Melody Wilding (01:35.948)
Welcome to psychology at work. Today’s episode is for you, whether you feel like a fish out of water in a new executive role, you are trying to navigate the rocky waters of corporate politics while everyone is watching your every move or you’re aspiring to one day reach that C-suite level. But the thought of stepping into those high stakes shoes makes you a little nervous. I am thrilled to have Nihar Chhaya on the show today to talk with us about navigating these types of executive leadership transitions. And Nihar is someone who I have mired for a very long time and for a very good reason. He has personally guided over 200 Fortune 500 executives at global gigantic companies like American Airlines, Fox, Lockheed Martin, the list goes on and on and on. And I am so honored to have him here today to share some of the insider secrets.

that he has learned from his own experience, his clients that can make or break your success at the top. So Nihar, welcome. Thank you for being here.

Nihar Chhaya (02:43.403)
Thank you so much Melody, it’s so great to be with you and I really appreciate getting to have a chat with you today.

Melody Wilding (02:48.996)
Yeah, I’m really excited to dig in because this is a topic that, like I said, I think can apply to anyone no matter where they are at in their leadership journey. And what I find really interesting about your work is you really specialize on advising leaders specifically as they’re stepping into a new executive role. And I would love to know what

What got you interested in working with people at this phase of their career? I have to imagine there might be some sort of personal story that’s behind it.

Nihar Chhaya (03:21.804)
Yeah, no, first of all, it’s great to be with you, Melody. you know, I can definitely say that I have been a student of transitions, I think, through my life. It’s funny, I’ve been in my 10th year of my executive coaching practice now, but that’s after 20 years of corporate life and working for companies and bosses, et cetera. And it was interesting when I was looking back at my career, I think I might’ve…

moved around probably every three years or so. So you can imagine I had like a lot of different jobs over that span and that involved a lot of transition. Part of it, part of which was some of it was voluntary. I wanted to actually try something new and some of it was involuntary. I was laid off right around the 2000s timeframe. And so really understanding kind of how that can be jarring for many people, for myself, but also can be an opportunity to really get closer to what’s really important to you, what your values are.

And just kind of the introspection that it took to find out like, is this really the place I want to be? And then when you actually transitions that new role, realizing how that transition is very much something that is internal, but there’s also people around you experiencing a transition by your arrival. And so it’s really something that, and what’s interesting, think, when you join a new company or a new team within your company as a leader,

the people experiencing you, it can be disruptive for them too, but they’re not necessarily gonna share that with you. In many cases, they might keep it to themselves or they might just kind of share with you once they get to know you, but that all plays a big part in your assimilation or your integration into the culture and into the company and really building that trust with people. So yeah, on a personal level, looking back even at my last corporate role, I had joined a company after being quite experienced.

But this company was full of people that had actually grown up in the company. And so I recognized the differences between how you’re kind of positioned when you’re brought into a company versus how people are perceiving you as, you know, why are you here? And really, what does that mean for their work in terms of collaborating with you?

Melody Wilding (05:32.78)
Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s not just the transition into, especially an executive role is not just about taking on the tasks. It’s about managing the people and relational dynamics that, that go along with it. Yeah. And actually one of you write so much for HBR for fast company, pretty much every place on the internet. read almost all of your articles because I love them.

Nihar Chhaya (05:46.411)
Exactly.

Nihar Chhaya (05:58.127)
And yours too, I love your stuff too, yeah.

Melody Wilding (06:00.828)
They’re, yours are always so thoughtful and tactical and you wrote one for HBR. think it was a couple of months ago now, but it was about figuring out power dynamics in a new job. So how do you do that as a new executive? Because the stakes are so high. Like you were saying, there’s a lot of eyes on you. There may be people judging how, how your first, you know, 30, 60, 90 days is going to go. So how do you.

Where do you start? How do you figure out the landscape?

Nihar Chhaya (06:33.486)
Yeah, like many things when I’m coaching leaders, I like to start from within and really have them think about one, first of all, what is your relationship to power? What’s your experience with it? And is it something you resist? Is it something that you feel comfortable around? A lot of times when we’re doing assessments of people’s values, we’ll find out that some people are really driven by having influence and power. And some people would like to kind of just focus on the work.

