Join us for an insightful discussion as we explore the coaching journey of two leaders: Divya Amarnath, leading Technology Talent Transformation at Bosch, and Veena Sethuraman, Vice President & Head of L&D at InMobi.

Discover their coaching outcomes over the years—a journey of transformation, shifts, and changes. And hold your breath as we introduce Sailaja Manacha, a skilled Psychotherapist & Executive Leadership Coach who walked alongside & supported these leaders. Watch the video by clicking here.

During this conversation, you will gain insights into:

  • Nuggets from the leaders’ coaching journey
  • Examples of coaching’s impact and shifts
  • The role of a coach in a long-term coaching journey
  • The importance of an inner journey for acceleration.

Sai:  Hi and good evening, Veena Sethuraman and Divya Amarnath. Wonderful to have you in this conversation. I am very joyful and also proud to be talking to two leaders and have two leaders in this room. And we’re here to talk about our association and the coaching and other work that we have done together.

Just to frame this conversation for listeners, I met Veena and Divya ten years ago when I was facilitating something of a program and our association from then has taken different shapes and has even morphed in more ways than one. Both of you have been in a personal development group with me and, Veena, you went on to train as a psychotherapist. However, for the last six to seven years, our conversations have leaned very, very heavily toward coaching, the world of work, performance, identity and expansion. 

There has been intensive times when there has been coaching and there have been times when there was just a lull with barely any conversations. In those times, I have been in the shadow and served as a mentor with both of you coming back at different times, just for a quick chat or input. And so I think I’m sitting here today,  holding both roles, a bigger role of a coach because those conversations have been very intensive for the last couple of years and a smaller role hovering in the background as a mentor. And I just thought it would be very interesting to showcase and talk about what it means to be in a six-seven-eight-year-old relationship, that is so focused on performance, expansion and growth.

Certainly as a coach, it is a first for me that I walk with leaders for so many years off and on, of course, and yet it is quite a period of time. And I just think it would be quite interesting to throw some light on your journeys, as well as my own journey as a coach. So once again a very warm welcome to both of you.

Veena: Thank you so much Sai. So pleased to be here and looking forward to this conversation. 

Divya: Given the fact that we’ve traversed this journey together, Sai, I can just say ditto and we’d be done but really thank you for having us in this conversation. 

Sai: So I’m hoping that we just stay very conversational in this and it doesn’t have to be an interview and yet to start off, I do have a question that I would love for each of you to answer.

Given the many years of your transformative journey, what do you see as the key changes that you would identify in your prior self and the leader that you are now? Divya, maybe I’ll just invite you to respond first. 

Divya: Sure, Sai. So one of the things that comes to my mind when you said prior self is that, even at the point of time when we met, I was leading a large team, and if I go back to the kind of leader that I was at that point of time versus today, one of the compliments I used to often receive at that point was for being an authentic leader and I really enjoyed it. The fact that the team thought that I could hold myself and my space and stay authentic.

One of the biggest learnings through my coaching journey and my self-development journey has been in realizing that ‘authentic’ has many meanings to many people and kind of unlocking that authentic also has an element of staying sensitive to the people that we work with. Sometimes I wonder if it’s just age and maturity, but I really would like to credit it to coaching and self-development, that made the difference in the way that I lead people. There’s an element of empathy that has come in, especially, in the last few years with the pandemic, that I’m very grateful for. It’s shifted my way of leading. 

The other one for me really was the ability to make tough decisions. In the past, prior to my working on myself, decisions I would make would be black or white and I’d expect I think the world to be black or white. And even my responses would be like that but I think over time I’ve noticed that the complexities of leadership just increase with the capacity that you’re holding, the role that you’re playing and the value that we add, when you’ve gone through self-reflection with a strong coach being able to identify the patterns in the historical patterns that you’re carrying, you’re able to make tough decisions and share them and hold them in a way that becomes acceptable for many more people. So whether they are business decisions or decisions for the team, I think that ability has certainly shifted with this entire development journey for myself.

Sai: Thank you Divya! Veena? 

Veena: So I was just wondering where do I start from? Because there are so many shifts I have gone through. Both, because of the therapy and self development that I’ve gone through as a leader and as a coach and the coaching based professional development, I have gone through. So, if I were to just put it across I would say three key changes that I’ve gone through is – One, It’s just opposite to what Divya spoke about in terms of her journey. I was too empathetic, to an extent that I was lost in the process. So I was not visible. I gave a word importance to others that I saw them bigger than me and hence, I lost myself in the space. Because of this, I wouldn’t speak up. I wouldn’t have the confidence in being seen and heard. I wouldn’t have the confidence in having a point of view and speak with conviction. So the primary change was about me finding my voice and realizing that I deserve to empathize with myself as much as I empathize with others. That allowed me to see myself as an important person as much as I saw others as important, right. So, that was the first stage. 

