As we move into a Digital world where leaders are a lot more “out there”, there is a greater premium on authenticity today than possibly a few years ago. Leaders across fields talk about what the word means to them and how it influences their behaviours and choices.

Becoming a Trusted Advisor is often the holy grail for a lot of Business Advisors. This issue is as relevant for businesses as they think about how their consumers interact with their brand. Leaders talk about what it takes to build trust with an individual.

The business world is slowly waking upto the fact that just like in elite sports, there is a tremendous value to be unlocked by having an effective coach for a leader. It is not just about fixing issues but also about enabling the journey from Good to Great. Leaders across disciplines share their insights around how one should pick a coach and get the most out of such a relationship.

Communication and story-telling is at the essence of building culture in an organization. Lessons from an ad-guru, mythologist, armed forces officer, motivational speaker and more about how one could think about narrating compelling stories.

Leaders talk about how individuals should think about a career in Management Consulting and contrast it against options like Investment Banking. They also talk about transition pitfalls when people from Consulting  move to newer domains.

Navigate nuanced leadership scenarios in Context Based Leadership, dissecting adaptive approaches, decision-making, and communication strategies for diverse organizational contexts.

Explore resilient stories and expert insights in 'Coping with COVID-19,' navigating challenges, mental health, innovation, and community responses amid the pandemic.

Culture eats Strategy for breakfast but how does one build it. Leaders across domains (Academics, Armed Forces, Silicon Valley, Bollywood, Venture Investing) talk about the notion of culture and how they go about building it in their organizations.

"A Curious Mind” by Brian Grazer (Oscar winning Producer of movies like A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13) was the inspiration behind the Play to Potential Podcast. In this playlist, Leaders reflect about the role of curiosity and how it has helped them in their journeys. As Alvin Toffler says, the Illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.

Deliberate practice refers to a special type of practice that is purposeful and systematic. While regular practice might include mindless repetitions, deliberate practice requires focused attention and is conducted with the specific goal of improving performance. Leaders across fields talk about how they think about this topic in their respective fields.

As we move from an Industrial era with linear supply chains and long shelf-life to a Digital era with interconnected ecosystems and ephemeral shelf-lives of ideas and products, the rules of the game are shifting. This requires leaders to rewire themselves and start behaving very differently. And this change can be hard. Perspectives around how we should deal with the Digital Tsunami.

Ability to drive change in an organisation is one of the critical Leadership Competencies for a CEO today, given  more and more is getting done at the intersection of different ecosystems, and a large portion of value add is not directly under the leader's control but in the wider realm of influence. In this segment, leaders talk about how they drove change through a complex system/organization.

We live in a world of abundance of choices and that can be disconcerting and paralyzing. Leaders across fields talk about how individuals should think about some of their early career moves including the very first job that they need to think of when they graduate from an educational institution.

Leaders share their perspectives on what it takes to be an effective Board member. They also discuss, how leaders should think about Board roles and make choices around which Boards they could potentially get into.

Explore the world of 'Effective Hiring' through practical strategies, expert insights, and real experiences, enhancing recruitment and team-building approaches.

We are seeing a renaissance when it comes to entrepreneurship in this country. But it is not an easy ride. Leaders speak about how individuals should think about taking the plunge to entrepreneurship, how they could pick co-founders, their approach to scaling up their leadership muscle and more.

Learn how individuals from across disciplines have pushed themselves to move to the very top of their field and profession. As we move towards a flattening world with a leveling of the playing field, there is a high risk of being commoditized if we do not strive towards excellence.

Leaders talk about how Senior Executives need to think about being effective in a Board context. This often involves a rewiring of their mindsets in terms of being clear around who they are accountable to and where their loyalties lie and a shift in the way they interact with a group of people to drive outcomes, something that can be hard for a lot of people.

Discussions around how the leaders were influenced by the climate in which they grew up and how that has impacted them as individuals and the choices they have made as they have gone about their journeys

Going solo and configuring a portfolio of initiatives is a lot more feasible today than it was a decade or two back. Leaders talk about their experience in getting the timing right in moving from a Corporate Environment to doing Gigs. They also talk about what it takes to identify your unique playground and flourish in the gig economy including how you build trust – something that doesn't get spoken about in the discussions around the flattening world and reduced transaction costs.

