
→ Results that spike briefly and then crater
→ Cultures built on crisis mode instead of capability

What consistency-driven leadership builds:
✅ The compounding effect:
→ Sustainable practices that grow over years
→ Teams that deliver reliably, not heroically
→ Trust rooted in predictable follow-through
→ Systems that outlive individual effort

The truth about long-term impact:
A leader who shows up at 80% for ten years
will outperform a leader who shows up at 120% for eighteen months
every single time.

Because leadership isn’t about how hard you push today.
It’s about whether your team can count on you to show up
tomorrow, next month, and five years from now.

The best leaders aren’t the weekend warriors trying to prove commitment.
They’re the ones... 
✅ Who build systems that don’t require heroics.
✅ Who create rhythms they can sustain.
✅ Who understand that presence beats performance theater.

Intensity is impressive.
Consistency is rare.

And in a world addicted to hustle culture,
the ability to show up steadily, not spectacularly,
becomes your competitive advantage.

Your team doesn’t need you to be extraordinary for a quarter.
They need you to be reliable for a decade.

That’s not less ambitious.
It’s just harder to Instagram.

👉🏾 Are you building leadership that compounds, or burning intensity you can’t sustain?

📌 Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
♻️ Please repost if this resonates and follow for more leadership insights.

You know what needs to happen.
The strategic move is obvious.
The direction is clear.
The data supports it.
Your experience confirms it.

So why isn’t it happening?

Because between knowing what to do
and actually doing it sits the hardest part of leadership:

Managing yourself.

Your strategy isn’t the problem.
The emotional discipline to execute it is.

Organizations spend millions on strategy, consultants, frameworks, offsites, planning cycles, alignment sessions.
But execution stalls for one simple reason:

Doing what the strategy requires feels emotionally uncomfortable.

Research shows emotional intelligence accounts for twice as much impact 
as IQ and technical skill in leadership effectiveness.

Yet most development dollars still go into strategic tools, 
not emotional discipline.

Most strategy failures aren’t strategy failures.
They’re self-management failures.

What happens when emotional discipline is missing:
🚩 The avoidance pattern:
→ The conversation needs to happen 
      ↳conflict feels unbearable → delay
→ The decision needs to be made 
      ↳uncertainty feels dangerous → wait for more data
→ The accountability moment arrives 
      ↳disappointing someone feels costly → soften it
→ The boundary needs protecting 
      ↳saying no triggers fear → say yes

What emotional discipline enables:
✅ Courage-based execution:
→ Having the hard conversation even when your stomach tightens
→ Making the call with 70% clarity because waiting costs more
→ Holding people accountable even when the relationship strains
→ Saying no to protect what matters, not to avoid discomfort

This has nothing to do with intelligence.
And everything to do with your willingness to tolerate discomfort long enough to lead.

The leaders who break through aren’t the ones with better strategies.
✅ They’re the ones who’ve built the emotional discipline to execute strategy
when execution feels terrible.
✅ They can recognize the spike of anxiety and not let it veto the decision.
✅ They can feel the discomfort of the hard conversation and have it anyway.
✅ They can sit inside uncertainty without manufacturing false clarity to soothe themselves.

That’s not a strategy skill.
That’s self-management.
And it’s the difference between leaders who are smart
and leaders who are effective.

Your team doesn’t need another strategic framework.
They need you to manage yourself well enough to execute the one you already have.

👉🏾 What strategic move are you avoiding right now, not because you don’t know what to do, but because doing it feels too uncomfortable?

📌 Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
♻️ Please repost if this resonates and follow for more leadership insights.

I used to think leadership was about control.
 Making sure decisions were tight. Execution was clean. 
People stayed in line.

What I’ve learned is that control creates compliance, not commitment.

Real leadership is influence. It’s built through trust. 
Through consistency. 
Through creating space where people don’t have to perform to belong.

That kind of leadership asks something harder of you.
 It asks you… 
→ To admit when you don’t have all the answers. → To stay present instead of defensive. → To lead without gripping everything so tightly.

And yes, that can feel terrifying. Because influence requires letting go of control.

But here’s what surprised me: ✅ The less I tried to control outcomes, 
✅ The more people stepped up. ✅ The more honest the conversations became. ✅ The more movement actually happened.
Influence isn’t softer than control.
 It’s stronger, and more sustainable.

And maybe, especially right now, that’s the kind of leadership that actually moves things forward.

📌 Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
♻️ Please repost if this resonates and follow for more leadership insights.

graphical user interface, text, application

Your biggest competitive advantage isn’t speed, capital, or strategy.
It’s whether you can stay steady when pressure spikes.

Imagine this:
→ A competitor launches something disruptive. 
→ The board starts asking questions. The team gets anxious. Slack lights up. → Everyone wants a fast response.
→ Most leaders reach for activity, more meetings, faster decisions, louder communication.

But the leaders who outperform don’t move faster.
They move steadier.

That steadiness? Emotional endurance.

Strategy doesn’t fail in moments of disruption.
It fails when leaders lose the capacity to think clearly through disruption.

Here’s what I see over and over:
Two organizations face the same pressure.
Same data. Same market. Same urgency.

One spirals into reactive decisions and mixed signals.
The other holds the line, adapts intelligently, and compounds trust.
The difference isn’t intelligence.
It’s endurance.