Second one was to be able to believe in my capacity to get things done. So I would give a lot of weightage to my senior leadership. I would give a lot of weightage to their capacity without realising that I have a certain capacity which is also unique. And if I were to bring that onto the table, the results would still be fantastic. So, I was primarily a follower rather than a leader. I think I shifted from the space of following and executing and then getting frustrated about not being able to bring my individuality into this space, because all I’m doing is what some leader has told me, right? So from that space, to be able to really start visioning, what do I want? What do I want to create? What do I want to co-create? How do I want to take people along? That clarity became very important and I continue to work on that over time. 

And last but not the least is I have always been complimented on my free child energy. And somewhere I had this notion that as I move up the ladder, I have to become serious, if I’m in a boardroom with various genders, I have to be really serious about bringing myself into this space to be taken seriously. But I realized at some point, this is me having fun in the conversation and having that free child is just me. Why do I need to lose that part of my individuality in order to be taken seriously? So to learn how to balance these two, that I can dance with both sides of mine. And to bring that into the boardroom and to humanize leadership, that’s the last part that I went through as a journey in finding myself. 

Sai: While I know that these parts that you have described are familiar to me, it is still very exciting for me to hear this in such a capsule condensed form because you just seem to be going through the points so beautifully. So that was so exciting to hear. 

I was just thinking that both of you have invested in your professional journeys, in being in expansion and growth groups and in coaching for a while now. And I’m just wondering, how do you think leaders in organizations, actually look at such journeys because here I am sitting with two people who over the years have kept going back again and again, into growth experiences, into coaching, into these conversations. How common is this in your view? How do you think leaders and organizations actually think about coaching for leadership? 

Whoever wants to go first. 

Veena: So again, Sai, I want to divide this into two parts. Coming from an enabling function, like Learning & Development space, my experience has been a lot of L&D functions across the various organizations that I am familiar with are not really investing themselves into the space. There is a lot of cognitive learning that happens from an L&D point – there could be a certification, skills certification, but to do a real inner work and to be able to explore who are we and why do we behave the way we behave, I do experience the lack of curiosity in that space in different, L&D teams or HR teams as such. When it comes to the business teams. I do believe in the last 3-4 years coaching has become a cool word, right? Unfortunately! Why I am saying, unfortunately, because it is cool to say – Hey, I’m being coached. However, to really be able to muster the courage, to really look at that coaching space as a space to look at oneself and see how are we sabotaging our own lives? How are we sabotaging our own success or peace or happiness? That part of it, to be able to see it for what it is and to be able to come and talk about it to the outside world, I still see a lot of shame in corporate spaces in India today. And while a lot of leaders are becoming more open to the space, I do think there is a lack of courage or some sort of a shame that is holding them back from talking about it. So it is still done in a very hush-hush, silent manner. Having said that, I would say I have been fortunate enough to be part of an organization in the last five years, which is beautifully opening up to this space and giving a lot of opportunities for in-house coaching and exploring the possibilities, though, there is a fear of unknown within this space because people are just getting introduced to this space very recently. So, this is what I have experienced.

Sai: And what I’m gathering there, Veena, is pretty much aligned to what I have also seen, which is, leaders are just about becoming comfortable to bring their vulnerabilities into the open. And I do have clients where organizations are holding coaching a little more loosely without big agendas and a long list of goals and truly holding it from a developmental perspective, thinking that leaders just need space to explore and to do these journeys. But I have to say that there are very few such clients. The bigger number of clients are really the ones with a laundry list of what needs changing or a very strict monitored goal-based coaching which also has its merits. But I think what you’re bringing to light is a very different kind of inner journey and inner work transformative coaching that you see as very valuable, having made that journey yourself. Right?

Veena: Yes, Sai. 

Sai: Thank you. Divya? 