Habits are routine behaviours done on a regular basis. They are recurrent and often unconscious patterns of behaviour and are acquired through frequent repetition. Guests on the podcast share their experiences in baking habits in their lives

Happiness is arguably what a lot of us are after. We share multiple perspectives on how to think about this seemingly simple yet often elusive phenomenon.

Embark on a wellness journey with 'Health and Wellness,' featuring insights, practices, and stories fostering holistic well-being and vitality.

Identity refers to the reputation, characteristics etc. of a person that makes the individual or the people around him/her think about them in a certain way. To put simply, how do we think of ourselves and what to the others think of us. Identity is a key element that we need to wrestle with during pivotal transitions.

This playlist captures the essence of what the speaker is trying to say in their conversation. In a way, it captures the key principles with which they have approached life which has brought them to where they are today. They share their perspectives on the mindset we need to adopt as we navigate through life.

Inflection points are when the notion of “what got you here won't get you there” hold. Whether it is a company moving from a start-up to a scale-up or a leader moving from a CXO to a CEO role, these passages of play have to be navigated carefully as there is a high risk of derailment.

Leaders reflect on what it takes to get the ideas in your head to a wider set of people and drive buy-in. Its often a function of being tactful about listening to what the various stakeholders want, getting a sense of when the timing is right and driving the change you want by influencing the various constituents.

Leaders discuss how they have adopted “out of the box” approaches in various contexts. They also discuss how they have balanced commerce with creativity.

There's nothing like learning about a path from somebody who has walked it. Professionals across backgrounds (Sports, Law, Banking, Consulting, Investing, Academia, Stand-up, Consumer Goods, Politics, Market Research, Entrepreneurship, Advertising etc.) talk about the path, the highs and the lows and share nuanced views on how people should think about traversing that path.

Insights around how businesses think about transitioning effectively right across generations.

Leaders across contexts share their perspectives on how they reflect and take notes as they go through life.

Judgment is a key trait that differentiates the great leaders from the average ones. How do you make decisions and exercise choices in a world full of options and grey areas with multiple stakeholders around you. In addition, the playlist has nuggets that discuss how one creates a climate for the people around you to exercise good judgment.

“How do I grow” is a question that all of us grapple with. The recipe for success is also changing as we move from an Industrial paradigm to a Digital paradigm. This is all the more pronounced in a start-up context where the job outgrows you very quickly. Successful leaders talk about the role of mentors, coaching, listening and more in scaling up one's capability.

Perspectives around moving from one role from another especially while moving from Functional Leadership to General Management; Leaders also talk about how they thought about inter-generational transition as business owners.

What can the world of business learn about communicating intent from the Army? How is handling customer feedback similar to how a Stand up comedian handles heckling? What are the parallels between business strategy and chess? What can the world of business learn from other worlds?

When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new”. This is a quote by Dalai Lama. Several leaders talk about their experiences with listening and how they have grown with it. More specifically, leaders also reflect on the criticality of listening when transitioning into a new context.

How we manage conflict is an essential life skill and no one teaches us how to handle conflict productively. Multiple perspectives around how we can engage in healthy conflict that can lead to better outcomes.

Money is a renewable resource, time is not. Leaders share their wisdom around how they have thought about their time and gravitated towards initiatives that yield the maximum Return on Time Invested (ROTI). They also discuss how the pie chart of time has evolved with changes in context.

It is well understood that maternity is a key inflection where there is leakage in the leadership pipeline. Women leaders talk about hard choices and trade-offs that women have to make but also offer perspectives on how they could think about Maternity & Career rather than making an Either/Or choice.

As we go through our journeys, it is critical to learn from mentors who can guide us, inspire us and push us towards our potential. Leaders share how they have thought about the notion of a Personal Board of Advisors and have benefited from it through their journey.

Some leaders talk about how they changed course from one trajectory to another mid-career. This can be an unnerving passage of play where there is a chance of the individual feeling “stuck”.

Given we live in a world with exponential increase in content creation and with firms like Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple vying for our attention, it is quite hard to reclaim our own space and attention. In this context, being mindful could be a key differentiator and a competitive advantage. Some leaders talk about how they created that space for themselves amidst the noise.

