Saturday 19 September 2015

When a peer gets promoted & becomes your boss…

Here is a real life corporate world situation I heard about from one of our workshop participants.


A leadership team had 15 zonal heads. They were peers reporting to the management committee. The company decided to restructure and selected 4 of them as Regional Heads. This means other 11 zonal heads will need to report to one of their counter-part peers.

Shyam was one of these 11 zonal heads. As the restructuring was announced, he had two choices.
  • Fret, fume and resign  OR
  • Accept and stay positive.
Shyam trusted the management’s judgement in choosing the 4 people to be promoted. With all his heart he chose option 2. He spontaneously went up and embraced Kartik, one of the four people promoted. He congratulated Kartik and said “I am really happy to have you as a supervisor.”

Shyam and Kartik shared a very good rapport thereon. Shyam continued giving his best at work. He worked at enabling success for his boss as well as his team. Shyam’s rapport with Kartik was also noticed by the company leadership. Kartik gave lot of positive feedback on Shyam and his team.

Six months later Kartik was moved to another role, and shortly thereafter Shyam got promoted to Regional Head role in a different region. Shyam’s team was elated on his promotion, but was also in tears as they would no more be working directly with such a contributing boss.

This story reconfirmed our belief that rejoicing in other’s success leads to enriched connection and progress.

Warm regards,
Rohan