Divya: Yeah, so Sai for me, the journey has been – 22 years of being in this space, right? A space of HR and Learning & Development. And I resonate with the part that we’re saying. When I first started offering coaching, it was performance coaching. So, after about five years of my career, about 15-16 years ago, right? I started with offering performance based coaching. So, you would get certified on a psychometric assessment, you would leverage the psychometric assessment to help people to have conversations that are beyond work. So, there is, like many assessments, right, there is a professional self and the personal self and sometimes they are exact mirrors and sometimes they’re not. So some of these kinds of assessments offered the opportunity for us as coaches to allow our leaders to start talking about their personal selves in a private space. So even 15 years ago when I started that journey, while the objective was performance coaching and that was the organizational mandate, I did find that there would be always, in every cohort, like a handful of leaders, who would be comfortable sharing, who would want to kind of get to a little beyond just the performance goals and identify why these goals are important and the backstory of those goals, sometimes. However, I think what really shifted for me was, in the past few years, work that I was doing with one of my previous organizations, that was about working with women leaders and truly building women leadership, for our organization. I think there, I really saw a difference in the way coaching was being seen. It was offered also as a career coach/counselor role, the goal was to help the leader arrive at the goal of their choice, that was no mandate because this was an essential corporate function running this for a large group of over 350 women across the entire globe and across functions. So, we were really encouraging women leaders in the organization to truly explore what mattered to them. And what we arrived at over the journey, months of these conversations – In some cases were actually leaders who said, ‘Hey, I realize that I have a passion outside of what I’m doing right now’, and the organization whose very, I’d say appreciative of the fact that they have chosen their path and we’re celebrating even these as success stories. It’s not easy when you make an investment like coaching and you say – we need retention, we need growth only, right. And I think the ability to hold these goals as organizations likely can make a big difference in the way that the leaders in the organization receive these kinds of interventions. So, my experience has been a little mixed with a lot of people even within the organizations I’ve worked with, and people I have spoken with in other organizations. 

Preferring to start with something that’s defined and structured right? ‘I would like to go from point A to point B and how could the coach help?’ But it’s often wonderful when a coach is able to offer a safe space that allows the coachee and the leader to explore. And that triggers an entireshift in the depth of the conversation. 

So yeah, I hope this conversation is being heard by people who are in leadership positions in organizations and in positions of power, like human resources and leadership development, where we consider offering coaching to our employees and leaders that aren’t necessarily performance goals based, because, sometimes as we’ve seen in our journeys ourselves, there’s so much more power that comes from going to the personal journey and then bringing it back to the person that I am in the corporate space. So yeah, it’s amazing, the variety. 

Sai: Yeah. Very well said, Divya. I totally resonate. And yeah, if you were in the room, I would have high fived you.

You know, I was just wondering, with the two of you being in L&D and OD functions, how would you describe the value of this transformative coaching that you’ve been through? How does it really impact your professional role, what you feel more resourced or capable to do? What has it done with your professional identity? Any of these directions, if you could say more about it. Maybe we’ll start with you, Veena. 

Veena: I love this question, Sai because this is very close to my heart. As you previously called out because of the transformative journey I went through in my life, I really see that as the gift I got from that space, I’m able to bring that gift and pass it on to someone else and that is the leaders of my organization, right? So, if I am not willing to go to a part of my mind, the question really is, how am I going to take my client to a certain part of their mind because these things cannot be done in a very preachy way, right? And that for me is the crux of being an L&D person, going through the coaching for ourselves and this, while I saw it, primarily because of the value it added to my life. I do encourage my entire team. So, my entire team is going through, either therapy or coaching in different spaces and it’s mandatory in my team. So, if there are 8 people, seven people are going through either therapy or coaching and that’s the power of experiencing transformative coaching being a client that I see as a value add that we can bring when we are the L&D people. So, that’s the first part. 

Second is, it gives us a voice, a very small, strong voice of conviction where we are not talking about it theoretically anymore, right? So one of the things that I’ve experienced is, when, and this, I wouldn’t call just from an L&D point, I’m going to call it as an entire HR function, right? Because we hold the fort for people in any organization, right? So, it is not really adding any value when I go to a leader and I talk about what transformation he, she or they would need to bring into the space, when I’m not doing it for myself. So it becomes very transactional. I’m not offering based on experience and somewhere, either I will end up sounding preachy without a practical understanding of it and business folks can see through it. And there is almost, while they may not call it out, there is almost a sense of ‘Okay, so what?’, and when the moment they ask, ‘So what?’, ‘Why me?’, if you are truly coming from a space of you having gone through their journey, your articulation will be so different from, you know, these are the three benefits you will get from coaching kind of an answer, right? So that’s the second one. 

