Coach-Ram

  The real art of leadership is not in the title you hold, but in the presence, you bring When Excellence Isn't Enough A few months ago, a senior leader whom I was coaching shared a concern which had been weighing him down. His performance reviews were exceptional. His team delivered results quarter after quarter. His peers respected him. Yet when the C-suite role opened up, he wasn't even in the conversation. "What am I missing?" he asked, his voice carrying equal parts frustration and genuine bewilderment. The answer wasn't in his spreadsheets or strategic plans. It wasn't about working harder or delivering more. The missing piece was something more subtle, more human, and yet more powerful than any metric could capture. It was his Executive Presence. The Executive Presence Paradox Here's what fascinates me about executive presence: everyone can sense it, yet few can define it. We know it when we see it. We feel it when someone walks into a...

  1. Why Sprint Review ≠ Demo Sprint Review is a collaborative working session where the entire Scrum Team and stakeholders inspect the increment and adapt the Product Backlog. It's about outcomes, value, and strategic direction. The emotional tone here is collaborative curiosity and shared ownership . Demo is typically a one-way presentation showing that features work technically. It's more about proving functionality than exploring value. The emotional dynamic can sometimes feel like "us presenting to them" rather than "us working together." The key difference lies in the mindset: Reviews foster partnership and co-creation, while demos can inadvertently create a performer-audience dynamic that distances stakeholders from feeling true ownership. 2. How to Run Each Well Running a Great Sprint Review: Start with the "why" : Begin with business context and Sprint Goal, not features Make it interactive : Encourage stakeholders to actually use th...

Leaders v/s Managers The whole "leaders vs. managers" debate is fundamentally flawed.  While people love to glorify leadership and diminish management, you actually need both skill sets to be effective . They're not separate roles - they're complementary capabilities that every good boss needs. The Problem with the Debate: We've created this false hierarchy where leadership is seen as aspirational and visionary, while management is viewed as mundane or even a joke This is dangerous because leaders without management skills can drive organizations to disaster (he cites Adam Neumann from WeWork and Elizabeth Holmes from Theranos as examples) The Real Definitions: Managers handle the administrative side: setting objectives, removing obstacles, allocating resources, delegating tasks, and holding people accountable Leaders provide the inspirational side: casting vision, rallying people around a shared mission, and explaining why the work matters The Journe...