EP. 172: Disruptive Leadership: The New Model for Business Success with Kumar Parakala

In this powerful episode, Jennifer Dawn sits down with global business leader and bestselling author Kumar Parakala to discuss the unprecedented challenges facing modern businesses. Kumar introduces his concept of disruptive leadership as the essential new model for success. This conversation reveals the mindset, traits, and strategies needed to reinvent yourself and your business to thrive amidst rapid technological, economic, and social change.

Kumar Parakala’s Journey to Defining Modern Leadership

Jennifer Dawn: Hey. Hey everybody. Welcome to a new episode of the Happy Productive Podcast. I’m super excited about my guest today, Mr. Kumar Para Kala is a global business leader, entrepreneur, and bestselling author with over 30 years, you guys have experience in digital transformation and technology innovation. He has advised Fortune 500 CEOs, world leaders, led major, major firms, and he is also been featured in many publications like Forbes, Bloomberg, and the Wall Street Journal. Kumar, welcome to the show today.

Kumar Parakala: Thank you, Jennifer. It’s a great pleasure to be on your very successful and very thought through podcast.

Jennifer Dawn: Fantastic. I would just love obviously you have a very tremendous bio and just tell us a little bit about your journey, your story of how you came to be doing the work that you’re doing now today.

Kumar Parakala: Sure. Jennifer I’ll just quickly share my background a little bit. I have lived in Australia for about 33 years and I’ve built my career. I, I’ve worked there and built my career and worked for the government there as Australian government. And then I also worked for KPMG and then started my own business, which was a small startup, which then I was able to sell that to a company called GHD, which is a global Enterprise. And we built a new business called GHD Digital based on that. And as the 1st of March, I exited that business after successfully building it over six to six to seven years, 800 people. Massive growth and yeah, valued in excess of $400 million for, from a cost of replacement perspective. I also wanna share that, i’ve been leadership teams the last 25 years. I’ve senior leadership teams, but as the CEO and the next level down many organizations, but also I’ve been a founder, entrepreneur. So I really know the hard work that one needs to put in for small, medium enterprises to, to be successful. Another bit of trivia is I was born in India and my grandparents. Are from the same village as Usha Van’s family members are. It’s a very small remote village in, in the south of India. Got into prominence because the vice president and his wife Usha. Recently visited India and my little village where I was born became very, very prominent during that visit. So that’s, that’s the only thing that I share in common with the, with, with the vice president and his family. But at the same time, I was quite excited that the village where I was born got got visibility.

The Top Challenges Facing Leaders Today

Jennifer Dawn: Wow. That is so fantastic. I love that. What a great story. Okay speaking of the vice president and leadership which is a great topic for us to be talking about today, what would you say are some of the top. Concerns that business owners as leaders of our own business and our communities, like what would you say are some of the top challenges that and leader leadership, sorry, business and leaders are facing today?

Kumar Parakala: I, I think we are, we are in a very, very different world to the world, which many of us if you’ve worked for 30 years, have grown up with. 10 years have been quite remarkable in the last five years, have been quite unprecedented and unpredictable in many ways from Covid and everything else. So the leadership paradigms that we are all learned to believe either through the word of mark training or by going to universities or, or being just trained by people who are very experienced people, those paradigms are no longer. Applicable because we are living in a world which is, which is operating with a very different set of rules. And as the business owners of all type, not not only just small to medium, we are. Being bombarded on a daily basis with this for these forces. And I call these forces the disruptive, unpredictable forces. They’re acting upon me. We, we don’t have a choice. They, it’s happening to us. So the first and foremost is artificial intelligence automation just taken off since 2022. And we are talking about digital workforce and, people being replaced using digital workforce. That may be a good news for many because. You don’t need to always rely on manual labor. You have the digital workforce, so it’s good and that but anyway, that force is in action right now. AI and automation geopolitical tensions we know very much Ukraine war and. And, Hamas and Israel. And then the tariff war, which we are seeing right now, they’re all parts of geopolitical tensions that are impacting the business. Even when you are running the smallest of the smallest businesses, you could get impacted by the geopolitical tensions where someone was saying to me the other day, Hey. People are really worried about empty shelves in the United States because there is a trade embargo and many of the containers from China and other places may or may not come. And, and that is, that’s gonna be an issue. So geo the geopolitical tensions, remote work, people are saying get back to work. But remote work has been now fully embraced. People are moved out of downtown. That is acting climate change. Even though people, some people say, Hey, Clage, climate change is not true. It is true. And climate change. Sustainability is a huge, huge issue. Gig economy is taking off as AI is taking off. The gig economy is taking off. We’ve seen the Amazons and others of the world, but the next iteration of gig economy is out there. And major demographic shifts. People, my generation who about 20, 30 years, they’re moving out more nimble, agile, very smart, technologically savvy generation. Is coming up. So that’s, that’s another shift, a demographic shift at force, which is acting on people that is impacting small, medium enterprises and the large ones too, mental wellbeing. We never thought before covid that there’s something called mental wellbeing. We realized through Covid that mental wellbeing is, is, is, is a real thing and it can happen to anybody no matter how resilient you are. Again, social media and d fake sophistication that’s now misinformation everywhere. So these are all the forces, Jennifer, which the small to medium enterprises are facing are acted upon on a daily basis. And, and, and, and that is, that is the environment in which they’re operating. And therefore, my hypothesis. That the current leadership models which have been developed over the last 50 years are inadequate. This demonstrates the need for a new model of **disruptive leadership**.