Last but not the least is I think one of the biggest traps people organizations have fallen into, in various organization, is a sense of being in higher pedestal, a sense of superiority that ‘Oh, because I’m in a people organization, I know everything about people, I know the behavior part of it, I know how people behave, I know why people behave, I have good EQ’, and I cannot afford to go and stand in front of business organization with that kind of a higher, pedestal mentality. But if I’m able to go to the business organization with an attitude of, ‘I am a masterpiece and I’m a work in progress and I’m nowhere perfect’, and hence, that is the invitation. Wherever you are in your journey, to be able to explore yourself so that you can become your next version becomes a very supportive, enabling conversation than a pressurizing conversation about, you know, you need to go through because you need to bring results, and these are the biggest shifts or I would say the value that we get to give because of our own journey.  

Sai: What I’m hearing in what you’ve said is that, your own conviction shines, and more than anything I feel what I’m hearing is walk the talk, and explore your own potential so that you can be a role model, but also better explain what it means to explode your potential.

Veena: Absolutely. 

Sai: Thank you! Divya?

Divya: I’m going to take from explode your potential. I was toying at that, three benefits of coaching response that I just loved and then I said, okay. Jokes aside, really, one of the biggest shifts that happened for me because of my coaching journey was the realization that because I’m in a people function, I should know more about my business and it had been years of managers and leaders in the HR function telling me, we are HR people, we should know the HR parts of our job, we should know the people parts of our job, we should know the leadership and people development parts. So, you get certified on various kinds of tools that will help you work with the people parts of the organization. I really feel it was my coaching conversations in exploring, what are areas where I haven’t lived to my fullest potential, where there perhaps, have been critical voices in my head about, ‘Oh, you couldn’t really be good at this area, like strategic thinking, managing businesses, that’s perhaps, basis for another role or a gender role,’ and so the coaching conversations help me revisit some of these voices in my head. 

And the other element that I often see in coaching conversations is that we tell people, ‘Hey explore, take new risks’. I mean, even to convince people in an organization sometimes just take a job rotation is tough because we get so comfortable in our roles. And with about 20 years behind me in the space of people development and in some wonderful corporate brands, I realize it was about time for me to prove to myself and the world that business and technology are not really another world. A part of the world that I live in and leading and the reminder to myself that I’m capable of doing that. That really initiated my swivel, my career swivel into this current role that I’m holding where I’m leading the technology academy and the technology transformation for my organization. And this wouldn’t have come without my investment in my coaching journey. And so, I think these are the two lessons that I take back to anybody who’s considering a journey, which is really – Coaching and a coach, ends up being a listener and a mirror offering you questions to think about. That process of asking yourself a question that you discuss with yourself, you discuss with people who you truly trust even beyond the coaching relationship, then help you really kind of explode in your potential and that’s my one big message, ‘go for it’, in terms of coaching. 

Sai: So, Divya, what I am hearing and leaning from what you’re saying, is that in L&D, OD functions where you are at the core of transformative journeys if you haven’t had the courage, yeah, to explore and explode and step into some really tough spaces in your own career journey, how are you going to facilitate that and in all honesty and authenticity invite that in other people? This is really what I’m leaning from what you’ve just said. 

Divya: Yeah, absolutely, Sai. I did that with examples because, even in the conversation, even in the inputs that Veena was sharing earlier – As a coach, your ability to hold that space for another comes from your having taken these steps yourself. Otherwise the other person, just, I mean, if they see it fall through, right? So your stories make up who you are as a coach as well. 

Sai: I can’t agree more and, in our conversations this statement has always come up because I say it so often, the self of the leaders where you lead from. And so what is the whole idea if you have never explored that self at all? 

I’m just curious. I mean I’ve been asking you all questions, is there anything that you want to say or ask in this moment?

Veena: So, Sai, you started the conversation by talking about how we have been working together, three of us have been working together. We have leaned onto the space with you individually, in the coaching space to develop as leaders, as women leaders, and it has been a long term relationship and hence, very keen to know how is it for you to go through this journey of developing leaders on an ongoing basis and I want to emphasize a word you said sporadic sometimes and sometimes disciplined. So how was the experience for you in terms of holding the space for us for such a long-term? 

Sai: So, Veena of course, I work with women leaders. I also work with leaders who are men and other genders too and I think it is not often that I get to hold and walk a journey for this long. I work with leaders over six months, one year, the max that I’ve worked with leaders is about 18 months. So, there are a very few leaders like you, Divya, maybe a few more that I have had longer journeys with.

