Capturing the Micro-Moments: How I Learned to Define Leadership on My Own Terms

Are You Alert Enough to Capture It?

“Our brains are wired for story, and stories originate in micro-moments. Are you alert enough to capture them?” Professor Rajesh Pandit asked that in the final lecture of my ISB Executive Education Women’s Leadership Programme, and it’s the question I keep coming back to. Over six months, alongside incredible women who stepped so fully into their womanhood and defined leadership on their own terms, I watched industries, incidents, and inspirations collide, class after class. It’s easy to remember a programme by its frameworks. What I remember is everything that happened in between them.

Breaking Open the Moulds We Build

Professor Chandrasekhar Sripada presented what it takes to truly follow through on a growth mindset in a way I didn’t expect, by weaving in the concept of “Neeyat,” the piousness of intention, with the conduct of your integrity. I remember the tension in the classroom as we came to terms with how our own biases shape the moulds we create, and how those moulds can be broken open. It wasn’t comfortable. It was necessary.

A Different Kind of Audacity

An anecdote Professor Bindu Khosla shared truly opened my eyes to emotional intelligence within communication and management. I’m thankful that the lens through which I look at audaciousness in one’s goals has changed because of her coaching and candour. Audacity, I’ve learned, isn’t about volume. It’s about intention held steady under pressure.

The Small Pond, Sea of Titans

I can’t count the number of times the term “Gen-Z” was tossed around over the past six months, sometimes in curiosity, sometimes in confusion. But I’m glad that, through this course’s discourse, I’ve been able to represent that perspective and offer some insight into what it’s like to be a young leader in a small pond amongst a sea of titans. It turned out to be an added bonus to my own learning: the room needed my perspective as much as I needed everyone else’s.

Something Shared

I carry with me now not only textbook skills and case studies of what leadership frameworks look like, but the internalised stories of my peers, professors, and coaches enough to see the possibility of what leadership could be, not just what it’s supposed to look like. We started with different visions of strategy, empathy, and disruption. By the end, we had created something shared. So here’s to the micro-moments. Onwards and upwards.

Synopsis

Anjali A. is a Media Analyst at Commetric and an alumna of ISB Executive Education’s Women’s Leadership Programme. She is a graduate who double majored in Information Systems and Journalism and Mass Communication, with a minor in Integrated Marketing Communications. Passionate about understanding the complexities of digital ecosystems, she brings a global perspective shaped by close exposure to the ways evolving online environments influence public trust, social dynamics, democratic participation and business strategy.