

Code and Capital are the two highest forms of leverage. I use both.

I spent the first half of my career as an Operator: building, scaling, and exiting.

I am spending the second half as an Architect: designing systems that run without me.

Currently building a sovereign ecosystem bridging Private Equity and AI.

The Work:
- Writing: #dhandhekafunda — Deconstructing the algorithms of success.
- Guiding: House of Starts — Funding the next generation of founders.
- Building: Engines of freedom, not just companies.

If you are building at the edge of AI, Finance, or Systems Thinking, follow my linkedin profile. 

Utpal Vaishnav

We often promote people for their Execution (Column 4):

Then we are shocked when they fail because they have zero Self-Mastery (Column 1).

Leadership is not a single skill. It is a "Full Stack" discipline.

If you treat Leadership like an engineering problem, these are the 5 subsystems you need to maintain:

1. Self-Mastery: The Operating System. (EQ, Discipline, Gratitude). If this crashes, the whole server goes down.

2. People & Communication: The Network Layer. (Listening, Feedback, Trust). You cannot lead people you cannot understand.

3. Thinking & Decision Making: The Processor. (Critical Thinking, Problem Solving). The ability to be right when the data is incomplete.

4. Execution & Productivity: The Output. (Delegating, Saying No, Time Management). Vision without execution is hallucination.

5. Growth & Resilience: The Antivirus. (Learning from failure, Combating Imposter Syndrome). How fast do you reboot after a crash?

I mapped out the 50 Essential Skills across these 5 pillars.

Don't try to master all 50 today. Pick one column where you are weak. Focus there for Q1.

Which column is your "bottleneck" right now? (I am doubling down on Column 3 this year.)

~~~
♻️ Repost this #DhandheKaFunda to remind your network that "Soft Skills" are actually the most challenging part.
✔️ Save this Checklist to audit your own performance reviews. 
➕ Follow Utpal Vaishnav for more insights like this.

Founder & Architect • Systems & Models for Builders, Ventures & Capital

50 Skills of a Great Leader: The Complete Executive Skill Stack (2026 Checklist)

by 

Utpal Vaishnav

#DhandheKaFunda

Most smart people know strategy buzzwords.
Very few actually use them when the next move really matters.

They think in quarters, not decades.
They obsess over plans, not failure points.
They protect today, but never place small bets on tomorrow.

This document gives you 10 simple upgrades you can steal before your next big decision.

1. The 10-year horizon. Think in decades. Decide in years. Execute in weeks.

2. SWOT without self-deception. Strengths you can prove. Weaknesses you will pay for.

3. Second-order thinking. Ask. And then what. Twice.

4. Inversion. Design around how this fails.

5. Kaizen plus Kaikaku. Small improvements keep you sharp. Big shifts keep you alive.

6. Game theory. Stop only playing your own game. Start playing theirs back.

7. Category of one. Compete on a new axis, not a crowded leaderboard.

8. Barbell strategy. Protect the base. Place small bets on asymmetric upside.

9. Skill stacking. Top 10 percent in three skills is rare leverage.

10. Regret minimization. If future you will regret it, present you is already late.

Strategy is not knowing.
Strategy is choosing.

Which of these 10 upgrades do you need to use this quarter?

♻️ Repost this #DhandheKaFunda, your network will thank you
✔️ Save this for your next strategy offsite or founder debate
➕ Follow Utpal Vaishnav for more high clarity thinking on strategy and execution

10 Strategy Upgrades for 2026 (The High-Agency Playbook):

You think you are a rational decision-maker.
You are actually a rationalizing storyteller.

According to Daniel Kahneman (Nobel Prize winner), our brain has two modes:

• System 1 (The Autopilot): Fast, emotional, intuitive. It runs 95% of your life.
• System 2 (The Pilot): Slow, logical, effortful. It only wakes up when you force it to.

The problem? System 1 is terrible at math and statistics. It relies on shortcuts (Heuristics) that create "Cognitive Illusions."

I mapped out the Thinking Fast & Slow Cheat Sheet to help you debug your own brain:

The Top 3 Traps to Watch For:

1. WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is):
System 1 builds a story based only on the data in front of it. It never asks: "What data am I missing?" This is why we are so confident in bad decisions.

2. The Planning Fallacy:
We always underestimate time and cost. We imagine the "Best Case Scenario" and treat it as the "Most Likely Scenario." (System 1 is an optimist).

3. Loss Aversion:
The pain of losing $100 is 2x stronger than the joy of finding $100. This makes us play "Not to Lose" rather than "Playing to Win."

How to use this sheet:
Whenever you are making a big decision (Hiring, Investing, Strategy), stop.

Ask yourself: "Is this System 1 jumping to a conclusion? Or has System 2 actually reviewed the data?"

Which of these biases is your personal nemesis? (I suffer from the Planning Fallacy every single week).