🚩 What low endurance looks like:
→ Urgency replaces strategy
→ Anxiety drives decisions
→ Teams spend energy managing leadership stress
→ “Agility” becomes chaos

✅ What high endurance enables:
→ Clear thinking under pressure
→ Consistent decisions even when uncertainty rises
→ Teams that execute instead of brace
→ Strategy that survives contact with reality

Here’s the part most leaders miss:
Emotional endurance isn’t built during crises.
It’s built before them, in small, repeatable ways.

Not retreats. Not apps. Not slogans.
But things like:
→ Protecting a small, daily reset that keeps you regulated
→ Naming pressure early so it doesn’t leak into behavior
→ Designing your operating rhythm to reduce decision fatigue

That’s not self-care.
That’s leadership architecture.

Because when pressure hits, and it will,
your team doesn’t need you faster.
They need you steadier.

👉🏾 As you head into the weekend:
What would change if you treated emotional endurance as a strategic asset, 
not a personal nice-to-have?

📌 Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
♻️ Please repost if this resonates and follow for more leadership insights.

I used to think culture was something you could shape with policies and programs.
 Put the right structures in place, and culture would follow.

What I’ve learned is that culture refuses to be engineered.
👉🏾 It lives in the stories people tell themselves. 👉🏾 The unspoken rules no one writes down. 👉🏾 The way leaders show up when no one’s watching.

And here’s the thing most leaders miss: culture isn’t static. It’s alive. 
Constantly shifting. 
Trying to control it is like trying to hold water.

So maybe the work isn’t about tightening the grip. Maybe it’s about creating space
→ for the stories to be told, 
→ for the unspoken to surface, 
→ for people to feel safe enough to be honest.

Culture isn’t built in policies. It’s built in everyday moments, 
→ how decisions are made, 
→ how conflict is handled, 
→ how people are treated when things get uncomfortable.

I’m still learning this myself.
 But I do know that real change doesn’t come from cleaning up the mess.

It comes from getting comfortable enough to stay present inside it.

📌 Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
♻️ Please repost if this resonates and follow for more leadership insights.

You can’t out-strategize emotional dysregulation.

Your transformation plan is brilliant.
The roadmap is clear.
The communications are crisp.
The milestones are defined.
Then the first obstacle hits.

Suddenly:
💥 A late-night email reverses yesterday’s decision.
💥 An emergency meeting creates more questions than answers.
💥 Priorities shift, not from strategy, but from panic.

A system can’t work when the leader running it is reactive.
When anxiety makes decisions, strategy becomes optional.

70% of change initiatives fail.
Leaders blame strategy, resources, or timing.
But here’s the truth behind the failure rate:
The plan didn’t collapse; the leader did.

73% of employees report moderate to high stress during change.
Employees experiencing change-related stress perform 5% worse.
But the real cost isn’t the team’s stress, it’s how leaders respond to their own.

When leaders can’t regulate themselves under pressure, they create:
→ Chaos their teams must absorb
→ Confusion that erodes trust
→ Whiplash pivots that look like incompetence
→ A culture where everyone manages emotions instead of executing strategy

What reactive leadership looks like during change:
🚩 When leaders lose regulation:
→ Monday’s priority becomes Friday’s “why are we even doing this?”
→ Anxiety gets translated into false urgency
→ Every problem triggers a meeting → every meeting triggers three more problems
→ Strategic pivots happen weekly because uncertainty feels unbearable

👉🏾 Teams manage the leader’s emotions instead of the organization’s change

What regulated leadership enables:
✅ When leaders stay grounded:
→ Decisions hold steady even when pressure spikes
→ Anxiety exists, but doesn’t drive strategy
→ Problems get solved without organizational chaos
→ Uncertainty is acknowledged without forcing premature answers

👉🏾 Teams stay focused on execution, not emotional cleanup

What most leaders miss:
→ Emotional regulation isn’t about staying calm.
→ It’s about staying strategic when your nervous system wants to run.
→ It’s noticing the spike of panic and refusing to turn it into policy.

✅ The leader who can feel uncertainty and still hold the line?
→ That’s who teams trust through transformation.
→ The leader who needs to “do something” to soothe their discomfort?
→ That’s how change turns into theater, not progress.

Stress management practices reduce burnout by nearly 2x.

👉🏾 Leaders who build emotional discipline create the only environment where change can actually land.

And this is the real reason 70% of change efforts fail:
Not because the plan was wrong.
But because the leader couldn’t stay regulated long enough to execute it.

👉🏾 What change are you leading right now, and how are you managing your own stress so it doesn’t become your team’s strategy?

📌 Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
♻️ Please repost if this resonates and follow for more leadership insights.

Unexpressed stress becomes unintentional harm.
Leaders leak what they don’t address.

You think you’re hiding it.
You think the team can’t tell.
You think if you just “get through the meeting,” no one will notice.

They notice.
They always notice.

Unexpressed stress doesn’t disappear.
It seeps, into tone, decisions, silence, timing, and presence.

Teams absorb what leaders won’t acknowledge.

What I’m noticing:
→ 71% of leaders report increased stress.
→ Only 29% of employees trust their immediate managers.
→ Employees with supportive managers are 11x more likely to trust their leaders.

Leaders are drowning in unspoken stress.
Teams are losing trust without knowing why.

Because stress you refuse to name doesn’t stay contained, 
it leaks into leadership in ways you can’t control.

