LEADERSHIP LAB

Becoming an authentic leader

Abhishek Gurajala
SECTION 1

Which experiences in your early life had the greatest impact on you?

a. What experiences has changed you as a person and led to your present being?
b. What were the key learnings and take-aways from these experiences?

One of the most impactful experiences of my early life that has had the biggest impact on me
is the time in my undergraduate study when I took up a year-long project to create dengue
awareness among the villages in rural Telangana. This was a ICMR sanctioned project which
my professor had taken up. As part of the project, I was involved in developing multimedia
and reading materials in vernacular languages, travel extensively to nooks and corners of the
state, to remote villages. These places were some of the most underprivileged places I had
encountered in my whole life. There, over the course of an year, I was exposed to a completely
different life from the one I knew. I saw how some of the things that I had taken for granted,
things like food security, income security, access to healthcare and access to transportation
were alien to these people.
I learned that I can never take any of the creature comforts for granted, even if they
seem to be basic for me. From that time onwards, I started to have a completely new
perspective in life, and every person and situation I encountered from then on, I had the
perspective which helped me be humble in my actions. It helped me be kind to others, and to
help others in any way that I can. Most importantly, it also helped me appreciate the kind of
entitlement I was lucky enough to have in life. That I was one of the very few people who
were lucky enough to have the opportunity to worry about things in life which are not the
bare necessities.

What tools do you use to become self-aware?

c. What is your authentic self?

d. What are the moments when you say to yourself, this is the real me?

Being self-aware is an ongoing process. I do not believe that I have become fully self-aware in
my life as of yet, but I do believe that I will continue to try. Becoming self-aware is a pursuit,
and the beauty lies more in the journey than the destination itself.
Humility and the practice of seeing life from different perspectives than your own is
one of the most useful tools I have used in my pursuit of being self-aware. These actions help
me see myself in a detached and objective way, thus helping me evaluate myself objectively.
If I have to evaluate my authentic self, the honest answer would be that I am still in the
process of finding out. I have figured out what my core values are, and I believe that our core
values are a reflection of our authentic self. There have been many times in my life where I
have thought that this is my real self and most of those situations have some or the other
relation with the core values that I have listed. This has helped me in the process of finding
out the real me, as the happiness I find in helping others is the real me, the loyalty I have to a
cause is the real me, and the times I have spoken the unfiltered truth is the real me.
What are your most deeply held values?

a. Where did they come from?

b. Have your values changed significantly since your childhood?

There are some values in that life that I believe to be at the core of what I am, to be the values
that shape the real me. It is not surprising to see that most of these values had been inculcated
from my early life by my parents and these are the values that I hold sacrosanct.
• Loyalty
• Service to society
• Integrity and the power of truth
These are the values that have been taught and practiced in my household, and some of which
I have learned not by being taught, but merely by observing. When I observe my parents
having and displaying a sense of service to the society many time over in my early life, I start
to believe that to be something that is moral and good. This kind of reinforcement has helped
me build these values as core values, something I can hold onto in times of hardships. Loyalty
has been a core value for me, something that has been reinforced over and above my
experiences in my early life. The power of loyalty has been proven to me in my life, I have
seen how being loyal can keep me happy. Service to society has been something I have
reinforced with my own experience in my college. The satisfaction that one can get from
service is something that cannot be fully explained even. I fully believe in the saying that we
get back what we give to the society. When I give to the society, when I work in service of the
people around me, I believe that I garner their goodwill. The goodwill that I earn here is for
me a wealth far more precious than any currency can ever be.
The power of truth has been one of the most deeply held values for me. I believe that
truth triumphs all, that we can achieve greatness in life if we hold onto to the power of truth.
We can never succeed when we do not have truth on our side. When we lie, even if it is
something that can seem meaningless, we destroy a part of ourselves. A lie is always a
negative spiral. One lie will lead to another and before you know it, you are lying not for any
purpose, but to just cover up your earlier lies. I believe that truth must be one of the
fundamental values in any person’s life, for that person to lead a life of contentment and
success. Which is why I intend to continue with the power of truth as one of my sacrosanct
values.