I think, what is important the way I see it is that if I as a coach, have my own journey and have my own coach and I have courageously with both feet in, entered my own journey and expansion then, I understand journeys. In a journey we stop, we look out of the window. Sometimes we pause, we rest, we speed up, we do all of that in journeys, and I get that from my own journey, right? So, I think I understand when a coachee wants to keep coming back, even if it is sporadically or in big bursts with a lot of questions and great drive, I get that. 

I think a coaching journey, is like a human journey. We go through so many stages and so it is replicated also in a coaching journey. I think for me, I just find that I have to keep investing in my own learning, Veena, so that I am growing and expanding and adding value all the time because I think that is what coachees come back for. They come back for some value or some provocation or some mirroring, which is what, Divya said. So I feel I have to keep investing in my own learning and expansion and I think that is possibly, I’m guessing what has served me. And had coachees coming back to draw more and I think more than anything, lastly what I would say is the base of this whole experience of walking with leaders over a period of time is about respect – respecting their journey, respecting their potential and truly believing that each of us, just like me. Yeah, each of us and they are in a journey of becoming something bigger, higher. And so if I have this journey, so do they, right? And therefore, I really think, I find it a great privilege that people keep coming back and one gets to keep walking with them and there are leaders where I’d have met them as they were just about emerging into their leadership. And, are now in such great positions of power, impact and influence, and I feel great privilege that I have had some small role to play in supporting that. So, I think that is my experience, Veena, of these longish sort of journeys as a coach. 

Veena: Thank you for sharing that, Sai.

At least for myself, I can speak for my journey. I think the way you have held the space and you’ve guided has been one of the primary anchors for me to become who I am and hence for me to go back to the space, knowing that there is Sai and I can lean on that space when I’m getting stuck has been the confidence that you have installed. And hence, I can only imagine you creating more leaders in this space with an ongoing long-term work which is fantastic. 

Sai: Thank you for that, Veena! 

Divya: Yeah, I want to chip in Sai by kind of resonating on the parts that you share but also, sharing gratitude for the intention that you held, for example, in my journey, right. And sometimes as coaches, I want to call out that when a coachee doesn’t come back for a while – There are times when as a coach, you’re wondering, okay, what’s up with my coachee, right? And what I love about the way you do it and I think I emulate that also very often is that, you stay in touch and that for me reminds me that you hold the intention for my growth and success. And so it makes it easy to come back for the big bursts or for the small little conversations. And so I’m going to call out that that’s an ability that you hold and I’ve emulated also. So thank you for that.

Sai: Thank you, Divya. 

So just as we’re moving to close this conversation, I just have one question for both of you to answer. So both of you are now coaches and have been coaching for a couple of years now. So what would you say to leaders who are watching us and listening to us? What would you say to leaders who are looking for coaching? What is useful as they start their journey?What is useful during their journey? Do you have suggestions of how they can frame their coaching journey for themselves as they embark on it? So, yeah, Divya, maybe you can take this question first.   

Divya: Sai, given our past conversations, you know this about me already which is that I love this element of setting goals and setting systems for achieving those goals and it just gives me so much energy and so that’s the way that I often approach a coaching conversation as a coachee. I’m going to just come from that, to give tips to anybody who’s got a similar end mine towards coaching. 

It’s always helpful to do a little bit of self-evaluation before you go to a coach for a conversation. The reflection that you do on your own can be about the very simple what’s my identity today? Who am I? And where have I come from and who do I want to be? And  these can be as abstract as we like or as bulleted as you like but just that self-reflection is very helpful before approaching a coach. 

The second one that I would often suggest is check for the kind of questions that your coach asks you. Before you approach a coach, it’s possible also, sometimes to check the kind of interactions that they have in whatever social media you were able to see them. But, check for the kind of questions you get asked because I believe that a coach’s ability to ask you pointed questions but hold the space for you with kindness where you’re able to answer them not feeling judged is very important and so the second one would be, look for a coach that asks questions. 

And the last one I think we’ve spoken about so much today but is really important is to check what your coach is doing about their own learning. Before you start a coaching journey with somebody, ask your coach what they’re doing for their own personal investment. It’s a lightbulb moment.

Sai: Super 3 pointers! Thank you for that Divya. Veena? , 

Veena: For me the first point is about being okay with a set of questions that you want to ask your coach because it is about you truly baring yourself naked, from a psychological point, in front of someone else. So for you to feel safe, it’s okay for you to ask any questions and one of the primary questions I would encourage leaders would be always about, what Divya mentioned right now, i.e. check with the coach what are they doing about their inner work? Are they going for coaching? Are they going for therapy? I think that is so important in the space because with that comes immense capacity and what they bring to the table as a coach. That’s one. 