Other people might focus on recognition and affirmation, but they’re okay with maybe working alone and just kind of making sure that they’re getting their own individual accolades. But when you think about how power works in an organizational setting, you really do recognize, I think, as an executive that it’s very much a contact sport. And there are people who are going to influence how well you’re going to get your job done, regardless of how smart you are, regardless of how experienced you are. You do have to work through the system of the people around you.

And so understanding your relationship with power and really recognizing where you might be kind of avoidant of it or more uncomfortable with it can be the first part around saying, I’m going to lean into the idea that power exists. Power is, it might be a dirty word in some respects, but it’s actually a necessary thing. And I like to think about Jeffrey Pfeffer’s book on this called Power, where it really opened my eyes a lot on the fact that, you know, the smartest thing to do is to just accept that that’s really how things are and be strategic about it as far as how it can help you.

And then the second thing I think is to really be a patient observer of the dynamics around you. Because I think with power, particularly where it sits in organizations, it’s not always going to be as obvious as we think. And sometimes we actually might fall into the trap of thinking that just because you have the title or because you run the biggest business division, you’re going to have the most power. When in reality, we’re starting to see a lot of, well, there’s a lot of research on this, but there’s a lot of experiences I’ve had too where

the power exists in the spokes between the hubs. It’s the functions, for instance, that run supply chain or HR or finance between all these different divisions. And getting to know those folks who might not be the president of something, they might be a manager of something, and the title itself doesn’t tell you how much power they really have. Really observing where the power lies with certain colleagues that you have could be really useful. And then I think the third thing I would just say is asking questions around

Nihar Chhaya (08:58.594)
Who are the people that tend to get things done in this culture? And how do I think about being useful to them and adding value in those relationships? That’s a nice way to, I think, also get started in those connections.

Melody Wilding (09:11.292)
I love those questions because I think there’s a tendency, like you were saying, to try to pretend like power dynamics don’t exist. So I love that that is such a tactful diplomatic way to get at that, to how, who gets things done. And also to your point that title positional power is not the only form of power that there may be informational power or resource power, people that have decision-making over, you know, who gets

Nihar Chhaya (09:37.038)
Exactly.

Melody Wilding (09:41.124)
certain software or even rooms in the building. And that those are, those are people you need to know and have, have your own relationships and ends with. Yeah.

Nihar Chhaya (09:52.162)
Yeah, and you know, one thing that I’m sure you experienced too is that friendships go a long way. know, people will do favors for people that they like. So likeability, reciprocity, all the different things that go into influencing folks, social proof. You know, does this person actually advocate for this person who I have respect for them so I can kind of vouch for, I can believe that if they’re vouching for that person, I can trust them.

All those things can seem a little bit transactional, but in reality, that’s kind of how human nature works. And so it really wouldn’t be prudent, I think, just to say, let me go to the website and see who the big, the 10 people on the website are and say, those are the most powerful people. Cause usually they’re not. It’s really the machine that kind of keeps the business going, you know, that we can’t see behind those, those photos.

Melody Wilding (10:39.534)
Yeah. And it’s, it’s a combination. It sounds like of observation, right? Because even, even if you ask questions, you may not always get the real answer. So you have to keep your eyes open, but also having those explicit conversations to try to dig and get introductions to those people. so you, like you were saying, you have that social proof of someone has said, you know, so and so is now taking this function over. They have this great background. That person is automatically more likely to want.

to talk to you. Yeah. Yeah.

Nihar Chhaya (11:10.094)
Right, right. And I think also even asking for advice can be useful approach too. People, I think on the whole, like to be helpful unless they feel that there’s a self-orientation that you are presenting that they might not be trusting. But I think for the most part, if you’re asking advice on, know, how can I be effective with these particular organization or these people? And I saw that with some of the companies I worked with in the past where

you know, I might come in there with a certain skill set, but I don’t have the institutional knowledge. And so go to the, go to folks that have that and be open to asking them from a place of humility and say, I don’t know. We know as much as you do. and, how can we actually work effectively together with what you have to bring to the table as well.

Melody Wilding (12:00.496)
Absolutely, make them feel like an expert, not as a manipulative technique, but as a way to build that rapport with them. Yeah. And so on that topic, what are some of your favorite ways to advise people to earn respect, especially of other powerful people? there any other key, like asking for advice is such a great way to frame it and to ask questions, but are there any other?

Nihar Chhaya (12:03.522)
years.

Nihar Chhaya (12:09.166)
Mm-hmm.

Melody Wilding (12:29.806)
key behaviors or steps that you see people take very successfully.

