Leadership for CIOs is a theme we have pioneered at the CTO Forum. This probably stems from the fact that creating leaders is an idea built into the DNA of our company, 9.9 Media. Therefore, it is with great pride and, of course, some sadness that we see Rahul Neel Mani, our editor, take the next stride in his leadership journey and turn entrepreneur with a small group of his 9.9 Media colleagues. As my co-founder and CTO Forum publisher and editor, Anuradha Das Mathur, wrote in her recent email to you, Rahul has been central to the ongoing transformation of the CTO Forum and while we will miss him, we are grateful for all that he has done to build a strong foundation for us here. We wish him and his colleagues well – the success of our alumni will be the ultimate test of the goals we set for ourselves in founding 9.9 Media over three years ago.

The management guru, late Sumantra Ghoshal, used to say that true leadership shows through when people are self-motivated about what they do. He referred to this self-motivation as “volition”. Volition is about your personal wish, desire, choice, will, and preference to do what you really want. When your work or day job is what you do out of volition, it creates magic, leadership shines through, and performance peaks. Far too often volition is mistaken for motivation. Sometimes motivating someone can help people act with volition but usually the two are diametrically apart. If motivation is push, volition is pull. This was the crux of Sumantra’s argument.

When Senior Editor Harichand Arakali talked to your colleagues about their personal aspirations, he got a set of highly inspirational responses. Not surprisingly, they all talked about the things that they wanted to do out of their volition. What is most exciting is that several of them are already doing those things even in their current roles, which is a hallmark of great leadership. They are “being themselves”— bringing their deeply personal values and beliefs to their work — despite playing a very business-like and professional role in the C-suite. They are not shy to talk about childhood values that they imbibed from their parents or the notion of leaving a great legacy behind for future generations.

We hope this will trigger some useful reflection and introspection for you as well.

I look forward to seeing you in Kovalam!