What unexpressed stress actually looks like:
🚩 How unaddressed stress harms teams:
→ Anxiety: confusion (teams assume they caused it)
→ Irritability: vigilance (people manage mood, not work)
→ Withdrawal: isolation (silence feels like punishment)
→ Perfectionism: paralysis (fear trickles down and freezes initiative)

What acknowledged stress creates:
✅ When leaders name what they’re carrying:
→ Transparency builds trust: “Here’s what I’m managing — not your performance.”
→ Humanity spreads: teams feel permission to show up honestly
→ Clarity returns: they stop interpreting tension as failure
→ Culture shifts: problems get named instead of navigated around

What actually helps:
Leaders don’t need to process stress publicly.
But they do need enough transparency to remove misinterpretation.

Statements like:
✅ “I’m managing a lot right now. If I seem distracted, that’s me, not your performance.”
✅ “I’m under more pressure than usual this week. I’ll do my best not to let it spill over.”
✅ “My bandwidth is tighter than normal. Here’s why, and here’s what you can expect.”

That’s not oversharing.
That’s leadership that understands the cost of silence.

Stress is personal.
Its impact is not.

The moment you lead people, your inner state becomes an outer experience.

When you won’t name what you’re carrying, your team carries it for you, without context, without support, and without knowing it’s not about them.

✅ Leaders who create psychological safety through transparency 
build trust that survives pressure.
🛑 Leaders who hide their stress create cultures where everyone performs invulnerability until something breaks.

👉🏾 What stress are you carrying that your team is absorbing, and what would change if you simply named it?

📌 Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
♻️ Please repost if this resonates and follow for more leadership insights.

Lupin

• Spearhead the GTO Programs and Agenda, ensuring alignment with organizational goals.  
• Drive the extension of the GTO Strategic Roadmap to meet defined objectives.  
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to enhance strategic alignment and execution.
• Build strategies for future and prioritizing the key iniviatives

Chief of Staff - GTO

Business Transformation Leader | Lupin

Why do some businesses thrive while others struggle with inefficiencies, rising costs, and resistance to change?

At Lupin, I help transform, optimize, and scale by driving strategic initiatives that bring measurable results.

Challenges I Solve:

✔ Complex projects stall due to poor execution and unclear strategies
✔ Rising costs eat into profitability, affecting long-term sustainability
✔ Resistance to change slows down transformation efforts

How I Make an Impact:

➞ Business Transformation: Implementing end-to-end strategies to enhance efficiency & growth
➞ Program Management: Leading high-impact initiatives, ensuring seamless execution & success
➞ Cost Optimization: Identifying & eliminating inefficiencies to drive higher profitability
➞ Change Management: Helping teams embrace transformation with minimal friction

💡 The Result? Organizations become agile, profitable, and future-ready.

Vice President

PwC India

Director - Management Consulting | PwC India

Helping businesses scale, optimize, and transform for long-term success.

What I Did:

➡ Designed growth strategies that unlocked new market opportunities
➡ Led digital transformation initiatives for agility & efficiency
➡ Drove throughput improvement & capacity enhancement for scalability
➡ Spearheaded cost reduction & profitability improvement programs
➡ Implemented manufacturing excellence & process re-engineering
➡ Benchmarked industry best practices for sustainable competitive advantage
➡ Restructured organizations for better efficiency & process standardization
➡ Optimized manpower to enhance productivity & reduce overheads
➡ Assessed strategic locations for expansion & operational efficiency
➡ Developed & deployed operating models tailored for business growth

💡 The Impact?
✔ Businesses became more profitable, efficient, and future-ready
✔ Teams embraced innovation & strategic transformation
✔ Operations scaled with agility & structured growth

Looking to future-proof your business? Let’s connect!

Director - Management Consulting

Cipla

Director – Business Transformation | Cipla

Bringing efficiency, agility, and nimbleness to business processes through strategic interventions.

How I Drive Impact:

➡ Digitalization – Leveraging technology for smarter, faster operations
➡ Process Simplification – Eliminating complexity to enhance productivity
➡ Organization Restructuring – Creating agile structures for sustainable growth
➡ Productivity Enhancement – Optimizing workflows for maximum efficiency
➡ Change Management & Capability Building – Empowering teams to adapt & excel

💡 The Result? A future-ready organization that is lean, efficient, and built for success.

Director

Target

Manufacturing Excellence – Lead India | Target

Transforming strategic business partners to achieve peak performance through Digital Transformation & Manufacturing Excellence.

🚀 How I Drive Impact:

➡ Business Transformation – Enhancing efficiency & optimizing costs
➡ Supply Chain Acceleration – Bringing speed & resilience to operations
➡ Agility & Flexibility – Enabling quick adaptation to market demands
➡ Strategic Growth Support – Defining & executing long-term objectives
➡ Digital Transformation – Guiding partners toward a tech-driven future

💡 The Result? A resilient, agile, and high-performing manufacturing ecosystem ready for the future.

Manufacturing Excellence - Lead, India

• Throughput improvement and Capacity Enhancement 
• Cost Reduction 
• Manufacturing Excellence
• Business Process Re-engineering
• Organization Restructuring and Process Standardization 
• Manpower Optimization 
• Strategic Location assessment

Associate Director

- Business Process Re-engineering
- Change Management
- Business Transformation
- Operations Excellence
- Manpower Optimization

Principal Consultant

Tech Mahindra

- Understanding business requirement / pain areas
- Translating business requirement
- Process improvement
- CE Improvement
- Business transformation

Process Conaultant - BPM (Six Sigma Master Black Belt)

Wipro Limited

• Project Management
• Metrics Management
• Process Improvement
• Training & Education 
• Change Management

Deputy Manager - Black Belt

With over 18 years of professional experience, I specialize in business transformation and strategic planning, leveraging expertise as a Six Sigma Master Black Belt, PMP, and Lean Practitioner. In my current role as Chief of Staff for GTO at Lupin, I lead the organization’s strategic roadmap, driving alignment and execution of critical initiatives to achieve defined organizational objectives.  

