What I learned from Mr. Malur Narayan at Nortel
Continuing from last week, I would like to share yet another lesson from my Nortel days, this time from Mr. Malur Narayan, who was the heading all the solutions teams for Nortel India (More like the CTO Role), at the time I worked for him.
Make them Grow or Let them Go.
Confident leaders work for the betterment of their teams.
Always.
Malur, became my manager when he took over the role of solutions head for Nortel India. When he took over, it was my first chance to work with him and I had not known him too well. He came from the wireless world and I was a bit apprehensive about how much attention will he give to me as I was leading a smaller vertical, the wire-line space.
I had also heard that he was close to his existing team members and that they have all grown in past years working for him. I was looking for growth options internally and externally and had landed a job.
My first discussions with Malur were regarding the fact that I wanted to leave and that I did not see growth for myself within the company. He heard me, understood me and worked within the company to get me my growth within the company itself and in the process retaining me.
In those initial discussions with him, I realized that he always kept the interests of team members in his mind and was willing to help them grow. I also realized why his team worked so closely with him. It was a thing that he did not do for any specific people but for his whole team, he was very approachable, easy to talk to and would develop a great rapport within a short period.
He showed me that to be the leader you do not have to maintain “distance” with the team, (as some leaders do), but to work with them in a way that gives them the confidence.
Over the period of next couple of years, I saw him help multiple people within the team realize their own potential, whether internally within Nortel or outside Nortel. Some of his reports today are CTOs in multi-nationals across the globe, others are leading key positions in Global Consulting organizations etc.
A strong leader never shies away from exposing his / her own team members and helping them grow. I wish that you all become strong leaders.
Stay tuned for more next week.