Nihar Chhaya (12:36.14)
Yeah, so one thing that I find fascinating is how we can often think about getting the respect from people is about pleasing them or giving them what they want or kind of being always available to people. think I can speak for myself, know, growing up in a culture, in a school setting where, you know, you are

and a culture and a family culture too, where you respect your elders, you respect the people that have come before you. We oftentimes go into the work world thinking that we must be everything we can to our boss and make them look good and always be available. What I find with respect is at some point there’s a diminishing return to that because you’re almost enabling them to maybe take advantage of you or there’s an imbalance in terms of how much they’re actually bringing to the reciprocally.

Melody Wilding (13:20.698)
Mm.

Nihar Chhaya (13:31.158)
meeting your needs as well as a relationship. And so then it continues to be one of those kind of inferiority, superiority relationships, as opposed to one of trust and one of goodwill and good faith. And so one of the things I advise a lot of leaders to think about is, think about strategically being able to say no to things too. Really kind of disrupting the dynamic a little bit so that people understand that you’re not a pushover, you’re not someone who’s gonna be dutiful to no end.

And you might find a surprising reaction from those folks in terms of, maybe some people might be a little bit offended, but ultimately they will come around to recognize and they have to kind of earn your respect too. I think that’s kind of the long-term benefit of a relationship is to actually have both people respecting each other. So when it comes to how to get the respect of people that are more powerful than you, I would say be of service, but also show them that there’s some scarcity involved here as well in terms of what I can offer to you.

such that I actually am looking for you to also show me what’s in it for me as I’m working with you.

Melody Wilding (14:34.64)
That’s fantastic. love how many different psychological levers there are in there. you know, that’s such a good point too. The early decisions and steps you take set a precedent for everything that comes after. And so I love that fact that set the precedent early, that you are going to push back. You are going to…

Nihar Chhaya (14:37.55)
Yeah.

Melody Wilding (14:59.712)
Maybe force isn’t the right word, but you are going to encourage prioritization. You’re not just going to be a yes person. That’s great. is there anything else around like building respect, especially with colleagues who maybe a little, threatened by, by you coming on or skeptical, or not happy about changes that have, maybe there was a reorg and your role was created that are not really on board with you being there.

Nihar Chhaya (15:28.942)
Yeah, it’s such a classic example that shows up because status is such an important thing in the work world and life too, I suppose. But in the organizational life, there really is a sense of scarcity around roles. There’s only a few roles as you move up and people can automatically feel threatened around, what does your success mean for my success individually? And what’s interesting is obviously in companies we’re always taught that collaboration is the name of the game. And so you’re always kind of…

dinged if you’re not collaborating, but at the same time, we’re being evaluated individually in terms of performance evaluations. So there’s a little bit of a conundrum or dilemma that happens there. And I would say at the very core of it, I like to think about is just how do you develop trust with people? how do you, this might be another psychological aspect too, which I think about the cognitive bias that we all have around, we’re gonna look for evidence to support our beliefs.

And so if I think that you wronged me or if I don’t have trust in you, I’m going to probably find ways to keep supporting that belief, whether it’s right or wrong. and so if somebody feels that about you and is threatened by you, you do have to do something to really disrupt that on a, very fundamental level. And one thing I tell a lot of my clients to do is to really, reach, reach out to them from a place of, acceptance that, Hey, I’m, I’m, I’m not perfect. my intentions aren’t always going to match the perception of me.

Melody Wilding (16:52.528)
Mm.

Nihar Chhaya (16:56.64)
And so help me understand how I can actually make more of my intentions explicit. Now, if you have bad intentions, if you’re looking to compete and, kind of, you know, zero sum game, that’s a whole different story. But most people I don’t think are doing that. I think it’s really a function of just asymmetric information. And people are kind of coming into these relationships with their own, you know, preconceived notions about, or even insecurity about their role, pre-conceived notions about the relationship. So.

What I like to say is, know, reach out to them and say, I actually would love to enlist your help in coaching me. You know, think of them as your coach and to say like, we should give each other feedback because ultimately we’re kind of in this together. And I can’t possibly know every little intention that you have behind things and vice versa, but I’d like to change my behavior as necessary such that I can have more of the perception that you have of me more aligned with what I really wanted you to feel about me. And sometimes that can actually have a good impact on the relationship and resetting.

