A few years ago, I was walking through the floor at our Mumbai office.
The systems had crashed. Client escalations were piling up. Phones were ringing off the hook.
I turned to a young associate and asked, “How bad is it?”
Before she could reply, the pantry boy , who served chai every evening quietly said:
“Sir, today no one touched their tea.”
That one line told me more about team morale than any MIS report or crisis email.
It reminded me:
Leadership is not about having all the answers.
It’s about noticing what others miss.
So here’s my advice to fellow leaders, from three decades across boardrooms, banks, and scaling businesses:
🔹 Don’t just fix. First, feel. Before jumping into action, walk the floor. Read the room.
🔹 Culture hides in the small things. Who gets heard. Who gets cut off. What gets tolerated.
🔹 Stop being the superhero. Solving everything makes you the bottleneck.
🔹 Ask sharper questions. That’s how you unlock real strategy.
🔹 In hard times, show up human. People remember how you made them feel , not just what you delivered.
We talk strategy in boardrooms.
But the story of a company is told in its habits, tone, and unspoken rituals.
What silent signal have you picked up as a leader lately?
Let’s hear from the leaders in the room.