Neha's Story
I stood paralyzed by fear as I listened to the ping of urgent messages from my client. On the day of our product launch, a technology malfunction disabled the entire project. I blinked back my tears and forced myself to take a deep breath. Step by step, I worked with my team to assess the situation. All that mattered was that I made it through.
This was one of the many crises I would encounter throughout my professional career. I love the chaos, navigating ambiguity and everything there is to building products and teams. However, I still felt that in my experiences all I did was survive that situation. In a simulation by the Leadership Accelerator, I was placed in a team where we went through a mock crisis together. Even though it was a simulation, the stress and reaction to the situation was very real. Instead of just surviving and moving on to the next crisis, I was guided through a reflection on many questions: How did I speak to people? Was I authentic? How could I have handled that differently? I was given the time and space to simulate a crisis and reflect on my strengths and weaknesses.
When I walked into Professor Pettit’s Leadership in Organizations course at Stern, masked and 6 ft distanced with my peers, after a heated activity and discussion, he told us, “What got you here, won’t get you there.” This has been a reminder and north star for me in the MBA journey. But how do you get there?
I realized that just surviving a crisis was not sufficient. I had to be more conscientious and evolve my toolkit through taking small risks and actively exposing myself to leadership opportunities, through which I could put these principles into practice, turning classroom lessons into muscle memory.
An example of this is storytelling. A core area of improvement for me was to be able to show my team my vision and inspire them to come along the journey with me. As a product manager and aspiring leader, the art of persuasion is a critical skill. Luckily, I had the opportunity to dive into storytelling and immerse myself in multi-day offsites where I practiced my storytelling form. As a stretch challenge, I opened a workshop with a 3 minute story, presenting the vision for my life. When I finished my story, I felt as through I had tied my MBA learning with a beautiful bow.
As I keep challenging myself to grow by throwing myself in situations that scare me and test me, I remind myself that growth is hard, and what got you here won’t get you there, so keep going!