Melody Wilding (17:54.424)
Yeah, it really diffuses, diffuses the maybe heightened emotionality. The other person is coming in with like it, shows you’re not a threat. It challenges their, their viewpoint of you. And it also sounds like those conversations are great opportunity for you to get under the hood and maybe understand, is there some historical context or is there. Background here that wasn’t shared with me in the interview that

that I need to know so I don’t step on certain landmines or sensitive points for other people that it does benefit you in the end. Yeah.

Nihar Chhaya (18:31.202)
Yeah, you know, I’ll give you a perfect example of how they showed up for me, but also for a lot of people that I work with. If you think about the fundamental dynamics or process of hiring somebody new, there’s a hiring manager that brings you in and they’re going to generally be really happy about bringing you in because you build a gap in the organization or you’re somebody that they can kind of brag about. Wow, this look how I got this person to join our company. Well, that person has one view.

but they’re not really sharing that perspective with everybody that you work with. It isn’t like everybody you end up working with was on the committee that hired you. You know what mean? And so it’s almost like, it’s almost impossible to not have misalignments when you come in there and to create and to have potential threats because you’re being presented as this, wow, this amazing person. And they’re thinking, well, hold on a second. Like I’m pretty amazing too. But I’ve been, and I’ve been working, you know, it’s almost like the thing that’s really funny and a little bit unfortunate is how.

You can generally command a really high salary if you join as a new employee, but you don’t really get that same amount of money as a raise. It’s the same type of thing. People don’t really treat the incumbents as well as the external hire. And I think when you’re that external hire coming in or that new leader that’s moved into a new team, you have to be very sensitive to the fact that you’re coming in with a little bit of a bullseye on your back because people are looking for, again, evidence to support the belief that, wow, he’s not going to be a great leader for us. And you have to almost start from the…

Melody Wilding (19:32.304)
Mm-hmm.

Nihar Chhaya (19:55.052)
really bottom of saying, I’m going to develop these relationships and trust and become a leader worth following with real intention, not just expectations they’re going to support.

Melody Wilding (20:04.494)
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s two things there. Number one is when, when you are the new hire adjusting your expectations, because it’s, it’s really easy to be riding the high of like new job. yeah, I’m going to make so much progress. And then you come in and it’s like, Whoa, okay. Maybe, everyone’s not as welcoming as I thought, but you don’t have to make that a problem. You can just see it as this is part of the normal adjustment period instead of making it mean something.

Nihar Chhaya (20:15.075)
Yes.

Nihar Chhaya (20:18.702)
music.

Melody Wilding (20:32.588)
negative or that you made the wrong choice. And yeah. And the second part of that is, is at least what I see sometimes is that when you’re coming into a new, especially an executive role where you feel like you do have a big level of responsibility or big shoes to fill, there may be a tendency as the new hire to feel like I need to prove to people that I know my stuff. And so you often I will hear.

Nihar Chhaya (20:35.054)
That’s right.

Nihar Chhaya (20:55.907)
Yes.

Melody Wilding (21:01.882)
People will say things like, at my last company, here’s how we did it. And that, you may not even be conscious that you’re, you’re trying to kind of soothe your own insecurity with proving yourself. But as you were saying that can backfire because it only feeds into this perception about you. Yeah.

Nihar Chhaya (21:05.293)
Yeah, yep.

Nihar Chhaya (21:20.842)
Absolutely, yeah, that is such a good point and that happens a lot. And like you said, it’s not really intentional. Sometimes actually they’re bringing it up from a place of, let me broaden your perspective about an idea. But yes, it’s like somebody coming into your house and judging it from a place of, when I lived in this house, but it’s like, okay, but hold on, it’s like, I have some respect for what I did with this place first. And I think you bring up another good point, which is that…

Melody Wilding (21:40.026)
Yeah.

Nihar Chhaya (21:50.55)
You know, I think it’s easy to join a new company or a new job and immediately start being doubtful about whether you should be there because of that, that resistance or that inability to feel like you fit in. but I think that it is important to, unless of course you’ve seen real red flags, I think it is a good idea to kind of stick it out and recognize that a lot of these are growing pains. people evolve through, through time. And what I think is, is whether it’s good or bad,

Melody Wilding (21:59.056)
Mm-hmm.

Nihar Chhaya (22:19.916)
people move around all the time. So what you might be dealing with in the first three or six months could be completely different, you know, because the organization changed or people moved out of that team to somewhere else.

