Let's talk Transformation : The business leaders podcast #102 Being who we are with Paru Radia
"There can be kindness in telling the truth, and therefore providing a place from which to move forward.."
A great conversation with Paru about being authentic, and defining our own meaning of success. Learning to trust one’s intuition is a skill that many overlook, and we discuss the very essence of authentic leadership, the art of self reflection and how to empower others as you stand boldly in who you are.
Paru shares the trials and triumphs of tuning into that inner voice. It’s about looking back to move forward, reflecting on past experiences to navigate & create the future. This isn’t just about what works in business—it’s about what makes us human in our careers.
Are you ready to lead with authenticity? Are you prepared to break the mould and champion honesty in your professional life?
Paru generously shares her stories, her life experiences, her insights and her wisdom from working with C suite leaders across the globe.
The main insights you'll get from this episode are :
- Mission: seeing across multiple functions and profiles and speaking authentic truth in the corporate world - leaders must remain authentic and truth is important for stability.
- There can be kindness in telling the truth, thereby providing a place from which to move forward; many of us have a tendency to bury our heads in the sand instead.
- The ability to spot patterns and predict next moves led to an advisory role, offering help to avoid falling back into old patterns in order to overcome fear and learn how to manage hypervigilance.
- (Self-)reflection helps to prevent repetition of mistakes and sharing vulnerabilities builds trust - in short, being authentic saves time!
- Just as we must encourage introspection and think about who we are, the same also applies for clients - exercises can be for both professional and personal purposes, but the universal truth is that there are no shortcuts.
- Putting in the work brings epiphanies and results, which we can use as a mirror to reflect back, embracing tough lessons to grow and learn.
- Moving from hypervigilance to trusting (one’s own) intuition is where genius happens; we must relinquish that which we hold on to and hold up the mirror to ourselves instead of other people.
- Collating the data we derive from this will show us what happens when we follow our intuition and are ourselves – in the formula of ‘if you do x, I feel y, so I do z’, we can make choices.
- Legacy means the impact we have on the world by sharing personal lessons learned, learning to trust our judgement in others, and offering stories for people to take ingredients from to maybe apply to their own lives.
- How do we know when we have reached 100% (of ourselves)? It is a gradual process, and each challenge helps us dig deeper and find that bit more – we can’t really ever know if we are at 100%, as it is a constant journey.
- It is helpful to be direct with others, to give instructions and information and be who we are - we cannot rely on others to do things for us and need our own backup plan.
- We must find our authentic version of ourself by spending time alone, regularly checking in with who we are today; as we evolve, we are impacted by extraneous factors but once we find it, we must hang on to it!
Find out more about Paru and her upcoming book here :