LIMELIGHT INTERVIEW WITH LAKSHMI IYER

What makes a great leader?

This week was timely to ask myself that question. My lecturer in my “Leadership in Sustainability” course asked our class that question on Tuesday as part of my Postgraduate studies in Sustainability. 

The definition of leadership I gave was “Leading from within, from the centre, with empathy, authenticity, acting swiftly and communicating clearly”, giving the examples of Jacinta Ardern and Angela Merkel. 

But I could equally have given the example of my good friend and colleague, Lakshmi Iyer. 

During our lecture we were reminded that the Anglo-Saxon etymological root of the words lead, leader and leadership is “laed”, which means path or road. The verb means to travel. Thus a leader was originally one who shows fellow travelers the way by walking ahead.

If anyone knows Lakshmi then she truly embodies the word, “laed”. 

As we spoke for this interview, I realised that Lakshmi embodies the person, the people, the women we have watched in action during Covid-19, be it global leaders such as Jacinta Ardern, Angela Merkel or Tsai Ing-Wen, or the leaders within our organisations, the universities we work with, that have risen to the challenges of Covid-19 and have led from within.    

It is said that management is about doing things right and leadership is about doing the right thing. Lakshmi tells me it is all about our behaviour and how we react to crisis, how we manage ourselves on a daily basis. 

She is very honest and tells me some days it is really difficult to face into another day of working and living with Covid-19, there seems to be no end in sight, we have no control over the situation, no control over when we will get a vaccine or when borders will re-open. 

The only thing we have control over, she tells me, is how we behave. 

Historian Thomas Carlyle, stated, “the history of the world is but the biography of great men”. But I think we are entering into a new phase and adopting a new definition of leadership, which is that of authenticity, the notion of leadership as serving others, our clients, our employees, and the environment around us. 

Covid-19 has shown us leaders who have been capable of showing compassion for their employees that were working from home, trying to home school children, care for elderly parents, adjust their entire lives around Covid, and deal with less than ideal situations. She knows many colleagues that have lost their jobs. 

When I ask Lakshmi, how she is doing, she answers honestly and tells me how she has worried for her staff, has fought to keep their jobs, has worried about her colleagues, who are more than clients to her. She tells me anecdotes of colleagues who have decided to home-school children this year, rather than sit them in front of Zoom, how she knows clients who have lost family and dear friends to the virus. She is seeing the world through their eyes. This for me is the definition of a leader. Yes, a leader needs to show strength and be clear in their decisions and communicate effectively, but we can do this by also showing kindness. 

Lakshmi feels we are on the cusp of a new world. In our own industry, international education, in order to survive, we have all had to adapt our way of working. Readers will recognise this need and how we are continually adjusting to an ever-evolving situation. I recognise Lakshmi’s challenge in putting both feet into this new world when part of her wants to hang on to the old or keep a connection to the old way of doing things. We are going through massive changes and Lakshmi faces these changes every day. The need of business to change, the need to protect her staff, and the need to stay ahead of the market for her clients. 

But Covid has ravaged our world and it is going to take huge resilience and ability to keep up with the changes. We reflect on the surge capacity that is required and how we are still in fight mode. There has been so much uncertainty that there is no time for reflection. We are, after all, still in this time of uncertainty. We talk about having to over-engage with people, to put on the war paint each day, to face personal challenges, and a compassion for clients, colleagues, and staff can often leave you so spent at the end of the day. So often we find ourselves doubting ourselves asking if we are doing enough.  

Each morning Lakshmi wakes up, these are the battles she faces and we talk about these as mountains you have to climb, every day, but if you know Lakshmi, you know that she can take on this challenge. 

Resilience was a word we often used in theory pre-Covid – but since March, it has been well and truly practiced. 

Lakshmi has not seen her parents since January or her brother since February. Her US visa ran out during the summer and being unable to renew that visa with her brother living in the US, prioritised for her what was truly important in her life. I think we can all relate to the pain of not being able to see our loved ones.  

Lakshmi and I both come from cultures where we have strong burial traditions and we talk about the impact Covid has had on people that are not able to mourn their dead, and what legacy this is going to leave. She hopes we do not forget the people this has had such an impact on, those this has taken a toll on mentally. 

We look back on how naive we both were in February and March when we both thought this would be over by the end of the year. We look to the future and what that might mean. Lakshmi remembers as a student in 2000/2001 and coming to the UK, having to show her inoculation card and a cleared TB test in order to obtain her visa. This will be the future where we will need to show proof of Covid-19 inoculation. 

As we speak we come around to talking about the amazing work that is being done by people like Bill Gates. As happens with every conversation I have with Lakshmi, we come back to the positives, the Hope Index is always replenished after a chat with her and she always finds the Silver Linings. 

The key thing to remember, Lakshmi reminds me, is that it can be easy to feel isolated, we can have our good days, but we can have bad days in equal measure. Her words that the only thing we have control over at the moment is how we behave ourselves is such great advice and I think that might just get us through the next few months.

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