Melody Wilding (22:31.064)
Absolutely. Yep, absolutely. And speaking of which stepping into any new role, but again, especially an executive role, it’s, it’s an emotional journey. So we were touching a little bit on the self doubt or the insecurity, maybe even imposter syndrome that can come up. I know this is something you must coach a lot of clients on as well. So what are some ways that, that work for navigating that self doubt when it does?

you’re assuming a bigger role with more pressure.

Nihar Chhaya (23:04.14)
Yeah, great question. the first thing I would say is it’s important to recognize how people who generally have self doubt, it’s actually a function of higher level of competence. You know, I think about the Dunning-Kruger effect where people overestimate their competence. It’s kind of the opposite of that. People who are very competent will underestimate how much they can do because they’re almost too aware of what can go wrong. And so it’s like,

reminding yourself that this is a little bit of a superpower that has its challenges and burden. But at the same time, to say to yourself that as long as I can kind of use my awareness and my observation abilities for good and not to the point where it’s diminishing my value of myself and my efficacy, I would just say that understand that it’s a good thing to be a little bit

Doubting than to have hubris and to have overconfidence because a lot of the what we do I think see in with executives is There is because they actually have a lot of power, but they’re also enabled a lot at their at their role They’re gonna have very few people telling them no They’re gonna have very few people who are going to give them the honest truth And so it’s it’s it is a recipe for overconfidence for for hubris hubristic behavior And so when you have leaders that are a little bit more vulnerable a little bit more doubting

of their own perspective and actually asking more people about their opinion, that generally is a recipe for success. The only thing that I tell leaders is you just want to make sure that you’re acting, you have a bias for action. Because when a leader comes into a new role and they spend a little bit too much time thinking and analyzing and all that kind of thing, it’s okay to analyze, but let people know what you’re doing.

Be intentional about communicating that because people are expecting something from you. They’re wondering, why are you in this role? What does this mean for us? What is the vision you’re going to bring to us that we didn’t have before? And if you’re kind of in your own little cubby hole, you know, thinking and kind of questioning every little move you make, not only is potentially analysis paralysis, it also is going to diminish your ability to get people, you know, riled up around, around your vision. But I do think as far as self doubt goes,

Melody Wilding (25:24.442)
Yeah.

Nihar Chhaya (25:27.168)
It’s in a weird way, it’s a hidden superpower. As long as you use it from a place of I’m very observant and I’m very intuitive and I’m patient as opposed to someone who’s just gonna come in there guns blazing and create a lot of havoc.

Melody Wilding (25:36.816)
Hmm.

Melody Wilding (25:40.782)
Yeah. Yeah. And, know, I tend to coach a lot of people. see this more with women, unfortunately, where they will, you know, there’s all these stats out there about how women will only apply for a role if they’re, you know, 60 % qualified. But, I see this too with stepping into a new role. And I always tell my clients, you want to feel like, you know, when you were a kid and your parents would bring you to the shoe store,

And they would say, well, we got, we have to buy you shoes that are two sizes too big because you’re going to grow into them. And I don’t want to come back and have to buy you new shoes. Your role should feel a little bit like that. It should feel a little bit like a pair of shoes. That’s a bit too big that you need to grow into because you’re going to, if it’s, if it’s not a challenge for you, then you know, you’re, you’re not going to grow. may get bored very quickly. So,

Nihar Chhaya (26:25.464)
Yes.

Nihar Chhaya (26:35.308)
I love that metaphor. you know, the, agree completely. I coach a lot of women leaders as well. And I would say it’s interesting. I don’t believe that women have more self doubt than men. think a lot of men have the self doubt, but they show it in a very different way. and unfortunately, you know, the, the men that I work with that had this self doubt, they’re, they’re a little bit less willing to, I think, own it and to, and accept that that’s happening.

Melody Wilding (26:51.908)
Definitely.

Nihar Chhaya (27:04.182)
And that leads to certain behaviors as well that can be very problematic. That’s why I tell a lot of women clients that I have that in fact, that again is another superpower is being able to recognize your blind spots. We all have them. But if, if, if there’s a, if I want, if I had two people, one of which was able to recognize that they have blind spots and own it versus somebody who’s like, I don’t know, maybe I’ll figure them out, but maybe I don’t, I’m going to pick this one, you know, because they’re going to be a little bit more aware of seeing around corners.

