This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.
I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.
In the interview, Smiti shares her journey as a woman leader and the kind of unique challenges it presents. She talks about how she was raised as second to none and how led to confidence and growth as a leader as she is on a mission to create happier workplaces. She gives practical nuggets of wisdom from her life and simple advice for leaders when it comes to dealing with the challenges that come with leading by example.
You can find Smiti at the below links
In the interview, Smiti shares
- I think as a person your Priorities and your ambitions in life keep changing over time. As you grow, as you experience more of the world, you realize that, okay, this is the right fit for me.
- I do love technology, It’s not like I cannot code for the life of me, but I realized that maybe business is something which I’m more interested in.
- One of the major things which women, not just leaders or otherwise, lack today is self-worth which comes from the lack of support, which comes to men naturally from their peers.
- General stereotyping definitely affects the way one thinks and of course eventually has a major impact on ones growth.
- Men are naturally accepted as leaders as compared to a woman who have to prove herself to then be accepted as a leader.
- I’ve been lucky enough to have a great family support structure, not just from my parents, but also like from my in-laws and that has helped in my own self-confidence.
- my mom always had that ideology that she’ll not make her girls feel any lesser than the boys and overprotect us.
- to create happier workplaces, to create digitized programs through which in a hybrid work setup, you can actually bring employees closer together to the organization, make them more productive, uh, reduce attrition, increase retention overall.
- So employee retention has become very big problem, not just in one country, but globally
- biggest challenge from an Advantage Club’s perspective, which we see today is the is that there’s so much to cover and there is so little time to cover so much.