What motivates you extrinsically?

c. Also, introspect and throw light on your intrinsic motivations?

d. How do you balance extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in your life?

The people around me are one of my biggest extrinsic motivators. I see myself as a person
who is greatly influenced by my surroundings, a person who can feed off of the motivation of
the people around me. When I see anyone around me who is working hard, or going over and
above what is usually required, I pick up on that energy and motivate myself to match their
levels of energy and motivation. This has greatly helped me in my life, as I can keep myself
motivated over a period of time by associating myself with that have high energy.
My need to be useful to the society, to make a difference for something that is bigger
than me is an intrinsic motivator in my life. This intrinsic motivator has helped me keep my
spirits up in times of demotivation and stress in several instances in my life. A need to balance
the extrinsic and intrinsic motivations is something that I understand completely. Having an
excess of either of these things can result in you being dependent on just one or a few factors
to derive your motivation. And in my life, that is something I believe is a dangerous game to
play. To keep a healthy balance, I try to actively associate each of my actions to both intrinsic
and extrinsic motivators, so that I can be sure that I have struck a balance.

SECTION 2

A good teacher can teach you something that you will remember for a day, but a great
teacher will teach you something that you will remember for the rest of your life. This quote
has rung true for me time and again, given the fact that most of the heroes in my personal
life have been teachers, either professionally or by circumstance, to me. A teacher can
influence many important characteristics in a person’s life. Teachers are much like a second
parent, and you could say that they spend just as much, if not more time each day, with a
child than parents do. They help mould and shape a child’s personality, and many times
their future. They can teach you the importance of trust, and being trustworthy. A teacher
should also be able to recognize each student as an individual. My school, a catholic
missionary school in the heart of Hyderabad was filled with devout Catholics who believed
in the power of hard work, who lived at the confluence of Catholic principles and Indian
value systems alive. One of those teachers was my 9th and 10th grade Chemistry teacher,
Mrs. Rosalind Johnson. She was one of the most hardworking teacher I saw in my school,
and one of the most patient one too.
Mrs. Johnson has influenced who I am as a person. She was the embodiment of
patience in any class that she took. She had an air of patience and kindness around her,
something that influenced me and the rest of the students to begin our day and continue on
a positive note. There was no student that was too dumb in her class. She encouraged and
pushed the brightest and slowest kids alike, giving both of them different kind of impetus,
making the teacher different for each type of student. Those are character traits that I feel I
have improved upon because of her. I sincerely believe that I learnt how to read and
respond appropriately to different people in different situations by looking at and learning
from the way that she handled students in her classes. Another important thing that she has
taught me was to believe in myself. When a teacher believes in you, you cannot help but
work even harder, which only leads to success. Her believe and encouragement was the fuel
to my fire, a fire that I had not even realised that I had. She used to morph into all of the
different kinds of teachers that I needed to excel, becoming a kind and supportive teacher
once, or a strict and rule following teacher when the need arose. I hope that throughout the
rest of my life, I can demonstrate the same great qualities that I find in her. I know I will
strive to emulate her in all facets of my life, because I learnt far more from the way she led
her life and her work that I ever could have with any subject.
Having these characteristics would mean nothing if she wasn’t also trustworthy. I
could always go to her to seek advice, or just to have a friend to talk to. Knowing that I had a
person who I could talk to about anything gave me a confidence to face the day with
confidence which I would not have otherwise had. Whether it was bad marks, or some
discomfort with another teacher, or something that I felt that my family just wouldn’t
understand, Mrs. Johnson was always there to listen or help in any way that she can. She
always reassured me that the conversations I have with her are going to remain between us.
She liked to share her triumphs and failures with us equally, too. We had a window into her
life and learnt from her experiences as well, something that helped us as much outside the
classroom as it did inside it.
Mrs. Johnson took her time to get to know each student as an individual. She took
pride in figuring out ways to make the lessons such a way that every kind of student had the
opportunity to excel. She used various teaching styles in effort to reach the needs of
everyone in her class. We often play games to study for a test, which is an exciting and easy
way to review the information. In the 10th grade, I was a teacher’s assistant in her class, and
that experience gave me insight into how well her teaching style helps her students
succeed. I learned how much work she put into preparing the study plans for every class,
and the fact that she maintained two simultaneous study plans with her at all time. When I
asked her why she needed two different plans, she reasoned that she always wanted to
have a plan B for every class in case she sensed that the study plan for that particular day
was grabbing the students’ attention. This exchange taught me to always have a plan B for
every important that I plan for my future. I never venture out into my day without planning
ahead and this punctuality is something that I credit to my teacher. There were very few
kids who don’t do well in her classes. Clearly, she had worked hard to figure out what is best
for each person in her class. This has made me recognize that each person has their own
individuality, and that they should be respected for who they are.
My chemistry teacher taught me many important values about life. She gave me the
strong base for life, upon which I am today building my value systems. She has been an
exemplary role model, and has taught me to have many strong traits. I can be trustworthy
and hard-working, while never losing sight of who I am as an individual. Mrs. Johnson has
been the one teacher that has affected my life the most. She did not need to influence me
to be a rich man, but she has influenced me to become the best at anything that I set out to
be. I am proud today to say that she is the reason that I have a strong inclination to become
a teacher, in whatever way shape or form that might be. And I believe that if I follow in her
footsteps, I will at least become a teacher that is half as good as she is.
SECTION 3