But you’re absolutely right that if you are a leader who is going to wait until you’ve checked off all the boxes on the job requirement, you potentially could be inhibiting your own success at the expense of a much worse leader saying, hey, I’ll figure it out when I get there. And it’s like, don’t put yourself in that position, go for it. And like you said, go for that job that might be two sizes higher.

Melody Wilding (27:56.024)
Yeah. Yeah. And thank you for pointing out, cause I think that is a misconception that people will say, women doubt themselves more. But in my experience and you know, the more over the last 10 years or so, I’ve specifically been working with people that are more sensitive or emotionally intelligent. And actually the more I’ve talked about that, the more men have come forward and it’s been so clear just to your point exactly. And what so much of the research shows is that imposter syndrome is

Nihar Chhaya (28:12.312)
Yes.

Melody Wilding (28:24.76)
is pretty is evenly split almost between genders, but how we process it, how we perceive it and react to it is very different. So I really appreciate you pointing that out.

Nihar Chhaya (28:34.54)
Yeah, and I was going to say you’re doing great work on that front because, you know, as somebody who I would say that I’m a highly sensitive person, you know, through my whole life journey. And I could talk about that offline, but, I think that until someone is able to help me kind of articulate that and like you’re doing with your clients in a, in a safe place, I think a lot of men probably aren’t even thinking on that level of, Hey, I need help here. and so I’d like to see, I’d like to see more.

Melody Wilding (28:44.911)
Yeah.

Nihar Chhaya (29:03.978)
leaders in general actually own the fact that they have blind spots and that they have imposter syndrome. Too often, unfortunately, we do see leaders that focus more on, me show how competent I am as opposed to how vulnerable I can be.

Melody Wilding (29:16.43)
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And there is one thing I wanted to just loop back to quickly, which was the bias for action. Cause I think this can be, a fine line to walk going back to the idea of you don’t want to have hubris, but you want to have a bias for action. So are there any criteria you’ve seen to help people judge when is the right time to have the bias for action versus hold back and you know,

Nihar Chhaya (29:24.088)
Mm-hmm.

Melody Wilding (29:45.358)
wait and see just a little bit.

Nihar Chhaya (29:47.158)
Yeah, so I think it depends on the actual decision that you’re going be making. So for instance, one of the classic things we see just research will show that many CEOs will run into this risk of taking too long to make difficult personnel decisions or talent leadership team decisions early on in their incumbency. And that is true to a certain extent in terms of you want to have your team of advisors around you and whether you want to have the right

people in the boat basically when you take that role. But what I would say is that you don’t want to make rash decisions on that. When I say bias for action, I would just say the action could even be around telling people I’m going to do this in three months. So, but really having the bias for action to say I’m going to be intentional about everything I’m doing and being, and really I think the higher you get the it’s important to communicate. Obviously there’s some things you can’t communicate with everybody about, but

Melody Wilding (30:17.904)
Mm-hmm.

Nihar Chhaya (30:46.91)
people are obviously looking for information to kind of quell their own narrative of fear and uncertainty. So when you’re a leader that’s trying to build a sense of vision and some followership, I think it’s important to kind of help them understand how can I create some certainty? I remember during the pandemic, lot of this was the challenge was how do you be empathetic to people’s lives and disruptions of their lives and not try to

force people to change and just get past it, but also have a sense of hope to say, but I know that we’re gonna get past this, we’re gonna get somewhere with this and what’s our vision. And so I would just say, as a leader, the bias fraction should be that you’re always communicating something of worth to the people that you’re leading, but it doesn’t have to necessarily be that I’m going to slash jobs or I’m going to acquire this new company and spend a lot of our capital on this, unless that makes

Melody Wilding (31:17.796)
Mm-hmm.

Nihar Chhaya (31:43.51)
make sense for the business.

Melody Wilding (31:45.198)
Yeah. Yeah. That’s a great way of thinking about it, that it doesn’t have to be the action itself. It can be the expectation of, of action. And like you were saying, people, people want to know what’s coming. And so if they can just wrap their heads around that, sometimes they appreciate that, that more than the thing happening right then. Yeah. It’s fantastic. and we’ve been talking a lot about stepping into executive leadership. We have a lot of people listening who may not.

Nihar Chhaya (31:52.3)
Yeah.

Nihar Chhaya (31:56.75)
Mm-hmm.

