Paresh Shah on How to Be a Better Leader through Lifter Leadership

TEDx Speaker Paresh Shah shares why being a “lifter” is the new way for a new era on how to be a better leader.

Table of Contents

How to Be a Better Leader

Take a moment to reflect the qualities of a bad manager. The manager may have talked down to you, rarely communicated expectations clearly, and blamed you for everything that went wrong. You may even still have nightmares at night.

Now, shift gears and think about the qualities of a good manager. What comes to mind? Is it someone who listens to your ideas? Maybe that leader created an environment where it was okay to provide input, serve customers through problem solving, and made the work experience a rewarding one.

Who is a born leader anyway? No one! Leaders are made not born, and any one of us can learn how to be a better leader if we give it continuous effort.

Leadership is not About a Title

This episode is not just about how to be a good leader and manager. Leadership is not just about a title or position. That is a huge misconception we have. Yes, there are those with assigned responsibilities for a team or project, and then there are the rest of us.

Leadership is influence. Influence comes from relationships and trust. With that requires a shift in mindset on how to become a leader in life.

That is where Paresh Shah and his concepts around Lifter Leadership comes into play. Brandon and Jerry talk with Paresh about a new era in business that requires a new way of leadership. Power is shifted from a strict hierarchical structure to one that is flatter, agile, and effective.

Paresh’s Bio

Currently, Paresh serves Chief Strategist and Value Architect at The Non-Obvious Company working with senior leaders around the world to foster non-obvious solutions to some of the biggest problems society and businesses are facing. He has travelled and worked in over 35 countries, giving him a diverse and truly global perspective.

Mr. Shah’s prior startup, a wireless-multimedia company, raised $130 MM in venture capital and currently appraised at approximately $700 MM.

Mr. Shah was an early executive at Monitor Company, a strategic consultancy formed by several Harvard Business School professors. During Mr. Shah’s tenure as part of the leadership team, Monitor grew from 100 professionals to a global staff of over 1000.

As a complement to his business background, Paresh studied of 2000 hours of yoga, mindfulness, meditation, self-help and wisdom teachings with masters around the globe and is a popular instructor and personal “peak performance” coach in the Los Angeles area with students, celebrities and executives.

Paresh is happily married and lives in Los Angeles with his wife, four children, rescue dog (Shadow), a hamster named Charlotte and two birds. When not traveling for clients or keynotes, Paresh loves driving in his ’77 Nova listening to Classic Rock and Heavy Metal, playing one his electric guitars, explaining to his children that Ozzy Osbourne was not always a “weird old guy” and learning to surf. He holds a deep interest in fostering imagination, playfulness, innovation, authentic self-expression and mindfulness, especially with children, to drive positive change in the World.