A Portrait of Consciousness
Kavya Gowda is an everyday leader, public speaker, women empowerment advocate, LGBTQIA+ ally, and mentor. At present, she works with Kyndryl as a field marketing leader. She has worked with IBM for 10 years, holding various leadership positions and leading projects of impact. Being a staunch believer that her voice is a gift and needs to be used responsibly, she volunteers at NGOs during her spare time and works towards making a difference in an individual’s life. Changing the world and making a difference might seem like a huge burden to bear, but there is a lot for us to learn from Kavya who creates small ripples in the water changing the world one person at a time.
Finding the north star
From a young age, Kavya wanted to be financially independent. Despite the family tradition of not sending women to work, she knew for a fact that she would work. The ‘how, when, where’ was never in the question. As a nine-year-old child, translating financial independence to action involved using her communication and public speaking skills to earn pocket money. As part of the normal norm, engineering is something that happens to a majority of us immediately after our 12th. And the same happened with her. She took up computer science engineering and later went on to do her masters. The main motivation was to break the family tradition of getting married before the age of 20 and pursue higher studies. Breaking rules and venturing into uncharted territories requires courage to stand up for yourself and walk the road solo, and so she did. Doing her MBA from a residential school helped her gain exposure and unlock her true potential as an individual. In her second year of MBA, she knew advertising was her domain.
In her words:
The advertising industry is brutal, especially when it comes to freshers. Every single day was an exhilarating experience, working with brand custodians of big brands such as Nokia and Philips. It meant being thrown into an ocean and learning to swim and survive on your own. Wanting to be truly independent and free meant pushing yourself beyond the walls of comfort and being on your feet 24/7. Social life is non-existent and seems irrelevant when you have a desire so deeply engraved into you. Little do you know that the conceptions that we have in our minds change with time. The wedding bells rang and life pulled me in a million different directions all at once. Work-life balance was completely off the charts due to my advertising career line and that’s when I moved to IBM 10 years ago. Life at IBM was very different from the one that was my routine. There was a method to all the chaos and madness of corporate life. Everything was organized into teams and structures. Despite regaining control of work, I still felt I wasn’t utilizing my full potential and there is more for me to do in life. Being a member of toastmasters international since the age of 18, I decided to take on the leadership of IBM blue expression, the toastmasters club. This experience changed my perception and thinking. It made me open up and value other people’s perspectives and truly empathize. The world is not simply black and white, it is driven by human emotions. This discovery helped me realign all my actions towards a purpose. My communication, leadership, and even my career had a bigger purpose to it. It was my responsibility to contribute positively to the world and not be an outstanding employee that contributed to the organization’s bottom line. I wanted to change the world and that was my purpose.
Impact over applause
Changing the world one person at a time. The maximum impact that can be created by any individual is by making a difference in someone’s life. That’s all you have to do. Just make a difference in one person’s life. And so I applied for the CSC program at IBM, which is one of the most prestigious programs in IBM where only a handful of people are selected out of the thousands of applications from across the world. One person is selected from each country and everyone is banded together and assigned to a country where you either work with the NGO or government to provide solutions to real-life problems. Through this, I went to Morocco and worked with the ministry of communication to solve unemployment issues. There was no job market for the thousands of youth passing out each year. We consulted and built a project plan to set up digital platforms and equipped them with knowledge regarding increasing their employability quotient. On my return to Bangalore, I knew I couldn’t go back to my old job. I wanted to do something more and make sure that I worked on meaningful projects. Therefore, I started taking on more meaningful projects at work and also associated myself with two more NGOs.
Whenever I take on new events and projects, I always ask myself if I’m doing it for the applause or the impact. This was not the case in the beginning. It’s nice to have that kind of validation from people, but when all the glory fades away, do you still feel happy about what you’ve done? Would you walk this same road even if there was no applause? The journey to that state of mind and feeling of fulfillment requires deep reflection and true insight into the purpose behind your living.
Through every phase of my life, I learnt to be aware of my strengths and shortcomings and truly hold a mirror to myself where I can see the ugly dark patches. My voice is a gift and therefore I ensure that I use my voice responsibly. My actions and voice are tools for creating an impact rather than applause.
Everyday leadership
When you truly understand what leadership is about, the title becomes irrelevant. When you walk into work and look at your tasks for the day, own it completely. Do not just ensure that you achieve perfection only for tasks assigned to you and tick off all the KPIs. Think of it as an idea that was conceived to create an impact and the various levers that need to be addressed to ensure that the purpose behind the creation of this idea is met. Work towards the end goal-the final product, rather than individual parts of the same. This makes sure you always work towards the bigger picture and all your actions and goals are to achieve this end goal. Most often, we only focus on the tasks that we have and forget the end goal. Always remember the goal and work towards achieving the goal rather than the tasks.
For you to be a good leader, you need to know both your strengths as well as your weaknesses. You have to be aware of the person that you are. True leadership is all about creating more leaders rather than followers. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not about being indispensable, because if you are indispensable then you are not delegating enough and ensuring someone is upskilling themselves and growing. Leadership is about building forward thinkers. People who can think ten steps ahead, anticipate challenges, and truly change the defined ‘normal’ of today.