My expertise lies in program management, cost optimization, and the implementation of end-to-end business strategies to enhance efficiency and scalability. I am committed to fostering collaboration across cross-functional teams and ensuring sustainable growth through actionable and impactful solutions. My goal is to support businesses in navigating transformation and achieving measurable success.

Parvez Siraj

This single lesson from the Bhagavad Gita transformed the way I work, grow, and live.

When you feel behind, the instinct is to speed up.
But speed is not the answer.
Presence is.

In 10th grade, I took “Typing” on an old typewriter with heavy keys.
On day one, I got only three letters to practice.
The boy next to me typed full pages.

I panicked.
I rushed.

The machine jammed again and again.

My teacher looked at me once and said,
“Stop looking at others. Just follow the process.”

So I slowed down.
Three letters became five.
Then full words.
Then sentences.

I stopped racing.
I simply showed up.

By mid-year, I scored a perfect 100 in typing.

In board exams, I was among the top scorers.

Years later, I found the verse that explained everything:
“Karmanye vadhikaraste, Ma phaleshu kadachana.”
(You have a right to your work, not to the fruits of it.)

That is the Gita’s quiet truth:
--> Do the work.
--> Release the outcome.
--> Let results arrive when they are meant to.

This is how you truly grow.
Not by chasing.
Not by rushing.
But by showing up, consistently, with presence.

If you feel behind today, pause.
Return to the work.
The quiet progress is the real progress.

Whats one lesson you learnt from holy books?
__________________

For more Conscious Inner Transformation follow Parvez Siraj

Grab your copy of Why Make Resolutions When You Can Bring Revolution from the link below, and start your transformation journey today!

https://amzn.in/d/hBMZ3O

Join the WhatsApp community now. https://lnkd.in/gXDJYd
___________________

Life Lessons From Bhagvad Gita

AI can run your business.  
But it cannot love your family.  
Work is empty if you fail at home.  

→ AI can automate your emails, your calendar, your sales  
→ It can write your reports and track your numbers  
→ It can even help you scale faster than ever before  
→ It can free up your time, but it cannot give you back lost moments  
→ It cannot hold your child’s hand at the park  
→ It cannot listen to your partner after a hard day  
→ It cannot laugh with your friends at dinner  
→ It cannot show up for birthdays, school plays, or family dinners  

We chase titles and numbers.  
We work late, miss milestones, and tell ourselves it’s for them.  
But no award or bonus can fill the space left by lost moments.  
No title can replace the warmth of a real hug.  

Balance is not a myth.  
It is a daily practice.  

I was stuck in the loop too.  
I started small:  

→ I made it a rule to eat dinner with my family, no phones  
→ I blocked time for walks with my kids, even if it was just 15 minutes  
→ I told my team my priorities…family comes first  
→ I learned to say no to meetings that could wait  
→ I set boundaries and stuck to them, even when it was hard  

Some days, I slip.  
But I aim for 1% better each day.  

Like riding a bike, you must keep moving to stay upright.  
If you stop, you fall.  

So I reflect every night:  
What went well.  
What did I miss.  
What can I do better tomorrow.  

This is not about perfection.  
It is about progress.  

Work will always be there.  
Your family will not.  

Titles fade.  
Relationships last.  

You can build a business.  
But you must build a life.  

Start with one small change.  
Speak your priorities.  
Be honest with your team.  
Let your family see you, not just your work.  

Sustainable growth is not just about profit.  
It is about being whole.  

AI can handle your business.  
But only you can be present for the people who matter.  

Choose balance.  
Choose life.

Follow Parvez Siraj for more insights on conscious inner transformation.

You wake up. You move.  You feel light.

𝐏𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐅𝐔𝐄𝐋.  
When you have it, you don’t push. You glide.  
You don’t drag yourself out of bed. You rise.  
You don’t count the hours. You lose track of time.

Most people grind through days, chasing motivation.  
They force themselves to work.  
They burn out.  
They wonder why it feels so hard.

But when 𝐏𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞 drives you, work feels different.  
You don’t need to hype yourself up.  
You don’t need to fake energy.  
You don’t need to pretend.

𝐏𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞 pulls you forward.  
It makes hard things feel easy.  
It turns effort into flow.  
You stop asking, “How much longer?”  
You start thinking, “What’s next?”

You see the difference in your results.  
You finish more.  
You create better.  
You inspire others.

People notice.  
They ask how you do it.  
You just smile.  
You know the secret.

𝐏𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞 is not a trick.  
It is not a hack.  
It is the reason behind every step.

Find it.  
Let it drive you.  
And you will never feel driven again.
_________________

Grateful to Indian Institute of Management Rohtak for inviting me. Speaking to a room full of young minds reminded me why stories matter — they shape futures.

For more insights on Conscious Inner Transformation follow ​Parvez Siraj

I used to be afraid of change.

↳ I worried about losing what I had.

↳ I imagined the worst every time something new came up.

↳ I froze, stuck between fear and hope.

But here’s what no one tells you:
The space between fear and fun is called “𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐟”
It’s a strange place. 

You don’t know what will happen. 

You can’t measure the odds. 

Still, it pulls you forward.

I remember the first time I had to speak in front of a big crowd.
My hands shook. My voice cracked. My mind raced with every “what if” you can imagine.

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐟 I forget my words?

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐟 they laugh?