2. What kind of support team do you have?

a. How can your support team make you a more authentic leader?
b. How should you diversify your team to broaden your perspective?

The support team that I have in life is mainly twofold. My family forms the first set of my
support team, and one of the most important ones also. The second set of support team that
I have is a bunch of my closest friends, people that I have trusted over the years. Firstly, my
family has been the bedrock of my value systems and way of thinking. Both of my parents,
each in their own ways have helped me to be the best self that I can be in every task that I
take on. My family has also been supportive of every decision that I have taken, right from
how are you choose to spend free time or develop interests and work on them. My friends,
on the other hand have helped me be a stable functioning adult out in the society. They have
taught me many life lessons on how to be kind to other people, how to take advantage of
every situation that is presented before you, and also how important it is to be grateful for
the support that your friends and family have given to you.
I believe that the support team in my life in the form of my friends and family are the
reason that I strive to become the authentic leader that I want to be. They have been pushing
me to be the best version of my myself and continuously improvise on my strengths they have
also supported me through the tough times, giving me the guidance and moral strength that
I require at every step of the way. To make my support team more inclusive and diverse, I
believe that I should include people from all stages of life as parts of my support team. For
example, as I move from the academic part of my life to a working environment and back to
the academic environment, I have met many people who have been willing to help me
develop as a person and as a leader. Therefore, I must take their help and make the best of
the relationships that I have cultivated over the years, work to keep and nourish those
relationships and include them in my support team. Because the acquaintances I have made
over these diverse environments essentially represent the different facets of the society,
including these people in my support team will help take the advice of people in different
stages of their life and hence help me broaden my perspective.

