Leadership Lessons from a Tea Bag

What Counts is what’s inside the teabag

·      Quality of the beverage is determined by the tea inside the bag not by the labels or the strings or packaging.  Clothes, qualifications, titles etc are the labels and strings.  Our beliefs and attitude define us.

The real flavour comes through only when the teabag gets into hot water

·      True character of a leader shines through in adversity. 

Good Teabags look forward to getting into hot water

·      When a teabag sees hot water, it says, ‘WOW! Can’t wait to get in!’  Teabags don’t run away from hot water. They know they were made for this and it will give them a chance to show their true worth. 

·      Leaders don’t fear challenges. They welcome them.

A teabag must be porous

·      Tea cannot be made if its put into an impermeable bag.  The bag must be porous for tea and water to contact each other.

·      We cannot live in isolation.  A leader must not build walls around himself/herself.  We are designed to work with other people, with teams and with society at large.

Tea bags work, never mind where they are in the cup

·      Once you dip a teabag in a cup, it doesn’t matter where the teabag sits.  It could be at the top, on the side or right at the bottom, it will still work.  The teabag’s efficacy is not linked to its position in the cup.

·      Leadership is not about the top position.  Leaders are everywhere.  Leaders derive their strength from within – not from a title or a position in the organization.  Truly great leaders invoke the leader in any corner of the organization. 

Sometimes one teabag is not enough

·      If the pot is very large, then one teabag may not be sufficient.  Solution: Add another teabag

·      Leaders don’t need to feel inadequate or incompetent if more leaders join the team to accomplish an enormous task

·      Asking for assistance is not a sign of weakness but of great strength and self-confidence

Sometimes you need to add some sugar and milk

·      If you are looking for a cup of tea with milk and sugar, no teabag in the world can give that to you by itself.  You need to add milk and sugar. 

·      Good leaders find people with complementary skills for their team

Someone else holds the strings always

·      No matter how strong the teabag is, it recognizes that someone else holds the string.  Customer, shareholder or the board or another powerful force holds the string of a leader.  This will keep the leader humble and not allow the power to go to his/her head. 

Its all about how good the tea is, not the teabag

·      Nobody ever drank a cup of tea and said, ‘WOW, that was a great teabag!’  He’d say: “That was a great cup of tea!”

·      Good leaders never forget: ‘Its not about me.  Its about the organization, teams, society’

Eventually, teabags need to make way and get out

·      Teabags recognise that once the brew is ready, they need to move on.  They don’t worry that if they were to move out of the cup, the tea would turn back to hot water.  If they stayed on any longer they’d come in the way of the person enjoying his cup of tea!

·      Too many leaders see themselves as being indispensable and overstay their welcome!

- Courtesy, The Secret of Leadership by Prakash Iyer