In my 12-year career, I have had the opportunity to work with many dynamic #leaders who ensured I have grown immensely under their guidance and mentoring. Almost 99% of them were dominant, result-oriented, and forceful. After working under these leaders for many years it was evident that being dominant and forceful were the strong traits to exhibit as a leader to move the team forward. One thing was very doubtful – results were coming, but were not consistent. There was no stability, consistency in the team; people were leaving after every 1 year due to the dominance and non-empathic behavior of the leader. I was thinking if there was a more sustainable leadership style!!  And then came this one leader who was a special gift to our team. But he was a young 1st-time leader, who was the youngest in the entire team; we were all very doubtful and skeptical of how he would handle the team. But he painted a different picture of leadership.  The entire Team gave their peak performance consistently for 3 years, no attrition only performance. Everyone loved meetings and winning become our team’s agenda. 1st thing    “ There was always appreciation for the efforts every week  2nd     “ Always time was given to listen to the issues and genuine efforts were done to resolve the problems which were hindering performance.  3rd “ There was balance in the give and take –  the higher the contribution from the team the better the growth  shown for the team members. Everyone in the team got promoted in the 3rd  year due to the high team growth performance  4th     “ Trust and psychological safety were in place. What a lovely 3 years — I cannot forget the leader and his leadership !!  My #reversementor was this young manager who raised the bar of leadership through actions. Ensured any team worked with Trust and high psychological safety. The end result was consistent performance with high team bonding.”—When is the last time that you felt a #reversementor forwarded your aspirations? Did someone younger than you inspire you to do better in life?

This happened in 1986, when I was in my college final year. One of my subjects was Cost and Management Accounting. During that period, there were two group of Professors in the college, one supporting Management and the other group belonging to the Teacher’s Union and hence, against the Management. While we waited in our classrooms, teachers were often at loggerheads because of the difference in their opinions. There were a lot of attacks and counter attacks, barely any teaching was happening. The well-off students would go to tuitions and clear all the exams easily. As I didn’t fall in that category, I had to depend on my junior friend who was a year younger to me. He was a cricketer, and very sharp, studying to become a Chartered Accountant. The day before my exams, though he was my junior in college, he taught me seven ten marks sums saying that those were very important. By God’s grace I was surprised and happy to see five of those sums appear in the question paper and was able to clear that subject. Thanks to him. He still remains a dear friend and is my inspiration in so many ways, nudging me to keep writing poems, suggesting good books etc. He himself has authored 4 books. When I think about it, #ReverseMentoring has been happening throughout my life. I am the oldest of all my colleagues and find them to be kind and happy to help me whenever I seek their support. My kind advice is, do not hesitate to get help from others as nobody knows what you need and may not voluntarily offer help if we don’t voice our needs.

A few years back, I met Avisha, my junior in the content team of the organization I was working in then. All of 24 years, she was bright, professional and quick-witted but what stood out was her clarity about all that she wanted in life. I would see her every day and wonder how come I or my friends never had the same level of clarity at her age. We used to work hard for long hours, sometimes compromising our off days and never questioning anything. We grew up watching our parents talk about working hard to give our families a better life. There was no question of any other personal need. One day, Avisha came to work and said that she is taking a couple of days off. I presumed that there was some family emergency or planned trip. “I am taking two days off for self-care. I worked hard on my accounts last week and I feel that I deserve a break to recharge myself. I am going on a solo trip where I plan to pamper myself and read.” Avisha’s response took me completely by surprise and I couldn’t help asking if our boss was alright with it. To this, she said that she believes in working in every organisation as if she owns it, she gives her best like she would to her own organization and sets the rules when it comes to her limitations and boundaries because she cannot pour from an empty cup. I was stunned. Her straightforward sentences made me a little uncomfortable, and also changed the way I viewed my work and aspirations. My #reversementor was way younger than me, but she opened my eyes to the importance of balance and #boundaries. I realised that as an individual, I should be conscious of my needs and voice them clearly without feeling guilty. Asking for what I need is important and time and again I have been inspired by my younger colleagues to voice my needs articulately and meet them in a balanced way.”—-When is the last time that you felt a #reversementor forwarded your aspirations? Did someone younger than you inspire you to do better in life?