~~~
♻️ Repost this #DhandheKaFunda Repost to help your network think slower.
✔️ Save this Cheat Sheet to audit your next big decision.
➕ Follow Utpal Vaishnav  for more insights like this.

Thinking Fast & Slow: A Visual Summary of Daniel Kahneman's Framework (System 1 vs. System 2)

Utpal Vaishnav


The biggest mistake new managers make is trying to be “fair”.

They think fairness means treating everyone the same.

It does not.

Treating a junior with low skill the same as a senior with high skill is not fair.

It is negligent.

The junior drowns from lack of guidance.
The senior quits from micromanagement.

Great leadership is situational.
You must diagnose the person before you prescribe the management style.

I use the Skill / Will Matrix to choose the right tool.

1. High Performer (high skill . high will)
Strategy. Delegate and empower.
Trap. Getting in their way. Give them the goal and get out.

2. Contributor (low skill . high will)
Strategy. Guide and support.
Trap. Assuming enthusiasm equals competence. They need training, not just praise.

3. Potential Detractor (high skill . low will)
Strategy. Excite and engage.
Trap. Ignoring them. They are smart enough to undermine the culture if bored or bitter. Find out why their will is low.

4. Low Performer (low skill . low will)
Strategy. Direct or exit.
Trap. Hoping they will change. Give clear expectations. If they do not execute, make the hard call.

Stop looking for one leadership style.
You need four.

Which quadrant is your most difficult team member in right now.

♻️ Repost this #DhandheKaFunda
✔️ Save this for future reference
➕ Follow Utpal Vaishnav for more insights like this

The Skill / Will Matrix: How to Adjust Your Management Style (Situational Leadership Cheat Sheet)

By Utpal Vaishnav

Shailesh Davara

As CEO and co-founder of Improwised Technologies, I collaborate with SaaS teams to scale their engineering efficiency, platform reliability, and development velocity.
In today’s fast-moving software landscape, lean teams are expected to deliver fast, stay secure, and scale without tech debt slowing them down. That’s where Platform Engineering comes in.

At Improwised, we work with SaaS companies across different growth stages — from early-stage ventures building repeatable systems, to mature teams refining CI/CD pipelines, automating operations, and enabling developer autonomy without compromising control.

Our role is to help teams build the internal platforms, tooling layers, and infrastructure patterns that make scale repeatable — not chaotic.

If you’re navigating growth and looking to bring structure to engineering delivery without slowing down momentum, I’d be glad to connect and exchange perspectives.

I can be reached at shailesh@improwised.com and +91-9499502227.

Chief Executive Officer

As the Co-Founder & CEO at Improwised Technologies, I oversee different work activities like sales, operations, and remote team management. 

Sales - Manage overseas clients and provide them with a dedicated remote team for technical development and further support. 

Operations - Responsible for improving operational effectiveness across teams and enabling smarter business decisions based on analytics. While working in this position, I also ensure employee engagement and performance through critical skills development and people connections. 

Remote Team Management - At Improwised Technologies, we mainly focus on overseas customers and provide them with dedicated remote teams for various services such as SaaS development, cloud-native solutions, business automation, event-driven architecture, IaaS, etc.

taplio

The Battle

Utpal Vaishnav

Shailesh Davara

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreUtpal Vaishnav's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Utpal Vaishnav

Shailesh Davara

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);}Utpal Vaishnav's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreUtpal Vaishnav's LinkedIn Performance