Here’s a bold idea:If you really want your people to get to where they’re going…get out of their bloody way.
You’re not Gandalf. You’re not a life coach. You’re just another well-meaning roadblock in Timberland fleece. You don’t need to lead every meeting, approve every idea, or be tagged on every Google Doc like an insecure influencer.
Your people don’t want hand-holding. They want you to unclench.
Today’s talent doesn’t want a “manager.” They want a frigging enabler.
Someone who can give them oxygen, not checklists. They want: Less “What’s your bandwidth like this week?” More “What’s lighting you up right now?” Less “Update me by EOD.” More “Surprise me.”
So, leaders, please stop cosplaying as gods of guidance.
Real leadership has a few obvious giveaways. Where you are the architect, not the gatekeeper. You design the arena. Set the rules. Then disappear like a magician mid-trick. Where psychological safety actually means unfiltered group or Slack messages. If your people still say “Just my 2 cents ” before every idea, you’ve already lost. Where Growth is recognised as a Mood NOT a KPI. If your workplace still feels like an arranged marriage between compliance and confusion, no one’s staying for dessert. Where you kill your org chart before it kills you. Careers today are jungle gyms, not ladders.
Let people swing, skip, jump tracks. Or risk losing them to a startup with beanbags and zero BS. Where your job is to design friction less flow. Not performance reviews written like obituaries. Not town halls with clapping seals. Not fake “open-door policies” when your calendar’s booked till Christmas 2026.
Some Red Flags that most of us would have experienced from a country mile away- where..You’re still celebrating “attendance” like it’s an achievement.
Your idea of culture is Friday Pizza and passive-aggressive birthday emails.
Where you measure productivity in hours, not impact. You say “fail fast” but punish the first bruise. Where selecting the ‘ best vendor ‘ is based on the RFP document drafted in 1998.
Leadership is not a guided tour. It’s crowd control at a rave. Keep the lights on. Turn the music up. Let people lose themselves in the rhythm of what makes them feel alive. Because people aren’t headed somewhere. They’re heading to themselves. All you have to do… is stop being the detour.
If you are in India, then we are complicit to what can be termed as The Great Indian Control Fetish. Look, we Indians have an orgasmic relationship with control. From arranged marriages to career choices, we’ve turned interfering into a competitive sport. Our management style is basically helicopter parenting with spreadsheets.
When TCS launched their “Think Without Your Boss Breathing Down Your Neck” program (officially called something much duller), senior leadership nearly needed cardiac intervention. The thought of employees making decisions without seventeen approval signatures triggered corporate PTSD across the board. The results? Seventeen patents and a platform that saved more money than a Gujarati wedding planner. Yet most companies still treat autonomy like it’s unprotected corporate sex—too risky to try without multiple layers of protection.
As my whiskey-loving friend from Goa says: “Control is like underwear. Necessary for support, but if it’s too tight, your best parts can’t function.”
Forget the old-school boss who thinks leadership means barking orders from a throne. The best leaders are like shadowy puppeteers—pulling just enough strings to keep the show on, but letting the performers steal the spotlight. Lao Tzu said it best: “When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” Translation? Your ego’s gotta take a back seat, or you’re just a glorified roadblock.
Don’t be a control freak. Let your people wander, get lost, and find their own damn way. Innovation loves a little chaos. So stop GPSing. Hand out the compasses. If you’re not failing, you’re boring. Create spaces where people can screw up big and learn bigger. Make learning into a blood sport. One-size-fits-all is for Walmart socks. Customize freedom, resources, and growth paths like you’re tailoring a badass suit. Personalise or perish. Fake listening is worse than no listening. Act on feedback or prepare for mutiny. Listen as if you are being audited. Normal is overrated. Reward the risk-takers, the misfits, the wildcards. That’s where the magic hides. Translation: Celebrate the weirdos.
Let’s take a look at some global and desi disruptors who are doing it right. Google’s 20% Rule: Birthplace of Gmail, Google Maps and many other WTF inventions. Spotify’s Squads: High Autonomy, High Alignment Zoho: Building villages, not just companies. Swiggy Moonlighting Policy: Trust over Tyranny. Netflix’s Culture Memo:Brutally honest. Brutally effective.
One can equate Leadership with Architecture. Where you build Psychological safety, Ownership, Permission to play, Breathing room and then step aside. Not Announcements. Not Airtime. Not Authority.
As I conclude, here’s an imaginary roast memo for all those who want to read the lines(not just between them).
Subject Line: This is an Intervention
To: The Leaders Who Think They’re Leading
From: Your People Who Are Pretending to Be Impressed
Let’s get real. We’re not underperforming. You’re overcompensating. We don’t need your motivational quotes, team offsites with cold sandwiches, or your “synergizing the roadmap forward” gibberish.
We need: Permission to try without begging. Space to breathe without reporting every breath. Trust that isn’t conditional on CC-ing you on every goddamn mail.
The Unspoken Truth: We do more learning on Instagram than in your L&D program. We lie on feedback forms so we don’t get dragged into “coaching conversations.”We turn off our cameras because your monologues drain our souls.
Stop it already: Stop scheduling meetings about meetings. Stop measuring hours like it’s 2003. Stop calling us “resources” like we’re printer paper.
What we actually want? : Let us say “I don’t know” without fear. Let us build stuff, break stuff, and not be crucified for it. Let us grow in directions that aren’t pre-approved by HR flowcharts. We don’t want a “career path.”
We want a jungle gym, a trampoline, and sometimes a quiet corner to rethink everything.
Here’s the new creed: Don’t lead us. Unleash us. Give us clarity, not control. Freedom, not feedback loops. Conditions, not constraints. Then sit back.
And watch us surprise you.
Signed,
Your Team
(Still Here. Still Hopeful. Still Waiting for You to Evolve.)