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐟 I fail?

I almost said no. I almost let fear win.

But something inside me whispered, “𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐟 it goes well?”

I stepped on stage. My heart pounded. I spoke anyway.

The first minute was rough. 

Then, something shifted. 

I saw people nodding. 

I heard a few laughs. 

I felt lighter.

By the end, I was smiling. I didn’t want it to stop.

That day, I learned something real:
The “𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐟” in the middle is not just fear. It’s also the door to fun, growth, and pride.

Here’s what I do now, every time I face the unknown:
↳ I let myself feel the fear.

↳ I remind myself that “𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐟” can go both ways.

↳ I take one small step forward, even if I’m scared.

↳ I look for the first sign of fun or progress.

↳ I celebrate, no matter how small the win.

Fear never fully goes away. 

But “𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐟” is not your enemy. It’s the bridge to something better.

Every good thing in my life started with a “𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐟”

Don’t let fear keep you stuck. Walk through the “𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐟”

You might just find fun on the other side.

Share this if you’ve ever stood at the edge of “𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐟” and found something good

𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮.

This is one of them.

It’s about grit, belief, and the power to not give up.

On May 20, 2025, a little girl vanished from Mumbai CST. She was sleeping on her mother’s lap. In one moment, a family’s world broke apart.

What followed was six months of pain and hope.

Parents walked from police station to police station.
They whispered her name through sleepless nights.
They showed a worn-out photo to strangers.
They hoped, even when hope felt foolish.

Every day, they repeated the same routine.
Every day, they chose to believe.

Hundreds of kilometres away, in Varanasi, a little girl was found near the railway tracks. 
She was called “Kashi.” She had no memory of her real name. But sometimes, in her sleep, she whispered “Aai.”

The Mumbai Police refused to close the case.
No giving up. No slowing down.
Every dead end was a reason to try again.
Every small lead was followed.

Then came November 13.

A local reporter in Varanasi saw the girl’s face on a poster. One call. One clue. One moment that changed everything.

A video call was arranged. When the mother saw her daughter on the screen, she collapsed. The kind of collapse that comes after months of carrying pain too heavy for words.

The next day, on Children’s Day, the girl returned home.

Six months of darkness ended in one sunrise.

This story is not just about loss or rescue.

It’s about transformation. The kind that happens inside people who refuse to give up, even when the world tells them to stop.

Belief is a force.
Grit is a decision.
Transformation begins the moment you choose not to quit.

The parents refused to lose hope.
The police refused to close the file.
A journalist refused to ignore a poster.
A little girl refused to forget the sound of “Aai.”

Every act of not giving up became a thread.
Together, those threads pulled a family back together.

In business, in life, in teams—this truth holds:

Breakthroughs don’t come from brilliance.
They come from belief held long enough for things to change.

Transformation is not sudden.
It’s the slow courage to keep walking, keep trying, keep believing that one day the pieces will connect.

Just like they did for Aarohi.
_______________________________________________

Follow Parvez Siraj for more insights on Conscious Inner Transformation.

Executives are not drowning in work.

They are drowning in themselves.

Pressure is not the real enemy.

The higher you climb, the more you carry.

↳ The title gets bigger  
↳ The paycheck gets fatter  
↳ The meetings multiply  
↳ The stakes explode  
↳ But your inner world stays stuck in survival mode

That’s why even the most senior leaders feel lost, reactive, and secretly insecure.

Leadership is not about controlling people.

It is about mastering yourself.

And that starts with one skill nobody talks about:

Acceptance.

Here’s the emotional operating system that changed my leadership—and the one I teach in my book and to every executive I coach.

The 4 emotions leaders must stop fighting:

↳ Fear: The voice that says you are not enough. Ignore it, and it grows. Accept it, and it shrinks.
↳ Anger: The urge to control what you cannot. Fight it, and it controls you. Accept it, and it passes.
↳ Envy: The poison of comparison. Deny it, and it festers. Accept it, and it loses power.
↳ Hate: The mask for pain. Suppress it, and it spreads. Accept it, and it dissolves.

You cannot outwork your emotions.

You cannot out-title your inner chaos.

You can only outgrow it.

Acceptance is not weakness.

It is the foundation of real strength.

Stop fighting your feelings.

Start leading yourself.

That is how you ascend.

Follow Parvez Siraj formore insights on Conscious Inner Transformation

The 4 Emotions Leaders Must Stop Fighting

They will try to make you doubt your worth.

And sometimes, life itself will test you harder than people ever could.

But the way you rise from that doubt…
that’s what defines a leader.

Everyone sees the book now.

They see the clarity of the framework, the confidence in the message, the depth in the words.

They see the discipline, the consistency, the vision.

But they don’t see the decade behind it.

They don’t see how long I have carried this idea quietly.

They don’t see the nights I sat with journals full of thoughts.

They don’t see the self-doubt, the pauses, the internal negotiations that all leaders face before they tell the truth...first to themselves, then to the world.

They don’t know that this book took three years to build
but ten years to become.

They didn’t witness the setbacks that cracked me open.
The shifts in identity.

The responsibilities that forced me to choose growth over comfort.

The moments where I had every reason to walk away from the vision...
but didn’t.

They don’t see the discipline it took to rethink my story.
The courage to accept my own truth.
The humility to break patterns I had outgrown.
The willingness to evolve beyond titles and become someone deeper.
They only see the finished book.
They don’t see the man who had to break, rebuild, and rise to write it.

But here’s the real story:
This book is not a project.

