Dearest Darling Friends,

 

I walked into a room of 36 leaders last weekend for an outbound ‘khopdi tufaan’ (brain storming) over nighter.

 

Each one of them? Experienced. Accomplished. Determined. Special.

 

Each one superbly carrying the weight of teams, targets and futures that were partly theirs and partly others.

 

And yet — the room went quiet three times.

 

Not the polite quiet of people being respectful. The deep quiet of people recognising something about leadership they had not realised before.

 

The first silence.

 

We realised, not everyone listens the same way.

 

1. Some people are driven by aspiration — They need to see the summit before they take a single step.
2. Some are driven by connection — They need to feel that you are dreaming for them too and not just directing them towards a task.
3. Some need emotional belonging — The quiet assurance that this is their safe space, their karma bhoomi.
4. And some simply need a solution — Clear, direct, actionable.

 

Same message. Four completely different people. Four completely different approaches will work for them.
(The acronym for these four is a superb ACES)

 

The room went quiet because every leader had an epiphany. They had been speaking one language — their own — in a world that needs four.

 

The second silence.

 

We talked about the difference between a delegator and a maximiser.

 

A delegator gives tasks. A maximiser draws the best out of the people the task is being given to.

 

One clears their plate. The other builds people.

 

The room went quiet because most of them — in honesty — had confused the two for years.

 

Delegation felt like leadership. It was not. Not always.

 

Real leadership is knowing someone is capable before they know it themselves — and then creating the conditions for them to discover it.

 

The third silence

 

I asked them to think about the systems they had built around them.

 

There are two kinds of systems.

 

1. One is designed to help weak people complete a task — it is a safety net, a scaffold, a checklist.
2. The other is designed to make strong people extraordinary — it is a stage, a multiplier, a launchpad.

 

Most had built the first. None had built the second.

 

The room went quiet when they realised that in trying to make sure nothing went wrong, they had forgotten to make sure something went gloriously right.

 

What I carried home that evening

 

Thirty six leaders. Each one capable of changing the lives of the people around them.

 

No one had ever held up the right mirror in front of them.

 

That is what a room can do when there is enough trust in it.

 

One leader, Aman, said it so beautifully, “The moment we stop seeing other’s perspective, we stop being useful to them.”

 

As a facilitator, I always carry a quiet, stubborn belief that every single person is capable of more than they believe they are capable of.

 

That room of 36 ACES reminded me of that.