Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey as an author.
I am an Executive & Leadership Coach (ICF-MCC), a conversational intelligence (C-IQ) enhanced skills practitioner and a Positive Intelligence Coach. I am the author of ‘Get Your Next Promotion’ and ‘Are You The Leader You Want To Be?’ (This book was nominated as the 5 best business books for the C K Prahlad Business Book Award 2019).
I help leaders achieve balanced and sustainable growth for themselves and their organizations by facilitating the alignment of aspirations, purpose, and actions. I am passionate about helping leaders and teams bring more humanness in their mindset as well as actions.
I am also passionate about helping people own their growth and help them reach their own potential.
While in my professional capacity, I work with leaders, I wanted more people to take advantage of the frameworks that I have created. That led to my first book: Are You The Leader You Want To Be? And then I went on to write the second book that covers a much-expanded scope and aims to help people who are struggling to get into the leadership roles, the CXO roles.
Can you please tell us a bit about the books you wrote and about upcoming ones?
- In today’s world, it is important for leaders to connect to their team and effectively engage with the teams. Many leaders struggle to engage the teams. I had created HUMAN leadership framework which helps leaders engage the teams. My first book, “Are You The Leader That You Want To Be?” share this unique framework for leadership excellence and also elaborates the concept through story of a leader who is struggling to succeed in his role. If anyone want to build a high-performance, highly motivated, growth oriented team, they can get a lot of tips from this book.
- I have realized that one of the big problems for organizations is to develop a healthy leadership pipeline. Most of the time they struggle to get good candidates for leadership positions from within the organization. The challenge is to find well rounded individuals who can fit the mantel of leadership. What they find more often within their own organizations is specialists who are domain experts and authority in their own area but have lesser experience of working across domains. At the same time the internal professionals who seek these roles, somehow keep on missing them, without a real clue as to why they have missed the opportunity. They feel they are stuck. They are unable to realize their potential. They work hard to build their divisions / functions. They deliver, but then they are not considered for the CXO roles. They feel they may have made some wrong decisions in the past or that the organization is not being fair. There is a big gap. I have written my second book for these professionals who seem to have come up against a glass ceiling. This book is titled, “Get Your Next Promotion”, because it helps such professionals advance to CXO / executive roles.
As an author, can you remember the very first challenge you had when you began writing?
It took me about 4 years to write and publish my first book. I would not say that writing is easy, but one of the difficult parts is finding a publisher as a rookie author. I am grateful to The Story Mirror, who believed in my idea and published my first book.
How do you come up with good ideas for your books?
My books are more about sharing the most successful frameworks that have helped many leaders that I work with. I have the aim to help millions of leaders across the world and I see my books as a potential way to touch many professionals across the world. Both my books have found readers in multiple countries.
How did you find writing a book itself? How did that feel?
Writing a book is a work of passion, you work long days and nights, weekends too. When you are into writing a book, it becomes your life. You live and breathe it. I thoroughly enjoyed writing. I am happy that both my books have received great feedback from the readers.
How long does it take to write a book?
It was tough publishing the first book, it took me four years to get the book completed. But I felt extremely rewarded when my book was nominated among the best business books for C K Prahalad Award 2019.
I had learned a lot in the process, and it took me less than half the time on my second book. I have collaborated with 10 CXO’s to write this book. I wanted the readers to learn from the stories of these leaders. I am sure professionals will gain a lot from their perspectives.
Which is your favorite book and why?
Rising Strong by BRENE BROWN. This is a book about what it takes to get back up and how owning our stories of disappointment, failure and heartbreak gives us the power to write a daring new ending. Struggle can be our greatest call to courage and Rising Strong, our clearest path to deeper meaning, wisdom and hope.
Where do you draw inspiration from?
I draw inspiration from Dr. Marshall Goldsmith and other global Leaders in CXO coaching. Marshall has not only worked with leaders, he has also developed other coaches and shared his knowledge with the world at large through many books that he has written. I admire his work a lot.
What is the best feeling about being an author?
It is exciting to put your ideas into a book. The thought that many fellow professionals can gain from your work is quite energizing. I work hard and am a bit of a perfectionist, I like to review a couple of times just to make sure that the message comes out correctly and that the readers do get some practical tips.
I love to leave the readers with some actionable steps that can help them move towards their goals. I have an aim to help millions of leaders across the world and my books are the medium that can help me achieve my goal.
Tell me about an accomplishment you are most proud of.
I am grateful that I could help leaders succeed in achieving their own goals and the success of their organizations. I am also very thankful that through my books I have been able to affect many lives and have been able to motivate and encourage people to take action towards achieving their potential.
What advice would you like to give to an aspiring writer?
My advice to all aspiring authors is to make a connection with the readers. Write with an attitude of service to your readers. That helps us, authors, to keep adding value to the manuscript. Remember that every word you are writing has the potential to leave a lasting impression on someone or create an impact in the world around you.
Manbir’s Books
First book: https://www.amazon.in/Are-You-Leader-Want-Be/dp/938726937X
Second book: https://www.amazon.in/Your-Next-Promotion-Manbir-Kaur/dp/9353884772/ref=pd_l
Connect here,
Website: https://manbirkaur.com/
