Thank You Mentors who pushed me to the right direction
1.
Published
on
LinkedIn.
Aug
11,
2015.
Thank You Mentors who pushed me in the right direction!
By Rash Khan (https://au.linkedin.com/in/rashkhan1)
LinkedIn started a trend asking professionals to tell stories about their mentors. I
couldn’t help but jump on the bandwagon as I have had five great mentors to be
grateful to. These gentlemen have had profound impact on my growth as a leader over
the years.
What
makes
them
Awesome
Mentors
is
that
they
taught
me
‘how
to
fish’
as
opposed
to
‘helping
me
catch
one’.
They asked great questions and at times acutely confronting ones to help me ascertain
my own resolve. They made me realize I have always had the answers within me, I
just didn’t know how to bring it out. I grew confident as they helped me learn about
myself and build my capabilities more than many ways I could think of. However, I
remained humble as I realized I have so much to learn when I had exposure to their
combined 130+ years of experience and knowledge. This article is an expression of
gratitude towards them and to share some key teachings from them that helped me
grow as a leader.
Early days in my career as a leader, Josh Mclean, Digital Executive Manager at
Suncorp challenged me with the brutal fact that I was lacking emotional intelligence.
That was extremely confronting and the career defining learning for me because I
realized without self-awareness, self-regulation and most importantly empathy I was
never going to be the leader I aspired to be. My journey to become an emotionally
intelligent leader continues to date.
Bruce Weir, Director at BKW Consulting, taught me about cost of not trusting. He
drilled into my head the importance of trust and shared his experiences with me that
demonstrated amazing things people had achieved around him when they were
trusted. He also challenged me to speak slowly as I tend to speak very fast which
makes it hard for people to follow and my message can be lost.
Stuart Stoddart, Veteran Executive and Coach, taught me about simplified process
design, structured governance to drive desired business outcome and most importantly
power of storytelling to help people connect the dots & see the big picture. Stu made
me realize nothing ever beats a good old conversation to connect with people to drive
the message home through stories.
Richard Delisser, Shared Services Executive at Suncorp Life, taught me how to think
strategically and influence positive change. Rich’s message to me was to listen, listen
and then listen some more to learn the intricate details about the problem, empathize
with the situation and then act in order to influence positive change.
2.
Published
on
LinkedIn.
Aug
11,
2015.
Peter How, Executive Manager at Bank BT Suncorp, taught me how to design a
bulletproof plan to deliver an outcome. More often than not we do linear planning
where a series of activities need to happen in sequence to generate a business outcome
which really is happy path planning. I learnt a bulletproof plan requires a seemingly
simple approach – Deep dive into the detail -->Plan --> Think through exceptions,
risks & issues --> Adjust plan --> Test the plan with key influencers --> Adjust plan --
> Execute --> Repeat. I thought I was good at planning before I met Pete, boy was I
wrong! :)
I am grateful to my mentors for inspiring me to be a better leader – Thank You Josh,
Bruce, Stuart, Richard & Peter!
Call to Action
I hope there are some take away for you from what I learnt from my Awesome
mentors. I strongly recommend you to seek out mentors who can help you unleash
your true potential.