Second, I also encourage leaders to not force themselves to go with a certain coach if their body is not feeling safe, if their body is not really wanting to go with a certain person. Right? For example, some leader has come back to me once saying, ‘This coach is not smiling and for me, that’s very important to feel safe’. It could be as simple as that. So, what might have worked for one leader may not work for another leader because we are all so different as individuals and hence, not carry the pressure of, ‘Okay, I have to go through with this coach because this coach has worked for ten other people.’ It’s okay, it may not work for you and it’s okay to stay with your reality and be willing to explore two, three coaches till you feel safe, your body feels safe and it will happen automatically. You will know when you meet the right person and hence that is something that I encourage. 

Third, if you’re at the beginning stage of this particular journey, also bring your fear of unknown and your own ignorance about this space and get it all clarified. It may not be a black-and-white predictability that will happen in coaching. But at least to be educated about the space so that you feel, you have certain knowledge, you know what to expect from this space as you go about it. This is very important because this will give leaders clarity in terms of how to leverage this space. Many times, otherwise leaders get into the coaching space saying, ‘I don’t know, whatever you say, whatever you think, let me know, I will work on that.’ There are many leaders saying that as well, but if you are owning that space thinking that this is for your growth and the space is not about the coach, the space is about you as a leader. That is the key point to keep in mind and hence, to be able to own that space and ask the questions in order to get the clarity, and then come across as ‘I don’t know anything about this space’, and ‘enlighten me’, ‘help me understand’; to be okay to say that I think that’s very important.

Last but not the least, what you get in into coaching with a certain purpose and what you get, probably in some cases, could be very different. You might be getting into the coaching with ‘this is what I want to achieve’, but suddenly some insight about you, something that you are not above aware about yourself, may come across your way. So, are you willing to step into the unknown and be willing to allow what is coming your way rather than expecting/forcefully wanting some results. That is so important. So surrendering in the space is going to be so important rather than having a need to control the outcome because you don’t know what may come your way if you’re going deeper within yourself. These are the inputs that I would give leaders. 

Sai: So exciting and fabulous to hear both of your views as leader and also as a coach. 

There’s just one question that’s just coming up for me and so I’m just going to ask it. Given where each of you are going in your own life and how you’re shaping your professional next steps, if I had to ask you, what is the one key quality that you have uncovered for yourself, through the coaching journey, what would that one quality be and can you call it out for us? 

Veena: For me it would be my capacity to flirt with ambiguity while having complete conviction on what route I want to take and what route, not just for me, the organizations that I’m leading. And, I can hold my need for moving forward and at the same time, joyfully flirt with ambiguity and doing it with conviction and confidence every single day, every moment in front of the business and my own team, that’s something that I have hugely unlocked and through this, to be able to claim my space because very clearly, getting an understanding of what is that my small space in this world where I can stand and I can speak my voice. To still impact the world is something that I have unlocked for myself. 

Sai: That’s so super invaluable. Our capacity to flirt with ambiguity and be comfortable with it. It’s the life of leadership today. So thank you for that. And, Divya, what about you? 

Divya: For me Sai,  I think it’s again another dance and this time it’s between a very strong need and ability to see the big picture first, to kind of be able to do that for myself over long term as well as the team and the organization that I lead. To be able to do that, but I think one missing element that often I’ve seen is the ability to marry that with execution. And so the dance for me is between the big picture thinking, the visioning, but also the focus on, what do we want to execute on in terms of results for the immediate term, the short-term and the long-term? That balance has been really, I think unlocked a lot for me over the past few years, especially. 

Sai: Wow. So exciting to be ending this conversation just hearing about this. So, thank you, both of you. Does anything feel pending for you that you want to say at this moment, otherwise this has just been fabulous and we are sort of at the end of our time. 

Divya: The only thing that I would add is to everybody who’s listening, this is the coaching week, if you don’t have a coach yet, go find one. And if you are a coach, invest in becoming a better one.  

Veena: Absolutely, I would say plus thousand to that, that’s exactly what I was about to say. 

Sai: Super, thank you for your lovely joyful energy, ladies and have a good evening and thank you again for this conversation. Good night!

Sailaja Manacha

Sailaja Manacha, a Master certified Coach from ICF, is known for her programs and coaching methods that combine psychology with leadership practices. In her work, Sailaja draws from Psychology, Ontology, NLP and Spiritual frameworks as well as rich, real-world experiences.

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