It is a revolution...first within me, and now for everyone who reads it.
If I could carry this for a decade, shape it for three years, and still show up with the fire to rebuild myself…

Then anyone can rewrite their story.

Anyone can rise from doubt.
Anyone can unlearn, relearn, and begin again.
Anyone can move from survival to identity.

You just have to choose the version of yourself you want to become and refuse to go back.

If you see parts of your own story in this, join us.

Be a part of the ASCEND movement toward identity-led leadership.

https://lnkd.in/d_u6jAcp

Some stories change you.

They break you, then build you.

They show you what’s possible.

Anil Agarwal failed in 9 businesses. He lost money, time, and hope. But he built his 10th venture, Vedanta, into a $2.02 trillion empire.

He did not stop at failure. He used it as fuel.

This is not rare. It is the pattern of every revolution.

--> Colonel Sanders was rejected 1,009 times before KFC.
--> Walt Disney was fired for “lacking imagination.”
--> J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter was rejected by 12 publishers.
--> Steve Jobs was kicked out of his own company, then returned to build Apple into a giant.
--> Oprah Winfrey was told she was “unfit for TV.”

Each one started again. Each one turned a breakdown into a breakthrough.

They did not wait for a new year. They did not wait for the “right time.” They started with what they had, where they were.

This is the truth about transformation.

It is not about making resolutions. It is about starting a revolution in your own life.

Resolutions are wishes. Revolutions are actions.

You do not need to wait for 2026. You do not need more time, more money, or more luck.

You need one more try. One more step. One more day of not giving up.

Start now. Start small. Start with what you have.

Let this year be the year you stop making resolutions and start your revolution.

The world does not reward those who wait. It rewards those who act.

Your story can change. But only if you do.

If you’re struggling to begin, grab your copy of Why Make Resolutions When You Can Bring Revolution. Sometimes the right guide is all you need to move forward with clarity.

I used to 𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐮𝐫𝐞.

It felt like a shadow that followed me everywhere.

It made my heart race and my hands sweat.

I remember the first time I failed in public. My chest tightened. My mind spun with shame. I wanted to hide. I thought everyone would remember my mistake forever.

But something changed over time.

I learned that failure is not the end. It is not a sign that I am broken or weak. It is proof that I tried. It is proof that I cared enough to risk something.

My 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 still whispers, "𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭, 𝐢𝐟 𝐈 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐥?"

But my 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝 now answers, "𝐒𝐨 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐟 𝐈 𝐝𝐨?"

I have learned that failure is a teacher. It shows me what does not work. It points me to what might work next time.

Today I deliver speeches in front of thousands of students, just to remind that they can move mountains and they are enough. 

Research backs this up. Studies show that people who fail and try again often do better than those who never risk at all.

Failure is not a wall. It is a door.

→ Failure builds grit.

Each time I fall and get up, I grow stronger. I learn to trust myself. I learn that I can survive hard things.

→ Failure brings clarity.

When I fail, I see what matters most. I see what I want to fight for. I see what I can let go.

→ Failure connects us.

Everyone fails. When I share my failures, I find others who have been there too. We laugh. We cry. We grow together.

→ Failure is not the opposite of success.

It is part of the path. Every story of success I admire is full of setbacks, stumbles, and restarts.

I still feel fear. My heart still pounds. But I do not let it stop me.

I let myself try.

I let myself fall.

I let myself learn.

Because even if I fail, I am still moving forward.

And that is enough.

------

Follow ​Parvez Siraj​ for more.
 
Pre-order your book on Amazon. https://amzn.in/d/hBMZ3Oe

Join the WhatsApp community now. https://lnkd.in/gXDJYdW3

You don’t need all the answers.

You just need to stop pretending you do.

That’s where real growth begins.

Most people treat uncertainty like a disease. They run from it, hide from it, and try to cure it with quick answers. But the truth is, uncertainty is the best teacher you’ll ever have.

Here’s how embracing uncertainty—and a growth mindset—can change everything:

𝟏. 𝐔𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐲 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞

When you stop fearing the unknown, you stop breaking at the first sign of trouble.

• You learn to adapt.
• You bounce back faster.
• You see setbacks as part of the process, not the end of the road.

People who embrace uncertainty don’t crumble. They get stronger.

𝟐. 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐞𝐭 𝐅𝐮𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

The need to always be right kills creativity.

• When you admit you don’t know, you open the door to new ideas.
• You ask better questions.
• You experiment, fail, and try again.

This is how breakthroughs happen. Not by clinging to what you know, but by exploring what you don’t.

𝟑. 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐆𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐄𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐞𝐫

Nobody likes a know-it-all.

• When you’re honest about what you don’t know, others step in to help.
• Teams work better when everyone is learning together.
• Feedback becomes a tool, not a threat.

The best workplaces are built on curiosity, not ego.

𝟒. 𝐀𝐧𝐱𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐲 𝐃𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐬, 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐑𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐬

Pretending to have all the answers is exhausting.

• When you accept uncertainty, you stop fearing mistakes.
• You become more self-aware.
• You handle life’s curveballs with calm, not panic.

Confidence isn’t knowing everything. It’s knowing you can figure things out.

𝟓. 𝐂𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫

A fixed mindset says, “I can’t.” A growth mindset says, “I’ll learn.”

• Every challenge becomes a chance to grow.
• You stop seeing questions as problems.
• You start seeing them as opportunities.

Curiosity is the engine of progress.

𝟔. 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐖𝐢𝐧

The best leaders don’t have all the answers. They have the best questions.

• They create cultures where learning is valued.
• They reward exploration, not just results.
• They inspire others to grow, not just perform.

