Calling Early Career Managers! 12 Lessons in Leadership To Help You Succeed

Successful leaders are those who have the ability to reflect on their experiences and extract meaningful lessons from them.

Jaswinder Ahuja has had an illustrious career of over 35 years at Cadence. Throughout his journey, he has had his share of both victories and challenges. He has distilled the learnings from these experiences into 12 lessons that offer practical and actionable advice for leaders early in their careers to develop their leadership skills and become effective in their roles.

Jaswinder shared these lessons at a leadership development training held recently at Cadence’s Noida office. 

Lesson 1: Do What You Love or Learn to Love What You Do

The first lesson is from very early in Jaswinder’s career, when he was trying to decide what he wanted to study after school. His father’s friend shared this very important lesson with him, which has been foundational throughout his career.

The lesson is: In life, if you get to do what you love, you're blessed. However, you will not always get to do what you love. Therefore, it's important to learn to love what you do, even if you are not passionate about it, so that you can give your best to whatever your job requires.

This is important because in your life everything is going to be built on the foundation of what you have done up until that point in time. If you don’t love it, you can’t do your best, and that will affect the rest of your career.

 Lesson 2: "Perception is Reality"

The second lesson stems from an incident in Jaswinder’s career that had to do with a disconnect regarding a performance rating. Jaswinder was surprised by a “Satisfactory” rating and asked his manager about it.

The manager said, “I don't think you've given it your best effort. I see that you spend a lot of time walking around in the office.” The back story is that Jaswinder tended to walk around when tackling a difficult problem. His manager had misinterpreted that action and thought he was wasting his time.

The lesson is that one should never ignore how people perceive you. In a leadership role, it becomes even more important, because we are sending subliminal messages to people around us through our actions.

Jaswinder said that he himself tries not to form perceptions just based on one or two data points, but rather attempts to understand what's going on before forming an opinion.

Lesson 3: "Surprise Me!"

In 1990, Jaswinder asked his manager, whom he admired a lot, about what he needed to do to get an “Exceeds” rating in the next review.

The manager’s answer was, “Surprise me.”

At that time, Jaswinder didn't understand what this meant. After digging deeper, he understood that the meaning was that a manager can never, and should never, answer the question about how to get a better rating in quantifiable terms. If the manager tries try to say something like, do 10% or 20% more, it puts a cap on what the individual thinks he needs to do. It sets a goal that might be too low, because your team member may have the potential to do 30%, 40%, or 50% better. How do you know, if you put a limit?

At best, a manager can tell an individual what the manager needs him or her to do to fulfill what the company or the project needs. And obviously, it has to be of good quality. So, excellence, to some extent, is the expectation.

From the employee’s perspective, the lesson is – the baseline is to aim for excellence, but to exceed, do something that's really not expected.

Lesson 4: People Always Remember How You Made Them Feel

Jaswinder had a nice story here, about a meeting with a VP when he was a relatively junior employee way back in 1991. Jaswinder had asked for a 1:1 with the VP of his BU. Midway through the meeting, they were unexpectedly interrupted by another VP. The BU VP asked if it was urgent. The other gentleman said No, but he needed to talk to him about something. The BU VP replied, “Fair enough. Once this meeting is over, I'll come see you.”

This incident had a profound impact on Jaswinder. Though Jaswinder was a junior employee, the VP accorded him the same respect that he would a more senior peer.

There is a well-known saying, it is not what you say or do, but how you make people feel that's important. Jaswinder’s advice is that in every relationship, personal and professional, be conscious of how you make people feel. And you have to make it part of who you are, only then will it sound authentic and sincere.

Lesson 5: Dress for the Part You Want

The next lesson comes from 1992, when Jaswinder asked his manager about how to work for a promotion. And the manager responded, “Dress for the part you want.”

After some reflection, Jaswinder understood it to mean not only did he have to prepare for the role he wanted, but he had to go beyond that, to take initiative. So, the lesson is - invest in yourself by developing the skills, mindset, and competencies, take initiative and build the track record, so that when the opportunity comes knocking, you are ready for it. You are dressed for the part.

Lesson 6: Growth Happens When You Step Outside Your Comfort Zone

1993 was a pivotal year for Jaswinder. After a major reset, Cadence US management was keen on building the India center. It was a big challenge, and it needed the right leader to have the conversations with senior management, gain their trust, build competency, and execute with excellence.

Jaswinder raised his hand for the job, and though he was just a senior member of the technical staff, he was given the responsibility. However, he was acutely aware that he was punching way above his weight, so to speak. Up till then, he was an engineer, but now, he was forced out of his comfort zone to do things that he had never done before, like having business discussions with VPs and group directors. Jaswinder embraced the challenge, and there was a lot of learning from that experience.

Lesson 7: EQ is More Important than IQ in a Leadership Role

According to Jaswinder, emotional intelligence, or EQ, is about managing your own emotions, and understanding other people's emotions. It's about empathy and compassion. Jaswinder’s advice is that in the workplace EQ is as important, if not more important, than cognitive intelligence or IQ. You'd be surprised how much we think we understand each other and how little we actually do.

Emotional intelligence starts with self-awareness. So, an important part of this lesson is taking the time to understand who you are, what drives you, what motivates you, what impacts you in what way, that's self-awareness.

