Leadership has benefited every aspect of my life as it has given me self-confidence and helped me build my character. I have personally grown in areas of self-discipline, humility, integrity, and perseverance. Being in this role, my way of thinking has evolved and has become critical. With a focus on long-term impact, we always check before deciding anything, due to which my decision-making capabilities have evolved in the last two years.
During my journey at flydocs, I have become empathetic towards my team and the people around me. I wish to understand their life journeys and in return, it is an absolute pleasure to listen to them, as they seek my guidance on a few things. This team bond is required when we work together, as we need to support each other’s growth and if there are any improvement areas, it is always beneficial to discuss and work on them. This is my greatest motivation as well. Not only has this helped my thinking process, but it has also made me more practical while dealing with issues in my personal life. Rather than feeling underwhelmed during challenging times, I break things down to one step at a time and it has only made me more solution-oriented than just focusing on problems.
To me, leadership is to be idealistic, ambitious, solution-oriented, optimistic, and self-motivated. The flexibility provided by flydocs has helped me a lot in balancing work and life as I get ample time to spend with family and friends, learn new activities, and get some me-time.
Having casual and light conversations with my family is the happiest part of my life. I like watching comedy shows at weekends. I love to explore different places and I usually take a trip to a new place every six months. Some of my best past-time activities include exploring music across various languages. I am fond of old Indian movie songs, especially those created by the musical Maestro, A R Rahman. I am not so fond of reading books, but one can always find me writing my poems/movie scripts. Learning is not uniform for me as my desire to learn new things changes every few months. Currently, I am trying to learn a new language.
Let us look at five key elements of effective leadership by Shashank Dave, Team Leader-Technical Services, flydocs:
1. A diverse team leads to an increased performance
Currently, I lead teams across three countries of India, Australia, and the UK. The diversity within the team makes us explore multiple ways of tackling issues, thereby directing everyone towards a common goal of achieving customer centricity at flydocs. I usually implement learnings from one team to another, which helps me address challenges and prevent potential issues. This leads to overall performance improvement for our customers. Collaboration with different team members has been key to driving productivity and boosting creative thinking across all teams.
2. Cross-functional support for a healthy engagement
Some of my team members have different expertise, skills and knowledge which help in resolving queries of other teams. I usually connect a team member from one team to another colleague from another team to resolve common queries. For example, if someone needs support with macros or Excel, we encourage peer learning to share knowledge. Regularly, my teams engage and coordinate various projects and support each other. This cross-functional alignment leads to efficient collaboration which we have seen continuously drive-up engagement levels.
3. Embrace multicultural communication to create an inclusive workplace
Since I look after multiple teams with different work styles, I get to communicate with different departments across the globe, which helps me in strengthening partnerships across the organisation. During the recruitment process in Australia and the UK, I work closely with the People teams in the UK and India, along with other departments including Learning and Development, Information Technology and Technical Records Management for a seamless onboarding experience for new employees.
4. Know your people: facilitate open communication and collaboration with teams
While I interact with my team at a personal level, I get to understand the cultures of their countries, along with insights into their respective developments. Moreover, I learn something new about their culture. Recently, one of my colleagues invited me for a meal in a multi-cuisine restaurant, where I explored various dishes, I had never heard of before. Such occasions turn colleagues into friends, giving them a personal touch, which makes me discover new aspects about myself as well.
5. Seek feedback to encourage open dialogue and enhance productivity
All in all, when we analyse all the queries, concerns, and challenges, it prepares us for the future. I always take my learning to our Technical Records Managers as they are always supportive and show trust in me and my discoveries. We discuss new ideas, blockers, and exchange information. I seek their feedback and guidance which empowers me in implementing certain things and creating new processes to avoid and minimise risks in future.
Overall, the last year’s journey has been enriching and full of learnings for me, where it has helped me understand my team’s requirements and take the right measures to improve the organisational employee net promoter score (eNPS) score as well. As a Technical Services leader, managing three regions in different time zones has been an invaluable experience for me. I would like to thank other Team Leaders, Project Leads and all other wonderful teammates for their enthusiasm, dedication, and willingness to learn.
