Ad man, veteran author Ambi Parameswaran is back again with his new book Sponge- Leadership lessons I learnt from my clients. As the tag line appropriately suggests. The book is a collection of anecdotes from his 40 year career where he learnt leadership lessons from renowned leaders and would like for society to learn their bit from it.

Ambi’s book effortlessly talks about instances from his personal life and gives inside accounts of what true leadership means, how one can learn from client agency interactions and leadership lessons. Ambi calls it his way of giving back to the society what he has gained from it.

In an exclusive interview with BW People, he delves into the insights of the book, and his leadership mantra. Edited Excerpts from his interview.  

Q. Can you give a synopsis of your upcoming book 'Sponge' and what would you like our readers to know about it?
Ans. This book is called 'Sponge- Leadership lessons I learned from my clients. It's about how we can learn a lot from our own customers and clients if we start to absorb like a sponge. What I mean by that is to be able to absorb. I've created  SPONGE learning where S stands for Superactive listening, P-Probing, O- Observing, N-New behavioral understanding, G- Getting it internalized, and E- Expanding and Explaining.
Traditionally in all B2B space, customers and clients seemed to be the people you should be scared of, I am saying that we need to reframe that, customers and clients are the people we need to learn from. So this book Sponge is based on the premise of how you can learn to become a better leader, manager or executive by learning from your customers. The book consists of 25 stories and anecdotes pulled out from my 40 years of professional experience including the conversations and interactions I've had with all the senior and leading personalities.

Q. Define leadership for us?
Ans. Leadership is the ability to get your team to perform beyond what they think they are capable of performing. A great leader inspires the team to fly higher.

Q. Three leadership tips you would like to give to our budding leaders?

Ans. -To be a leader, you have to learn to be a follower.

        -Become more humble, more respectful of everyone around you

        -What risks could be taken and when.

Q. What is the objective behind this book?

Ans. This book is my effort to share all that I know, about how you can become a better executive. It's my bit to give back to the society from all that I have gained.

Q.How should a leader behave in a crisis situation and how should he motivate the employees?

And. During a crisis the leader has to be upfront, he has to be ready to respond and be answerable and be available for his team. The leader has to take every crisis as an opportunity to learn and become better. Leaders have to be inspiring in any case, people work for people whom they can learn from.

Q. How important is performance management and time management for a leader?

Ans. Managing time, resources and performance is critical, but a leader cannot be obsessed with short-term management. They have to look at a larger perspective.

Q. What are the three things a leader should refrain from doing?

And- A leader should not be a de-motivator

      - A leader should not put undue emphasis on the wrong things like monetary rewards.

       -A leader should not restrict its team from taking risks.

Q. Do you think leadership and creativity go hand in hand? How?

Ans. Yes, of course, Creative people make great leaders. You have to be creative, and you have to think out of the box to do new things.

Q.How should a leader maintain a perfect work-life balance?

Ans. Work-life balance is a bit of a myth. If you enjoy your work, that becomes life. It's more like Life-work balance. As a leader, you have to make sure your employees are enjoying the work. The day you feel you don't want to work on a Monday is when you should stop doing that. That has to be the rule.

Q. Do you think artificially intelligent technology has affected the decisions as a leader, as it loses the human essence?

Ans. I don't whether AI is affecting leadership, but whats affecting it is the dynamic workforce. The workforce is changing and they're becoming more independent, more tech-savvy so managing them is a big challenge. A big challenge in front of the leaders today is how to manage the millennials and you can't really bridge the gap because there will always be a generation gap but in the last two decades, the pace of the change is faster.

Q.If you were to give out three leadership lessons which helped you in your life, what would they be?

Ans. -Never stop learning
         -Be humble
         -Lead from the front.