A growth mindset isn’t just good for you. It’s good for everyone around you.


Stop chasing certainty.

Start chasing growth.

The people who win aren’t the ones with all the answers. They’re the ones who never stop learning.

______________________

Follow Parvez Siraj for more insights on Conscious Inner Transformation

𝐌𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬. 𝐀 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚 𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞.

It’s built in the small moments.

For years, leaders have believed that culture comes from policies, rules, and HR manuals.

But culture is not a document.

It’s a thousand tiny choices made in real time.

This Friday, during Jummah prayer, I asked our house-help... who always stood behind me, to stand beside me.

He hesitated.

Not because of pride.

But because of habit.

A lifetime of being told to stand behind.

That moment hit me hard.

It showed me what most leaders never say out loud:

If you do not model respect, no policy will save your culture.

Here are 7 leadership truths that only show up when you choose to stand beside people, not above them:

𝟏. 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐱𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐲

    ↳ You cannot lead from a distance.
    
    ↳ The closer you are, the more you see.
    

𝟐. 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐧, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝
    
    ↳ People notice what you do, not what you say.
    
    ↳ Respect is a verb, not a value.
    

𝟑. 𝐄𝐠𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐲𝐬 𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲
    
    ↳ Ego never shouts.
    
    ↳ It just erodes trust, one small act at a time.
    

𝟒. 𝐇𝐮𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞
    
    ↳ The humble leader has the most power.
    
    ↳ People follow those who make them feel seen.
    

𝟓. 𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞... 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬
    
    ↳ No one cares about your title.
    
    ↳ They care about how you treat them.
    

𝟔. 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩
    
    ↳ The best leaders listen more than they speak.
    
    ↳ Listening is the fastest way to build trust.
    

𝟕. 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐲𝐨𝐮
    
    ↳ You are the culture.
    
    ↳ Every action is a signal.
    
The best organisations are built from the heart outward, not the hierarchy downward.

You can write all the policies you want.

But if you do not stand beside your people, you will always stand alone.

What's one leadership value you think your organization needs more of right now?

7 Leadership Truths

The biggest shift in my life came when I realized  
growth is not a leap.  
It’s a stack of tiny wins.

5 ways I use the 1% rule to build unstoppable momentum:

1. Spot Micro-Opportunities

Every day, I look for one small thing to improve.
It could be a single line in an email, a faster way to do a task, or a clearer note in a meeting.
Small changes add up fast.

2. Make One More Move

I send one extra follow-up.
I ask one more question on a call.
I give one more piece of feedback.
That extra effort, multiplied over weeks, creates a wave of progress.

3. Build Trust in Small Steps and Improve the Process

Trust grows in the details.
A quick check-in, a thoughtful reply, a promise kept.
Each act is a brick in the foundation of strong teams and loyal clients.

4. Compound Learning

I read one page more.
I ask for one new insight.
I reflect for five extra minutes.
Knowledge compounds just like money—slowly, then all at once.

5. Synergize the Gains

One small win in code, plus one in testing, plus one in deployment.
The effect is not just additive—it’s exponential.
Confidence grows, results multiply, and the team becomes unstoppable.

This is the power of compound growth.
It’s not loud.
It’s not flashy.
But it’s relentless.

The 1% rule is not just a theory.
It’s a way of seeing.
A way of living.

Stack your small wins.
Let them build your confidence.
Watch your world transform.

For more insights on conscious inner growth, identity shifts, and becoming your next self, get your copy of WHY MAKE RESOLUTIONS WHEN YOU CAN BRING REVOLUTION.

If you’re ready for inner change, this book will meet you where you are.

Pre-order your book on Amazon. https://amzn.in/d/hBMZ3Oe

Join the WhatsApp community now. https://lnkd.in/gXDJYdW3

𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬.

This changed everything for me.

Here’s what I learned:

Most people stay busy. They move fast. They fill their days with tasks, calls, and endless to-do lists.

But motion is not progress.

I spent years running in circles. I thought being busy meant I was getting somewhere. I was wrong.

Here are the 7 ingredients that actually create progress:

𝟏. 𝐂𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐃𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
↳ Know where you want to go.
↳ Set one goal, not ten.
↳ Progress starts with clarity.

𝟐. 𝐑𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
↳ Not all tasks matter.
↳ Focus on the few that move you forward.
↳ Say no to the rest.

𝟑. 𝐃𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤
↳ Shallow work keeps you busy.
↳ Deep work creates real results.
↳ Block time for what matters.

𝟒. 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐅𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤
↳ Progress needs truth.
↳ Seek feedback, even when it stings.
↳ Adjust fast.

𝟓. 𝐌𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬
↳ Track what you do.
↳ Numbers don’t lie.
↳ Progress is visible, not just felt.

𝟔. 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲
↳ Burnout is not progress.
↳ Rest sharpens your mind.
↳ Progress needs energy.

𝟕. 𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
↳ Look back often.
↳ Learn from mistakes.
↳ Small tweaks create big leaps.

Busy is easy. Progress is hard.

I stopped chasing motion. I started building progress.

My life changed the moment I understood the difference.

Don’t just move. Move forward.

________________________

Follow Parvez Siraj for more insights on Conscious Inner Transformation

Thank you so much Indian Institute of Management Rohtak for inviting me allowing me to conduct a session on “Everything is possible: Elements of unlocking your potential”.

It was a great experience to me to address the brightest brains of India. You all are amazing. Your engagement and questions throughout the session were thought provoking. 

