We train IITians on enhancing the essential skills so that they become better thinkers, communicators, and leaders. Our comprehensive programs cover key aspects of leadership including strategic thinking, effective communication, and management capabilities.

In our experience of working with CEOs and senior leaders at many of India's best-known companies, we've seen that successful leaders internalize and apply five mindsets consistently - Clarity, Honesty, Ownership, Win Win and Commitment. Self-Leadership Program is a challenging self-awareness leadership program that aims to get participants to internalize these five leadership mindsets.

The program is designed for IITians to identify their distorting and empowering beliefs so that they learn to think rigorously and act fearlessly to create the results and relationships they want in all areas of their lives.

The Self-Leadership program is about creating significant "mindset-shifts" that allow IITians to take risks and practice behaviors that they have found difficult or uncomfortable before, so that they create breakthroughs in their progress towards their life goals. This may be in the areas of leadership presence or communication or relationships or any other area.

The program does not use academic case studies or autobiographies of famous personalities or reams of power point slides covering leadership theory that allows participants to abstract leadership into a safe intellectual conversation. We consciously stay away from taking specific examples of famous leaders (like Steve Jobs/Bill Gates etc) because the leader we want participants to focus on is “themselves”.

Hence the name Self-Leadership Program.

This Program is a “conversation-led” and not “content-led” program. All theoretical frameworks/models will be covered in the pre-work videos, before each session. The live sessions will be “conversation-led”. There are specific exercises/discussions in each session for which the Trainer will set context and then invite participants to share their experiences – the Trainer will share their perspective based on what emerges from the conversations, during the live sessions.

The program is not aimed at imparting skills such as presentation skills, data analysis, negotiating effectively, strategic thinking etc. If you are looking for specific advice on how to structure meetings, what exactly to say while communicating with others, body language etc. you might connect with our team for other programs.

We have no restrictions or expectations regarding who should attend a this program.

However, this Program is best suited for: Individuals who are hungry for learning and

growth, personally and professionally and want to invest in themselves (rather than wait for their organisation to invest in them) by signing up for a leadership program that is trusted by many of India’s top companies.

Mid-level high potential IITians with 5 to 20 yrs of experience will get the most value from the program. What it takes to create value in a Self-Leadership program is not your age or experience, but the ambition to learn and grow and the willingness to have your beliefs challenged.

For IITians who want to create significant changes in their lives through deep introspection and challenging conversations that allow them to make a “mindset-shift”.

In our experience, participants don’t create much value for themselves in the following situations:

- When they feel that things are going fine in all areas of their life and there are no specific challenges that they would like to work on. We feel this is a great place to be in life and if you are currently in this place in your life, the Self-leadership program might not help you create a breakthrough in your results/relationships. Creating value from the Self-Leadership program requires considerable investment from the participant (completing the pre-work, participating in the workshop by openly sharing goals, challenges, fears, willingness to introspect with honesty, have beliefs challenged etc) and in the absence of a clear intrinsic reason/motivation the program can seem difficult.

- When they are looking for the Trainer or the program to motivate them (the program works when individuals are already motivated and want to learn and be challenged).

- When they treat the program like an intellectual exploration of new theoretical frameworks without putting in the effort to link those frameworks to their professional and personal goals/challenges and make the program “real” for themselves.

There are no pre-requisites for the program except a willingness to learn, have your beliefs challenged and the courage to take risks and have challenging conversations. This will be an experiential program with less structure than typical skill-based programs and you will create more value from the program when you are willing to give direct feedback to others and be open to different perspectives from others.

We typically have high potentials from companies, across industries and roles, attending our programs. The participant profile of the batch is an outcome of what works for participants from a pricing point of view and how much of 1-1 interaction they would like with the Alternative Leadership Trainers.

However, we honestly feel that the profile of participants in a batch doesn’t matter from the point of view of participants’ learning. What impacts a participant’s learning the most is their willingness to take risks and participate (share openly about their aspirations, challenges, fears etc) and not who else is in the program.

Participants who join our programs typically do so because they want to learn the mindsets and skills to overcome one or more of the following challenges:

“I’m doing great in my current role and want to figure out how I can get to next level as a leader”.

“I have a stable job but I’m not feeling happy or motivated in life”.

“I want to build my confidence and executive presence when I present to senior leaders, clients and my Board of Directors”.

“I want confidence and clarity to express my ideas”.

“I feel like I’m stagnating in my current role. I know I have the capability to become a senior leader, but I don’t know what’s keeping me stuck”.

“I’m not sure about what I want in my life. I am confused about the way forward”.

“I want to create more work-life balance for myself. I’ve been trying hard to do this but am not succeeding”.

“I am struggling to create great relationships personally and professionally”.

This is what participants who’ve attended this Program have to share about what they got from the program – Testimonials

Rather than “What can I expect to get…”, we feel that a more powerful question for potential participants to ask themselves is “what do I want to create for myself through this program?”

The Self-Leadership program is like a gym – if you want to build your muscles, you (and not the Trainer) need to lift the weights and do the hard work.

We believe that we have proven theoretical frameworks, exercises and tools to enable participants to create significant shifts in their lives. These are like the “weights” in a gym – ultimately, the value that participants get is proportional to how much effort they put in.

The Self-Leadership program is not just about focusing on professional growth.

Participants have an opportunity to take a deep look at all areas of their life – professional growth, personal results, health, relationships etc and identify what’s holding them back and build new beliefs and behaviors that allow them to create the life they want.

There are no planned sessions after the 5th virtual session. Participants can opt for 1-1 coaching conversation to support them over a longer period of time and hire a Alternative Leadership coach. Please contact us in case you are interested in this.

We will send program videos (our theoretical frameworks on leadership development, Real Conversations etc) as a playlist post the program so that participants can refer them at any time in the future, if they want to revisit/refresh specific concepts.

Short answer, no.

However, if you can get a group of 10 people who are willing to join the program, we can schedule the program at a time that is convenient for you 🙂