Chapter 13: Can you build leadership teams through projects?

When December 2025 began, it looked like a beast—packed with travel, multiple projects, and some big things to deliver. And yes, it was intense.

But now, looking back, there’s a deep sense of satisfaction. Over the past month, we got to co-create some truly meaningful experiences with different teams.

My personal highlight? Moderating a panel with two world-class athletes : Vinesh Phogat (Olympian) , Meghana Sajjanar (world shooting champion) and few others

As a lifelong sports lover, it was fascinating to explore how elite athletes think, operate, and stay grounded under pressure. Huge thanks to the Centre for Sports Excellence (CSE) for this opportunity. That’s a wrap on our December.

Happy New Year to all of you, your team and family. Wishing you only the best this year.

With that, let’s dive into Chapter 13.

Image1 : The panel discussion at the CSE Annual day

The Problem?

Some truths are too familiar and you miss noticing those.

Here’s one, in most growth-stage organisations, there’s only one person thinking about the ENTIRE org.

The Founder / Co-founders.

Everyone else is thinking about their vertical.

The founder is left holding it all.

– Growth strategy
– Culture drift
– Key hiring
– New bets
– Pivots.

It’s not that others don’t care. But their plates are full. Their focus is their function.

And here are the potential costs:

– Founders make big bets without cross-functional input
– Committing to too many initiatives and spreading resources too thin
– Important decisions get stalled

A few months ago,

SAMA  – An advanced, technology platform designed to facilitate Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) services, who had just experienced our Winning Together program came to us with an ask:

“Can you be our culture partner and help us build our leadership team?”

We loved working with them first time, so we jumped on that opportunity.

Image2 : The SAMA team at CSE during the Winning Together

What did we do?

The founders at Sama didn’t just want a group of vertical heads. They wanted to build a leadership team—a group that thinks, acts and builds for the entire organisation, not just their function. It’s not like the other leaders in the organisation didn’t care. Org-building was happening but in scattered, inconsistent patches.

At the same time, the organisation was doubling in size. Pranjal and Akshetha (the co-founders) recognised that for Sama to truly thrive, org-building couldn’t remain isolated—it had to happen on multiple fronts.

So that became our north star.

But here’s the truth: it’s not easy for a vertical head to step into an org-level leadership role.

We noticed two gaps:

1. Leaders aren’t clear that they’re expected to actively help build the organisation, or what that actually looks like.
2. There was no structure to help them take that leap. At that point of time, they were doing whatever was coming in their way.

To address these we did three things:

Step 1: Made the Ask Clear

We brought the leadership team together and created space for the founders to name the shift clearly:

“We want each of you to start playing an org leadership role—beyond just leading your vertical.”

People nodded. And they said yes.

Step 2: Created a Structure

We set up a weekly 90-minute call with the team. Together, we identified three high-leverage (80/20) projects—initiatives that, if unlocked, would move the needle in big ways.

The timeline? 12 weeks to execute.

We spent considerable time upfront distilling these top priorities using a range of frameworks. Because in our experience, picking the right projects is half the game.

Once the priorities were clear, we split into sub-teams and got to work—with clear goals, roles, and ownership.

Why a Project-Based Approach?

One of the biggest insights we’ve gained through our partnership with BizSherpa is:

“Real leadership development happens best through real work.”

But real work doesn’t mean trying to own everything in the org.
These are traps many orgs fall into:

– Taking on too many initiatives and stretching already thinly stretched leaders
– Relying on long, slow-moving transformation efforts
– Outsourcing the hard stuff to consultants instead of building internal capacity

Our approach was different. We intentionally kept it:

– Short and focused to 12 weeks
– Designed to fail fast and learn faster
– Grounded in results and reflection
– Flexible enough to kill what’s not working

Step 3: We Stuck With It

Once the structure was in place, we stayed consistent.
We met every single week for 90 minutes. Rarely did a call get cancelled.
And we anchored the sprint around our three core building blocks of high performance

Image3 : Three building blocks of high performance

Every week, the team came together and we placed the three building blocks of high performance at the centre like this:

1. We clarified project goals, reviewed progress at regular intervals
2. We stuck to the rituals of updating trackers, sharing progress across teams, and most importantly, holding each other accountable.
3. We didn’t just talk tasks. We addressed the human stuff too—conflicts, tensions, and mindset blocks. Every conversation was grounded in culture and authenticity.

At first, there was resistance.

“Why am I spending 90 minutes here when there’s so much to handle in my vertical?”

But the team kept showing up. Week after week.

And the results followed.

It was simple—but not easy.
And no, it wasn’t as rosy as this newsletter might make it sound. It took effort, discomfort, and real commitment.

Full credit to the Sama team for showing up and pulling this off with us.

What shifted for the team ? 

There were multiple points of impact. I can’t list everything here but my favourite two are

1. Org- level Unlock : 

One of the 80/20 projects was hiring for critical roles. For months, this had been stuck.

And by week 12:

– Two key hires were closed.
– A pipeline of 20 candidates was built for tech roles.
– A hiring playbook was created to decentralise the process.

“The hiring REALLY got fixed because we had Co.labx’s eyes on it. Thank you so much.” a leadership team member shared in our Week 12 call.

The unintended win?

The team started flexing a new muscle: cutting down the noise and focusing on what’s truly important, and acting on it.

2. Individual unlock : 

These weekly calls are as much about building a leadership team as about building the leadership in the team members. In other words, our focus is also to create breakthroughs and unlocks at an individual level for each vertical head. One such powerful unlock happened with an extremely talented and high achieving vertical head.

Through these calls and 1-1 conversation, two shifts happened for them

1. Moving from I need to be the smartest person in the room to I want to enable others in the room to become their smarter self. Easy to read, hard to shift!

2.  Embracing rituals as a way of working for themself and their team. This vertical head started incorporating systems and rituals to complement their individual  brilliance.

And this is what the co-founder Akshetha had to say about this approach and working with us

  Culture is not a “nice to have”, it’s foundational. And it needs partners who truly understand how meaningful and intentional that work has to be. For us, Co.labx has been exactly that partner.

Bringing in weekly accountability in such a thoughtful and beautiful way with Sama’s leadership team has opened up new paths of work, fresh ideas and much stronger working relationships across verticals! It has helped us build a leadership team that feels secure enough to have tough conversations, while still feeling deeply supported and that, to us, is a real win.

We’re incredibly grateful for our partnership with Co.labx. They hold us to our highest potential, laugh with us, give and receive feedback with openness, and aren’t afraid to call us out when we’re not showing up as our best selves. It’s rare to find partners who do all of that with so much care and clarity. 

   Image 4 :  End of the sprint ritual with SAMA team in their office