TiE New Delhi (Dec 16) and the corporate ladder

I was there at TiE New Delhi this Saturday, the theme was "Effective CEOs" and Dr Prasad Kaipa was the key presenter.

There was one slide which I thought made a lot of sense. It talks about the 5 steps of the corporate ladder ...

Step1, Individual Contributor - Most of us start out like this in our careers, where we apply our knowledge and understanding to accomplish individual tasks that are assigned to us.

Step2, Team Contributor - At this point in our careers, we apply our knowledge and experience to the team as a whole resulting in success ... not as an individual but as a team.

Step3, Team Manager - At this stage an individual takes the responsibility of executing a task and organizes a team to get it done.

Step4, Team Leader - A leader is a person who has a vision, motivates and inspires people along the lines of the vision and drives the execution.

Step5, Executive - .... to tell you the fact I didn't really understand this much, or maybe it is just that I cannot relate to this, yet !!!

Anywayz ... so Prasad's theory is that, a successful CEO usually goes through all the steps and most CEOs are somewhere between level 4 and 5 ... anything below that, you're probably not ready.