Leaders discuss their personal frameworks around how they made choices around pivotal moments in their lives. They articulate the set of criteria we should consider having when we are at a fork on the road and have to pick between disparate options. Arguably one of the most critical skills of the future as we navigate a world of abundance.

Discussions around the role that parenting plays in shaping who we are and our beliefs, habits, behaviours and mindsets. Leaders share their personal experiences around how a lot of who they are got baked in their early years.

This is not a new concept but as we hurtle towards a world where the Gig Economy will be a key structural component of the economy in addition to large organizations, how we build our personal brand is something every leader needs to be thinking about. What can we learn from how Businesses build brands? How does that need to change in the digital world?

A big element of Leadership is solving complex problems. A bigger challenge is in framing the problems right before we start solving them. We share some insights around how we can be effective problem solvers with what life throws us at us.

Insights around what it takes to create a Psychologically safe environment for leaders and teams to feel safe for taking interpersonal risks which is at the heart of learning, taking risk and much more which drives effectiveness in teams especially in an environment of significant complexity and interdependency.

“Follow your heart” is an advice that is commonly doled out to individuals that are trying to make career choices. However, the reality is little more nuanced. People who have followed their heart talk about how they have weaved it into their lives or in some cases, how they have been pragmatic about taking the plunge.

Regret is a word that we often use but do not quite understand that well. Jeff Bezos speaks about his regret-minimisation framework for making high stakes decisions. Several people speak about “No regrets” as a way of life. Dan Pink recently wrote a book - The Power of Regret - How Looking Backward Moves us Forward. This playlist has nuggets from our conversation with Dan and some of the other speakers who touch upon this topic.

“How do I stay relevant” is a question that all of us have to grapple with as we go through our respective journeys. Careers aren't linear any more. Some of the leaders talk about how they managed to pivot during their journeys and significantly change trajectories.

Research by Angela Lee Duckworth (of Wharton) talks about a special blend of passion and commitment that she calls Grit. Leaders from various fields (Armed Forces, Writing, Sport, Entrepreneurship and more) talk about their experiences in cultivating resilience.

Insights around what it takes to build a better understanding of self. This includes perspectives around how we can deepen our picture of ourselves through a combination of inner work, mindfulness practices and by gathering meaningful feedback from the world around us.

Figuring out “where to go” is only a part of the challenge for leaders in transition. How you land effectively in a new context is as critical. Hair line cracks often become full blown fractures if not attended to carefully. Leaders talk about some key lessons Individuals could bear in mind as they transition across contexts (Army to Business world, US to India, MNC to Family Business, Consulting to Industry/Investing etc.)

Leaders across domains talk about how they have thought about Social Impact and where the seeds of giving were sown. They discuss their approach to philanthropy and the underlying principles they have used to get to what they are doing now.

As we move towards a world where intrinsic capabilities count for more and more, how we spot diamonds in the rough is a capability that will begin to matter more and more. This is as relevant for hiring as for investing. Leaders across disciplines share their insights on how they look for raw potential that can then be honed.

How do we stay relevant as we go through our journey is something that keeps a lot of us awake. This is both in the context of refreshing and rejuvenating ourselves over time and also ensuring that our skills and capabilities are fit for purpose in the world we live in and the future of work.

Perspectives from practitioners and thought leaders on how we could use the power of stories at the work place in order to build a stronger culture.

Insights from different walks of life on what it takes to drive a culture of teamwork in a unit.

Leaders from the Venture Investing space talk about what it takes to be effective in Investing and how effective investors provide support to the entrepreneur without intruding. They also talk about transition pitfalls when people come into this industry from other domains like Consulting and Investment Banking.

Leaders talk about how they have recalibrated the notion of what success means to them. This is often a moving target and one has to constantly evolve it as we go through our respective journeys. They also discuss how this thinking has helped them make a more robust “where to go” decision when they were at an inflection point.

The fact that we don't have enough women leaders in the Board room is well understood. Leaders share their perspectives on what needs to happen across various stages (education, maternity, late career) for women to rise to the very top.

Leaders talk about how they think of work and life and manage to juggle the two. No universal answer here but a glimpse into how different people have framed this in their heads and have dealt with it. We all need to find what works for us individually.