In 1993, when I joined my earlier organization, I was the first employee. We were selling Antivirus software packages those days, to begin with. I started developing a liking for our products and with a lot of passion, I did sell. I still remember a day when I entered a prospect’s place, talked to him about our product, showed him the demo of the product, and walked with a purchase order. Everything happened in a single day. My confidence was at its peak. Around 1999, we grew to a decent size with 40 to 50 folks. Apart from Antivirus tools, we started selling other software packages too. I always had the feeling that I was the boss, as I had joined this organization first. People should listen to me and not the other way around. At this point in time, a young and energetic techie joined us. He was responsible to support the existing clients whenever they had product-related issues. But this guy proactively started learning other tools. Whenever he was free, he used to read and do some research about other software products and tools. One day, I went to a client place along with this techie to discuss the renewal business. The client was happy with our support and he quickly agreed to renew the contract with us. He then casually told me that they were having some remote printing issues. While I was just hearing the client without much interest, this techie quickly responded that we could solve this issue with a tool.  So the client gave us a time slot for the following week for a demo and proof of concept. I was slightly irritated as without my consensus, he had committed to the client, that too a product that was not in our core domain.I asked my techie what made him commit to the client. He replied that he had seen some solution and he would do more research on this product. He casually told in Tamil Nan ellam parthukkaren thalaiva (I will manage everything, Chief). That was the #reversementoring moment for me. As promised within a week he mastered the subject, showed the demo, solved the client issue, and walked away with a Purchase order for this tool. What was a casual statement from a client, which I ignored, turned out to be a business opportunity. That shattered my ego and seniority complex. An important lesson learned – If I am open without any biased lens, I can learn anything from anyone irrespective of age and position.

When I was a second-year undergrad student in the 90s, I met with a major road accident. It took me multiple surgeries and integrated health approaches to be ready to move around after 6 months. And this was also the time I had to undertake a paper in Financial & Management Accounting, which required an accounting background in junior college. I was a science student who decided to move away from pursuing engineering to gain a business degree, and hence did not have the necessary accounting background to handle this paper in college. I was so looking forward to learning something new and here I met with this accident as soon as the school year commenced. When I was back to attending classes after six months, I decided I am going to take this paper and learn this subject no matter what. My father helped me find some additional support outside college, where someone can teach me right from the fundamentals of accounting to whatever was required at my undergrad level. Here were two brothers, young professionals themselves and children of parents who had devoted their lives to teaching, who decided to take this challenge and teach me. While I learned the fundamentals of accounting and connected the dots, with their arduous efforts of course, I also realized that they (the young professionals who taught me) had immense potential to grow as leaders themselves. I was constantly asking questions around job outside teaching in the evenings and realized that they could grow up the ladder if they pursued their MBAs. They did take the nudges without thinking, about why I was pushing them when I was struggling to learn something new myself. And today they are leaders in organizations, with great achievements. This was the first time I realized how some constructive nudges from my side could make a difference to others. I also realized a beautiful trait within me and wanted to nurture this further, which is to help someone connect to their true potential, and not keep my age as a barrier to their growth and development. Today, as an Executive Coach, I play the role of a #reversementor even better than where it began. I can courageously ask leaders questions, which makes them think, even though they may be subject matter experts.Today my nudges are questions! Has your reverse mentor forwarded your aspirations? Perhaps a key solution to successfully leveraging your multi-generational workforce talent!

Getting summer internships/ projects without contact or recommendation was difficult during my college days (the 1990s). I was fortunate to get the support of kind-hearted individuals to get my BE and MBA final year projects in premier Public Sector Undertakings. Starting from my initial days of corporate life, I readily obliged to guide/mentor students in projects and conduct orientation sessions for new joiners. This gave me a sense of giving back for the support I received from others during my college days. Two years ago, I was mentoring a group of college students on a feasibility study for setting up a sales academy. I found their working style to be different and faced challenges in driving the project. Adding to my discomfort was the tardy progress of the study. Keeping aside my worries, I read an article on Generational diversity which gave me an Aha moment. I decided to change the gears and got prepared to be Reverse mentored by the students. I was amazed with the qualities of the Gen Z who understand and execute fast, just needs to know What and not How, leverages internet to the hilt and comes up with out-of-the-box solutions. I decided to change my working style to suit them by unlearning & learning. Yes, the magic worked. I realized the power of reverse mentoring at work and am more curious to learn from reverse mentors. What’s your reverse mentoring story?