Jennifer Dawn: And, and how, how could they be with all of the things that, that was a list of and every person listening here can really relate to almost all of those things. And even if they’re not happening to your business, you probably know a business owner who it’s like, oh, it’s happening to their business. Even just today on my coaching calls from today, I’ve dealt with. Several of those issues with business owners that I’m talking to. So these are all very, very real challenges. And you’re right, I think some of those old leadership models, paradigms don’t really serve the leaders of today. And so what would you recommend?

What is Disruptive Leadership? A New Framework for Success

Jennifer Dawn: Like what kind of. Skills, traits, development. What do leaders today need to be focused on so that they are the best prepared to face so many things changing so rapidly?

Kumar Parakala: I think that’s a great question, and that is a segue into this book I have written. And that is exactly the reason why I wrote this book. And, I said, okay, if the current leadership models are inadequate, then what is that that one needs to embrace to be more aligned and adaptable to the new leadership demands? And and, and, and so I came up with this concept of a disruptive leader. A disruptive leader is a contrarian who is challenging the. The current status quo and the, the, the, the traditional models with the main objective of improving, enhancing and creating something new. And, and therefore my submission through this book is that every leader needs to be a disruptive leader. And the, the most important trait of leadership now is to be able to disrupt. Those areas that are not adding any value any further, rather than just complying in the name of tradition. A discip leader needs to be, needs to challenge, needs to be risk-taking and thrive in that environment. They need to learn rashly, continuously gather new insights. There’s nothing like, hey, I’ve got 30 years of experience. Really good at everything I do. No, there’s nothing like that. World is changing so fast. Experiences, some of the experiences are becoming irrelevant and also show resilience in extreme extreme adversity. So those are the four things that a a disruptive leader needs to do. And, and, and and therefore I’ve come up with about seven. Traits that I recommend for leaders to consider if they, if they want to succeed in this new world. And again, I’ve captured that in my book.

Jennifer Dawn: I love it you guys. So the book is *Lead to Disrupt Seven Keys to Success in the Changing World*. And I would love, if you don’t mind maybe sharing, would you mind sharing one or two of the keys from your book and we can just summarize that you feel are really important for leaders today to be able to understand.

Fostering a Culture of Disruption (Without the Chaos)