I would like to extend my thanks to Aswin and Chris for the flawless arrangements. 

My special thanks to Dheeraj Sharma Sir for honorimg me with launching my book at this prestigious institute. It was a moment to relish rest of my life. 

I will look forward to visiting IIM Rohtak soon. 

#LeadershipTalk
#IIMRohtak 
#Mindset
#BeliefSystem
#Communication
#Everythingispossible

Industry Relations & Interaction Cell (IRIC) at Indian Institute of Management, Rohtak

Industry Relations and Interaction Cell, IIM Rohtak

View Industry Relations and Interaction Cell, IIM Rohtak’s profile

Dear Connections,

As part of our Leadership Lecture Series – Cognizance, the Industry Relations and Interaction Cell, IIM Rohtak Cell of IIM Rohtak is pleased to announce our twelfth guest speaker for the academic year 2025–26, Mr. Parvez Siraj.

Mr. Siraj, Chief of Staff at Lupin Pharma, brings nearly two decades of global experience across consulting, pharmaceuticals, automotive, retail, and metals & mining. With deep expertise in business transformation, operational excellence, and leadership development, he has supported organisations and senior leaders through impactful change journeys. He is also a certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt, PMP, NLP Practitioner, and Executive Coach.

We look forward to an engaging session on “Everything is Possible: Elements of Unlocking Our Potential,” as he shares perspectives on expanding one’s mindset and realising untapped possibilities.

#IIMRohtak #Cognizance #Leadership #GuestLecture #UnlockingPotential #GrowthMindset #Coaching #Transformation #CorporateConnect #IRIC

𝐈 𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞. 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜. 𝐈𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐞.

↳ I would replay every call at night,  
↳ I would dodge the hard convo until it became a fire,  
↳ I would act calm, then snap at small things.

Invisible chaos climbs with you.

Soft leaders fade.  
Loud leaders burn out.

Mental toughness never worked for me as a trait.

It worked as a system.

6 stairs I now use to lead with stability:

1) Master emotional precision.  
Name the feeling. Pick the next move. No drama.

2) Confidence = evidence.  
I keep a “proof list” of wins, reps, and hard things done.

3) Face what you avoid.  
If I avoid it, my team absorbs it. Tension spreads fast.

4) Redefine failure.  
Data, not identity. A bad outcome never means I am bad.

5) Build strong habits.  
Sleep, training, planning, and clean calendars beat motivation.

6) Stay with boredom.  
Great work is often dull. Consistency looks plain.

→ Decision fatigue is real. The brain burns energy on every choice.  
→ Recovery is leadership. Burned-out leaders make expensive mistakes.

Recalibrate. Do not react.

That is how you ast.

This is how you lead with stability.  
Clarity. Ownership. Recovery. Identity. Leadership.

Today, I am a guest speaker at IITs and IIMs.  
I say this with humility because I did not get here by being the loudest.
I got here by building the system.

Follow Parvez Siraj for more insights on conscious inner transformation 

And if you want to lead through, grab your copy of "Why Make Resolutions When You Can Bring Revolution" now.

6 Elements to Lead with Stability 

The secret to real progress is simple. 𝐒𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧. 𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐩.

Rushing kills results.

Here’s how to master the art of steady progress:

𝟏. 𝐒𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐏𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞

↳ Know your end goal. 
↳ Picture the finished canvas in your mind.

𝟐. 𝐙𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐈𝐧 𝐨𝐧 𝐄𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞

↳ Break the big goal into small, clear steps.
↳ Treat each step like a brushstroke—give it your full attention.

𝟑. 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝐚 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞

↳ Don’t try to swallow the whole meal at once.
↳ Tackle one task, finish it, then move to the next.

𝟒. 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐰, 𝐃𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐂𝐡𝐨𝐤𝐞

↳ Take time to understand and enjoy each part.
↳ Rushing leads to burnout and sloppy work.

𝟓. 𝐂𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐬

↳ Mark every finished step as a win.
↳ Each small win builds momentum for the next.

𝟔. 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐉𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲

↳ Find joy in the process, not just the finish line.
↳ The journey shapes you more than the result.

𝟕. 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐄𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐄𝐱𝐡𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

↳ Consistent effort beats frantic sprints.
↳ Pace yourself to avoid burning out before you reach the end.

The best work comes from those who savor each step.

Master the art of slow, steady progress.

That’s how you finish strong—one careful stroke at a time.

_____________________________________________

Follow Parvez Siraj for more insights on Conscious Inner Transformation.

The reviews are already dropping in...
Order your book on Amazon. https://amzn.in/d/hBMZ3Oe
Order your book on Flipkart https://lnkd.in/dTzWDjNV

Join the WhatsApp community now. https://lnkd.in/gXDJYdW3

Thank you so much The Literary Mirror.

#book #transformation #selfhelp #ASCEND

The Literary Mirror is a literary magazine focusing on bringing quality literature.

Delighted to share the 30th Book; Why Make Resolutions When You Can Bring Revolution by Parvez Siraj in the Book Special Edition by The Literary Mirror.

Booksclinic Publishing LIB Literary Chapter Kavita Sahitya My Views and Reviews

Shout out to Richa Wahi, the person I connected with the most on LinkedIn this year. 

#YearinReview

No alternative text description for this image

taplio

The Battle

Allison Allen, ACC

Parvez Siraj

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreAllison Allen, ACC's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreParvez Siraj's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Allison Allen, ACC

Parvez Siraj

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Allison Allen, ACC's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreParvez Siraj's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreAllison Allen, ACC's LinkedIn Performance