Leader, not boss!

**This is a blog that I penned in my company's blog, when I was asked to write about someone I had admired at work.**

When Kartic initiated Legends of Cognizant series, among the people I have closely worked with, Shankar is the first person who came to my mind. Everything in this blog happened 4 yrs ago. But to date he’s the best lead I have ever worked with.

Shankar had been an acquaintance for a while before I was moved to his team and he became my project lead. For an Associate with only 5 years of experience, he was handling such a big team (around 25-30 under him I guess). That itself speaks volumes about him. I haven’t yet heard of anyone given such enormous responsibility at an early stage.

1. The freedom that he bestowed on his team was commendable (trust me! not everyone does that) Did his team complete a work by sitting on it for 8 hrs or 6 hrs and a 2 hr break? It didn’t matter to him, as long as the outcome was a quality deliverable. He wasn’t the “boss” who tied reigns and micromanaged.
2. He wasn’t afraid to speak his mind, irrespective of who the person was. He was never manipulative and dint beat around the bush. You ask him a question, you get a direct answer. I remember once, when I was leaving for the day (after 10 hrs. in office), an onsite lead called him up.

Onsite lead: “Why is she leaving already? Maybe she could do some of tomorrow’s deliverables in advance!” Shankar: Has she completed deliverables for the day?Onsite lead: Yes. Shankar: So she’s leaving. End of conversation! If you think about it, not every offshore lead does that.

3. He always helped his subordinates to grow. You want to innovate? He will help you work on your idea and bring it to life. You think a template can be done differently to capture metrics better? There’s never a “oh but the client/manager wants it to be done this way only.” He always gave a chance to do things better, even if it meant uncomfortable changes or raising a few eyebrows. He made sure his teammates hogged the limelight when the time came (that’s what a leader is for, right?) He always gave credit when it was due and also never pointed fingers when there were escalations.

4. He was extremely committed- even though he never forced his team to stay back, I’ve seen him sit into late nights working on his deliverables or helping his teams out. If required, I’ve seen him pitch in and work on Test Execution also, even though that’s not part of his job. Also he was a man who donned several hats. His contribution to team building activities and event management is noteworthy. He was also a trainer and evaluator in Cognizant academy.

5. He was compassionate. He empathized with his team. To him an associate was a human, than just a resource. He was more of a friend to his team and spoke to everyone on a personal level. Once, I had to stay back for an emergency deliverable till 2am. The last cab was at 12.30 am. He came all the way (my home is 35 kms away) and dropped me home safe.

6. He had a great sense of humor- OK, I know some people are going to disagree with me on this because you can hear him crack “mokka” jokes all the time But whatever, it lightens up the mood- you either laugh or do a face palm.

So to summarize, Shankar is dream-lead material  I’ve had a lot of learning from him on how to be a leader rather than a boss. He’s not with Cognizant anymore and unfortunately I haven’t heard from him in the last 4 years, but I am sure he’s doing very well in his current engagement.

Edit: After I wrote this post, Kartic was kind enough to find Shankar’s mail ID and now we’re in touch