Jennifer Dawn: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kumar Parakala: People voluntarily follow you as a leader. You right? Pope Francis is a leader because people voluntarily follow what Pro Pop Francis wants to say. From that perspective by the way he, he was also called a disruptive leader because it challenged the status quo. And I’ll go through one or two of them, but very quickly as a, as a summation it’s all about the mindset. You gotta have the right mindset. It’s the disruptive mindset. You’ve gotta say, “Hey, the past doesn’t determine my future.” And therefore I should be prepared to prepared to challenge and evolve. Not challenge for the challenge’s sake, but challenge for the betterment, for the benefit of the world, benefit of followers, benefit the business, whatever. It’s so disruptive. Mindset number one. Disruptive hire purpose. It is not good if whatever you’re doing is just going to help you. No. It needs to help the world. It needs to help the community you live in. It needs to help the people that are a part of, so it’s a disruptive hybrid. What is that that you are doing as a SME business that is going to be aligned to a disruptive, higher purpose that is beyond yourselves. Okay. That’s, that’s the second one. The third one is, getting outside the comfort zone. Everyday morning we get up and we want to follow a routine and, and but unless we get out of our comfort zone and try new things, get rid of the inertia, we won’t be getting anywhere. So that’s another trait building exceptionally different relationships to what we have built over the years. And and that is that, that fosters disruptive thinking. The next one is challenging the status quo. Many organizations have got senior people, mid-level, and then junior, and everybody, submits to the senior folk and they say, “Hey, all we submit to you.” And they don’t, and there’s only 3% Jennifer in organizations, 3% of the staff are the ones who challenge the status quo. They just comply. 97% comply. If you have a compliant workforce, it’s not going, you’re not gonna create successful organizations and businesses. We need more people to challenge the status quo and, and help evolve those businesses and take them to this, to a better place where they can deliver outcomes in this in this, in this world. This is a core component of **disruptive leadership**.

Jennifer Dawn: Let’s stop for just a second on that point. ’cause I think it’s really, really important. So as business owners, as we’re building our teams and you’ve got this compliant workforce which I gotta tell you there’s a lot of days where I’m like, “Hey guys, just do your job.” Okay. where, where do you find the balance between a a, a team that. Shows up, gets the job done, versus people who are challenging that status quo, being a little bit more disruptive, but making that a positive thing in the workforce where, like what you said, where it’s for the betterment of the organization, your clients, the product, the world. Great. So what are some ways that leaders can navigate that? And make it a productive thing and not “oh, Johnny over there in the corner is just trying to cause problems again, and he is driving everybody crazy.”

Kumar Parakala: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a great question, Jennifer. Let’s just look at what the future has for us in store. Getting job done, which is a mechanical task. If there are mechanical tasks, they will be automated. We’ll go. We will have agents, agentic ai or agents, a AI agents that will do all the mechanical job jobs better than the humans can have it too. Therefore, as leaders of businesses, we have the responsibility. To nurture the creative abilities of our people. So therefore, what we have to say is, look, the technology could potentially take care of the mechanical side of things. For example, getting the job done as, one to 10 steps, that technology will do that as humans. How can we make a product better if you’re in a product, organization, or a service better? If a service organization, what are the new things that are required? What innovation is needed? What kind of things we can retire, we don’t need to be in a business forever if it doesn’t make sense. So these are all these, they require creative thinking, they require intelligence of, and, and, and I think leaders have the responsibility. To nurture their teams, to be able to advance that intelligence. We are all bond with it, but advance, and because we don’t use our brain, we just keep on doing mechanical things, you go backwards. So we gotta, so leaders are, I’ve worked with, I’ve worked with many leaders. I’m working with one right now, constantly challenges the status quo and pushes his team to new heights. People hate it. But they also love him. They love him because he’s doing things that nobody else is doing. So that’s what we need to do as leaders is it is probably not safe. We gotta make it, it’s not safe for those who just simply want to do mechanical tasks. It is more welcoming, more. Productive for those who are actually doing something much more value, adding much more than just mechanical tasks. So that’s, that’s what I mean by disrupting the status quo. We have the responsibility to create that environment. If we want to treat everybody like a robot, then they will behave like one. But that’s not when we are getting so, so that’s my answer. Short answer is yes. We need to encourage that. I’ve got two more. One is we need to deal with complacency. People get very complacency. And, and also we need to. Have a very high level of accountability, especially we are spending a lot of money. We need to have a high, high accountability of stakeholders. So there’s seven principles, but each one of them are very powerful. This is my life’s philosophy. I have been a part of building a $3 billion business from scratch. And again very recently almost a half a billion dollar business value has been created. And that is because I’ve followed these principles being a contrarian. And I have followed these seven principles, which have helped me over the last 15 years.

The Personal Impact of Embracing Disruptive Leadership

Jennifer Dawn: prompted you to put all of this into a book?