Nihar Chhaya (32:02.433)
Absolutely.

you

Melody Wilding (32:14.948)
be there today, but want to be. what if you, I assume you talk to a lot of people who aspire one day to be at an executive level or maybe even in the C-suite, what do you tell them about preparing for that? What can they do today to set themselves up for that type of future role?

Nihar Chhaya (32:34.188)
Yeah, great question. So interesting enough, one article I just happened to write last week in Harvard Business Review kind of relates to this, which is the topic was how to keep learning when you’re exhausted. But really the idea, would say, the main piece of advice that I tell a lot of my clients is the learning agility and the continuous learning is the currency, I think, for advancement. That doesn’t mean you have to go to a bunch of courses and get a bunch of certificates.

but it really is about having that intention to keep expanding your skillset and to stretch yourself to the point where you know for a fact that that is the job that you want or the job that you’re really going after is not just because of somebody else’s value or somebody else’s definition of status, but because you enjoy that work or it’s gonna challenge you. And also it gives them a sense, it gives the decision makers in the organization a sense that you can do the job. And so I…

Melody Wilding (33:31.44)
Mm.

Nihar Chhaya (33:32.834)
you know, one things that’s really important in all the development plans that I have with my clients is are you actively thinking about the next role and how you can start getting a taste of that in your existing role? Now, the pushback might be that I’m so busy, you I really have a lot of other things to do in my day job and to have to take on somebody else’s responsibility might be very difficult. But again, that goes back to how much do you want to be an executive? Because what you’ll find at that level is most of those folks are

are at the level of having already been, having seen a lot of these, having seen the movie basically. And you kind of want to accelerate that. You want to basically jump the transition time that it would take from becoming like an individual contributor to a manager, to a director, to a VP. And the way to do that is to start getting associated with those VPs or those directors and start showing them that you can actually

expand your work and have some contribution that’s meaningful for them. So that’s one part of it, I think, is really just getting out there learning, getting out there connecting with people and stretching yourself. And then I think the next part about it, which I think is a little bit more of a practical or pragmatic view is we know that network and relationships mean a lot in getting to those executive levels. mean, whether we like it or not, this goes back to the power conversation.

You could literally be the smartest, most experienced person in the world, but if you don’t have that relationship currency, it’s not clear that you’ll be the one that’s pulled up. And I’ve seen this happen in many companies where you’ll see somebody who is 20 years younger than the executives that they’re up against, and they’ll be the ones that get the CEO job. So to have that, largely that’s because they were able to develop those inward connections and present what it would be like to be a leader for the next generation.

So I would just say the other part of it too is recognizing how what an executive looks like these days is very different than it did when let’s say you and I were starting our careers. We’re looking at leaders now who are able to motivate and inspire Gen Z and people who are able to be much more flexible with their approach to what good leadership and good work life looks like. And if you’re not that person, then you might do all the right things to be an executive, but still be put aside in terms of the competition.

Melody Wilding (35:25.327)
Hmm.

Melody Wilding (35:45.648)
Hmm.

Melody Wilding (35:54.02)
Yeah, that’s such a great point that the, the face of leadership and, and how you need to show up has to be responsive to also who’s your audience, right? Who, who is your audience and what are their needs? And also what does, what does business need today? Because I’m sure in an organization that’s in a turnaround phase needs a very different leadership style than one that’s in a high growth.

Nihar Chhaya (36:04.568)
Absolutely.

Nihar Chhaya (36:19.171)
Exactly.

Melody Wilding (36:19.344)
So it’s kind of, it goes back to what we were talking about originally, like reading the room, understanding the power dynamics and the situation that you’re stepping into, which is, which is great. So Nihar, thank you so much for joining us today, for sharing so much great wisdom. Where can listeners connect with you, learn from you? What’s the best place to send them?

Nihar Chhaya (36:41.196)
Yeah, well, my website is mynameniharchaya.com. There’s two H’s and one Y in the last name, so that confuses some people, but, and feel free to sign up for my newsletter that’s on there as well. And if anybody wants to join with me on LinkedIn, feel free to connect there.

Melody Wilding (36:57.21)
You’re always publishing such great stuff on LinkedIn. love it. Follow you all the time. all of your articles. So definitely a great, really, really valuable follow. Thank you again so much for joining me today.

Nihar Chhaya (37:10.284)
My pleasure, Melody. Thanks for having me.