3. Is your life integrated?

a. Are you able to be the same person in all aspects of your life – personal, work,
family and community?
b. If not, what is holding you back?
I do not believe that my life is integrated, at least not as much as I would like it to be. My life
for the most part has been, and continues to be very compartmentalised, with my
mannerisms and expressions being different with different parts of life. For example, I have
observed that the way that I behave when I am with acquaintances and my friends is very
different. Sometimes, such traits might come in handy when you are trying to blend in or
when you are being reserved. But for most of the times, such compartmentalised thinking has
not been beneficial to me. This is because I do not feel comfortable in my own skin when I
behave in different ways around different people.
When I behave differently around differently, I do not think I am being authentic to
myself. The reason I think that I tend to be different and not integrated is becaue I have a
need to fit into every environment that I am in. And in the effort to mould and change into
what is most acceptable for that particular environment, I sometimes become a very different
 person. And the reason that I have a need to fit in is the fact that I have an innate fear of being
ostracized by the society. This fear has been the biggest reason that is holding me back from
having an integrated life, a life where I can be my true and authentic self, irrespective of the
place I am in.
4. What does being authentic mean in your life?
a. Are you more effective as a leader when you behave authentically?
b. Have you ever paid a price for your authenticity as a leader? Was it worth it?
Being authentic in life to me means being comfortable in your skin. It means that I am
comfortable with the things I say and do, that I have no qualms about the moral stands that I
take in life. Being true to yourself is one of the biggest and most important facets of being
authentic. We have to be true to ourself in context of our intentions, our morals, and our
values. When we do not waver from our values in our actions, we can lead an authentic life.
Being authentic is very important to being an effective leader. When you are authentic
in your intentions and actions, you can lead by example and show the way for the people
following you. If you are authentic in your actions, your leadership will not have the intended
effect. This is because any leader gains credibility by their authenticity. And when you do not
have authenticity, you will not have credibility. And a leader without credibility cannot really
be a leader. I believe that I will be a far more effective leader when I am being authentic. This
is because when I am being authentic, I have the belief and conviction in my words and actions
that helps motivate the people who follow me.
There have been several instances where I have been seemingly disadvantaged by
being my authentic self while being a leader. This is usually in situations when I am expected
to mould and adjust to a situation and act in a certain way, irrespective of what my values
are. But in situations where I have been a leader, I have refused to do so, and I have payed
the price. I have been shunned and ostracised for not towing the expected line and parroting
someone else’s words. I do believe that it as worth paying the price for being authentic,
because of the fact that I am even more confident in my moral and my authentic self as a
result of that. I now have the confidence that I am able to stick to my ground even when I
face adversity, and this only strengthens my resolve and helps me strive to become more and
more authentic in my life.

5. What steps can you take today, tomorrow, and over the next year to develop your authentic
leadership? (use Annexure II, as enclosed)
a. What do you need to do to become more effective as an authentic leader?
b. How do you plan to bridge this gap; describe your plan of action
ANNEXURE II
Personal Development Plan

Sub-section A: Vision of self as a leader (upto 250 words):

My vision of myself as a leader would be someone who has a strong sense of values and someone
who is capable and willing to lead from the front, lead by example. I would want to be the kind of
leader who is emphatic to all the people that work with him. As someone who is an ardent
believer in the transformative power of hard work and persistence, I would make sure to
incorporate these values in the way I conduct myself when I am a leader. I will exhibit
 perseverance and expect perseverance from those who work with me. I will work to set an
example, a template for those that come after to follow. My triumphs and failures must be the
stepping stones on which future generations chart their journey.

Sub-section B: Objectives

I (Academic / Professional)
1 Work on a research publication
2 Complete certification courses successfully

II (Non-academic / Personal)
1 Complete at least 80KM of run-time every month
2 Eat more healthy
3 Read one new book every month

Sub-section C: Plan of action:

Action Outcome By When Milestones

Today Tomorrow Over the So what will
(1 Month) (2 – 4 year be done to
months) (Rest of the start the
year) action?
Work on a Publish a End of Submit Work on Publish final Write a
research formal academic proposal draft report proposal
publication research year 2020 to the
report faculty
Complete at 1000KM of End of 5K 3 times Work on a Complete a Run 5K
least 80KM of run time 2021 a week race race season
run-time by end of season and milestone
every month 2021 off season
schedule
Eat more More End of Eat Eat fibre in Experiment Eat peas
healthy green leafy academic vegetable atleast 2 with and raw
foods in year 2020 salads as meals of intermittent vegetable
diet part of one the day fasting salads
 meal per
day

Sub-section D: Constraints:

Constraints Strengths
Time Subsequent drive and motivation
Inertia Persistence

ANNEXURE (Plagiarism test)