Kumar Parakala: Very, very, very good. Very good question. When Covid, I realized I’m challenged by my leadership skills. I’ve been to Harvard Business School, I did advanced management program, I’ve done an MBA, I’ve worked in the top organizations of the world. And when I did my reflection, self-reflection during covid time, what was in store, what came up I was I, I, I felt not only ill prepared, but my leader leadership skills were truly tested. So I said to myself, if I, who had the good fortune of going through all kinds of, I had ticks in all kinds of, good training and everything at top universities. Great jobs. If I’m feeling like this, how would others feel? And therefore I, I said, we need to find a solution for this. And that’s when this idea of the book came up, came. And then as the world became more and more unpredictable, I took a leap out my life’s journey. Where, I had many failures as well, including successes and I said, okay, maybe I should capture my experience in this book. So it’s a experiential summary of my whatever has happened to me with the last few years from a leadership perspective personally. This personal journey is key to understanding **disruptive leadership**.

Jennifer Dawn: And, and fantastic. And what have you seen from leaders who embrace these concepts? What kind of results or differences are they now able to make in the workplace? I.

Kumar Parakala: Yes. Jennifer. So these, the, the, the, the, the leaders who embraced these concepts are corporate leaders who’ve worked in large business, small businesses, entrepreneurs, SMEs, team leaders not-for-profit organization, government executive. Now many of them have come back and said, this is so strongly resonating with what what they, what they’re thinking. And what we have seen is that those who have embraced it has directly helped them. Innovate at a a, a, a bigger pace, at a greater pace. Number one, that that’s a direct impact. But personally, they feel more energized, they feel more enthusiastic, they feel more active when they come to work or whatever they’re doing because this is their life’s purpose. And when, when once life’s purpose is being achieved, you see a completely different. Individual. So they, they are they’re more engaged, more active. And the results they’re getting are they’re able to reinvent themselves individually and reinvent the businesses that they’re a part of at a faster pace. Two they have a greater a rationale for change. My book provides why they, everyone should change. Change starts with in on an individual basis before companies go change. So they have, and third, and third and foremost is they are feeling that they can not only beat these odds of forces acting upon them, but they can actually come out of those this unprecedented time. In a, in a, in a stronger lot better position. So there’s some be direct benefits. And people have said to me, they are living their life and they’re working harder, but they’re living their dream because. This is where they are. Their, their, their heart is aligned to their purpose, which is aligned to their actions, aligned to their outcomes. So I think this is contributing in a small way to reinvention of the individuals. Yeah.

Jennifer Dawn: love that so much. That’s one thing here on happy, productive, we love alignment. Alignment with your heart and your work. I just absolutely love it. Such an important topic and thank you so much for being here to, to discuss it with us. Could you just before we run out of time, share with everybody where can they find more information about you, Kumar and as well as where can people go to buy the book?

Kumar Parakala: The book is available on Amazon in. Most of the countries *Lead to Disrupt Seven Keys to Success in a Changing World*. It’s also available on Barn and Noble and other online platforms. And just, just for the information of your listeners, this book has been rated the best seller in seven categories, including leadership, motivational health and wellbeing, self-help. Self-improvement, success and strategic management. I feel very fortunate that people have appreciated in so many streams. Even if your listeners can read this book and take one thing away, I think the purpose of writing this book for me has been achieved. Yeah, very, very happy and people can contact me on LinkedIn. That’s the best channel I use to interact. And yeah, I think it, it, it’ll be, it’ll be fun.

Jennifer Dawn: Wonderful. Thank you Kumar so much for being here with me today. You guys, that is a wrap for today’s episode. I hope you got some, I know there’s no way you could have listened and not gotten some wonderful tidbits from today’s show. That’s it for us today and get out there and have a happy, productive day y’all. Bye.

Kumar Parakala: Thank you, Jennifer. I.

Connect with Kumar Parakala and Jennifer Dawn Coaching

Connect with Kumar:

• LinkedIn: Kumar Parakala
• Book: Find his book, Lead to Disrupt Seven Keys to Success in a Changing World, on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online platforms.

Connect with Jennifer:

• Schedule a call with Jennifer ⁠here⁠: https://jenniferdawncoaching.com/schedule-call/
• Want to be a podcast guest?: https://forms.gle/hgS1wUWy6Y4ybJ319
• Want to know how your business is going? ⁠Take this quiz to know⁠: https://app.jenniferdawncoaching.com/freedomquiz
• Visit our website ⁠here⁠: https://jenniferdawncoaching.com/