7 Brutal truths about leadership no one tells you at 29

06/04/25 at 03:00 AM

7 Brutal truths about leadership no one tells you at 29
Forbes; by Nirmal Chhabria; 5/29/25
At 29, I was handed my first leadership role. Six months later, I was drowning—my inbox was overflowing with problems, top performers were quitting and morale was plummeting. "What am I doing wrong?" I asked my mentor. "You're trying to be the hero instead of creating heroes," she replied. That conversation began my real leadership education—years of failures that revealed truths I wish I'd known from day one. Here are seven leadership insights that only experience taught me:

  1. Leadership Is Service, Not Authority ...
  2. Postponed Conversations Become Poisonous Problems ... 
  3. Control Suffocates Innovation ...

[Click on the link above for all seven lessons and additional detail about them.]

Back to Literature Review