Lesson 8: The Trick is to Learn From Other People’s Experience

In 1996, Jaswinder was offered the role of managing director for Cadence India and to lead the Cadence India site. It was a defining moment in his career.

But Jaswinder faced a hurdle. While his manager gave him a one-line, open-ended brief - “I don't want any part of my global organization to be a second-class citizen” - he had never done this job before, and he had no idea how to start or be successful.

Rather than trying to figure it out by himself, Jaswinder reached out to his network - people who were leading companies that he considered best-in-class, that had industry best practices in terms of people and culture. He talked to those leaders, and tried to understand and learn from their experiences, especially around attracting and retaining the best talent.

The lesson here is that we often believe that we are the first people to face a problem. That's not true. In most cases, somebody else has already faced that problem and found a solution. Make an effort to figure out who has, and see if that solution makes sense for your problem. Take good ideas no matter where they come from. Because what matters at the end of the day is outcomes.

Lesson 9: Feedback is the Breakfast of Champions

Fast forward to 1997. Jaswinder was working for a US-based manager to whom he spoke once in two weeks. The manager did not have the day-to-day visibility to be able to give Jaswinder meaningful, constructive feedback. But feedback is essential to improve. So, Jaswinder actively sought feedback from his staff, which helped him understand his blind spots, areas of improvement, strengths, and what he was doing right.

Giving and receiving feedback is not easy. Jaswinder’s advice is that when you get the feedback, never be defensive about it. Don’t fight it, even if you don't like or agree with it at first. Later, go back and process that feedback, try to understand why the person said what they said. Ask for clarifications, data points, and further observations, so you can fully understand the context. Then decide what you want to do about it – act on it, park it, or simply take it at face value and move on.

You don't have to accept or act upon every bit of feedback, but you have to receive it and give it due consideration.

To go one step further, if you can build a trusted group of people around you who can give you constructive feedback, it's a blessing.

Lesson 10: Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast

By 1998, Jaswinder had spent two years as managing director and built a stable, proven organization. He was faced with the question - what’s next?

The answer was to build a strong company culture in Cadence India. Culture is the unwritten norms of how people work with each other. Competition can mimic strategy and tactics, but not your company culture. So, Jaswinder and his management team invested in in building a strong organizational culture, which continues to pay dividends even today.

Lesson 11: Take Calculated Risks

In 1999, as Jaswinder’s manager was leaving Cadence, he gave him some last words of advice.

The essence of what he said was: “Take calculated risks. Not all your managers will understand or have the confidence to bless your ideas. Often, it's said it's easier to say ‘no’ than ‘yes’. You'll find enough people who will find faults in your idea and say no, but not enough who will encourage you to go do it.’”

This lesson is - if you believe it's right for the company, if you understand the strategy, context and priorities of the organization, and your idea aligns with all those, go ahead and do it. Don’t wait to get everyone on board. If you get the results, everybody will want to support you. Once in a while, you make a mistake and don’t get the results you wanted. If that happens, ask for forgiveness and learn from the mistake.

While this is an empowering concept, Jaswinder cautioned that there are times when you absolutely have to ask permission – for example, if your idea has legal or financial repercussions. So, use good judgment.

Lesson 12: Vertical Growth vs Lateral Growth

The last lesson is about growth. Jaswinder recounted that he was promoted to corporate vice president in 2000. He was just 37 years old, the youngest person to get promoted to corporate vice president in the company.

Great news, bad news. The bad news is, where did he go from here, especially since relocation to the US was not an option for him?

Every one of us will go through this dilemma once you hit a wall in terms of promotions. Not everyone will become CEO. How you deal with that reality is up to you.

In Jaswinder’s case, he decided on three things. First, he was going to try to maximize his contributions by working on things that mattered, things that created value and impact for the company.

Second, he determined that he wanted to keep learning and growing. That can and should happen at every stage of one’s career and life.

And lastly, he wanted to have fun doing it!

Jaswinder said that those three things have kept him going for the last 23 years, especially the contribution part. Indeed, anyone who has followed Jaswinder’s career can attest to the fact that he has had a variety of roles over his career at Cadence. Each of those roles has enriched, taught, opened up new opportunities, and allowed him to learn, grow and have fun. It's as simple as that.

Bonus Lessons: The Knowing-Doing Gap

Jaswinder shared an observation – that there is a lot more opportunity for us to apply what we've learned. You can be smart and know all the right things to do, but in practice, if you don’t apply what you have learned, you can’t be as effective or realize your full potential.

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high, and we miss it, but that it is too low, and we reach it.”

This inspirational quote from Michelangelo ties back to the earlier lesson of not putting limits on oneself. Aim high. Maximize your own potential. Do the very best you can, and apply what you learn. That is how you will reach your full potential, and that is what drives the company forward.

Jaswinder left the audience with these final inspirational words: Either find a way or make one. There will be obstacles on the way. Don't make that an excuse. Remember that every time an innovation shook the world, it had never been done before. That's the winner's mindset that we must inculcate.

Don't put limits on yourself, aim high, go out there, take the initiative, make things happen. The key is to realize your full potential. Anything less should be unacceptable.

You can watch the video of the session here: