I didn’t learn leadership in a classroom.
I learned it in my first job in Delhi… from two people who probably didn’t even know they were teaching me.
Their names weren’t on any leadership programme. They didn’t have coaching certifications or TED talks. One was my MD. The other was my immediate boss.
I’ll call them Amit and Beena.
And between them… they gave me everything.
Amit was a self-made businessman. Calm, measured, never raised his voice. Not once.
That alone taught me something.
But the lesson I remember most came from a completely ordinary conversation about cooking.
He asked me one day how I’d prepare seven dishes for a party of twenty people.
I looked at him blankly.
“You can’t cook all seven at once,” he said. “You make a list. You prioritise. You work through them one by one.”
Then he paused.
“Work and Life is the same. Prioritise your tasks. Prioritise the people around you. And most importantly… prioritise yourself.”
I was in my twenties. I’d never heard a senior leader say prioritise yourself before.
I didn’t have an answer in that moment. I just sat with it.
And slowly… something shifted.
Beena was different.
Where Amit was practical, Beena was precise. Strong-willed. Quietly powerful. The kind of woman you watch carefully because everything she does has intention behind it.
When I had an accident and fractured my left hand, I assumed I’d have to step back. Take time off. Be less.
Beena didn’t see it that way.
She encouraged me to keep going. Adjusted my duties. Checked in. Supported me through six weeks of working one-handed.
But it wasn’t just the support that stayed with me.
It was what she didn’t say.
She never told me I was capable. She just… acted like I already was. Same me as before the accident.
By the end of six weeks I didn’t feel disabled.
I felt like an empowered woman.
I’ve thought about both of them many times since. Especially now, doing the work I do.
Because what Amit and Beena were doing — without a framework, without a certification, without even knowing it — was coaching.
Amit didn’t give me answers. He gave me a metaphor and watched me find my own ways.
Beena didn’t lower the bar. She held it steady and trusted me to reach it.
Both of them asked — through their words and their actions — what are you capable of that you haven’t tried yet?
I paused. I reflected. I grew.
That is what great coaching does. It doesn’t tell you who to be. It creates the conditions for you to discover it yourself.
A powerful question will take you further than a perfect answer.
Amit never told me how to prioritise. He handed me a metaphor and trusted me to find my own meaning in it. That pause — that moment of oh, I see — was mine. Not his. That’s the gift of a great question. It puts the insight where it belongs. Inside you.
The most powerful thing a leader can do is believe in you before you believe in yourself.
Beena never said you can do this. She just behaved as though it was already true. There is a profound difference between being told you are capable and being treated as though you already are. One is encouragement. The other is transformation.
Growth lives in the pause.
Neither Amit nor Beena rushed me. They created moments of stillness — through a question, through a metaphor, through quiet expectation — and let me sit inside them. I didn’t always have the answer immediately. But the reflection that followed those pauses shaped me more than any training ever did.
Quick Read – The Day I Learned More About Leadership in My Pyjamas Than in a Coaching Conversation
I didn’t know it then. But those early years in Delhi were my first experience of being coached.
No formal sessions. No structured frameworks. Just two people who saw more in me than I could see in myself… and asked the questions that made me look.
Leadership rarely announces itself.
Sometimes it arrives as a question about cooking. Sometimes as a fractured wrist and a boss who doesn’t flinch.
Who was your Amit or Beena? And are you being that person for someone else right now?
I’m Usha. Executive Leadership Coach. Let’s talk.
Usha Nagrani, an HR Leader turned ICF Executive Coach, empowers senior management professionals and business leaders to achieve breakthroughs as expats, build cross-cultural teams, and navigate the exciting journey of career acceleration.
