Author Talks: Can you fulfill your ambition and compose a life?

In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey Global Publishing’s Ramya DRozario speaks with Kamini Ramani, a technology marketing leader with a 40-year career and founding member of the South Asian women’s professional network Neythri, about Lotus Leadership: A Modern Playbook of Ancient Wisdom (HarperCollins Publishers, September 2026). Drawing on conversations with women of Indian heritage working in corporate America, Ramani explores how heritage, adversity, relationships, and self-belief have shaped their paths to leadership—and offers a lens for thinking about professional achievement and life beyond work.

Some of the leadership qualities the book explores—such as combining empathy with a focus on results—are familiar ones. Ramani’s Lotus framework considers them through the lens of duality: the capacity to hold seemingly opposing qualities at once, rather than treating them as binary choices. The framework also raises a broader question about how relationships, community, and other sources of support can help people sustain ambition alongside a fulfilling life. An edited version of the conversation follows.

What is Lotus Leadership, and what inspired you to connect leadership principles with the symbolism and learnings of Hindu goddesses?

Lotus Leadership emerged from my conversations with more than 100 women of Indian origin a couple of years ago. Thirty of those women generously shared their wisdom to power the insights in the book. At its core, Lotus Leadership is an embrace of duality, of being able to be two things at once, which is similar to the principles of yoga, where strength and surrender, ease and exertion coexist so you can have a wonderful and fulfilling practice. In fact, an early reader of the book likened it to a yoga for business.

The inspiration to base the symbolism on the Hindu goddesses actually came from my conversations with the women I interviewed. To answer the question of how Indian women lead and how it is different from Western leadership, we explored the influences that powered our journey as leaders.

I conducted a survey to delve deeply into the role models that women had used for inspiration. And quite a few of the answers came from the deities and goddesses that we grow up with in India, such as Saraswati, Lakshmi, Parvati, Shakti, Tridevi, and more. But I want to be very clear that they’re meant as cultural touchstones, not religious motifs.

And just like you don’t have to be Indian to do yoga, you don’t have to be Indian to lead like a lotus. I think of heritage as learned wisdom, and anyone whose heritage powers their approach to leading can be a lotus leader.

I think of Lotus Leadership as yoga, which is something you can embrace for life and at its core has calm and resilience. For example, in the Parvati section of the book, the women talk about how they built a harmonious partnership with their chosen life partner, free of contention. The idea is that being a lotus leader lets you both fulfill your ambition and compose a life.

You describe leadership as embracing duality rather than choosing between two opposites. How can leaders practically apply this concept in today’s workplace?

Our polarized world today is not serving anyone. We need to reject the tyranny of the either/or and give ourselves permission to be two things at once. This will be a distinctive skill going forward and one thing that America can truly learn from Indian heritage. For example, leaders can embrace both so-called “feminine” and “masculine” styles of leadership. They can be both compassionate and aggressive. You can be both empathetic and hard-results driven.

Aparna Bawa, former chief operating officer of Zoom, kept that platform alive for all of us during COVID. She talks about her management approach as “loving tough,” which is different from “tough love” because it’s an act of loving. Aparna is very, very compassionate toward her direct reports, but she’s also very tough on them in terms of getting to the outcomes that they need. So leaders can adopt a combined approach.

Another example is Ritu Narayan, CEO and cofounder of Zūm—a company revolutionizing student transportation—who speaks about how her mission to safely transport school children across 19 states is a very lofty and noble one. At the same time, she runs this for-profit business as a tight ship that has enabled her to raise money from world-class investors at very favorable valuations. Today, Zūm is considered a start-up unicorn.

You’ve mentioned that self-promotion is a trait valued in men but derided in women. How can women better advocate for themselves?

As a lifelong marketer, one of the things that really bothers me is that formidable women leaders are hesitant to market their accomplishments. As a result, they remain hidden figures.

Perhaps, in Indian culture, it comes from an emphasis on being humble or not attracting the evil eye, or whatever superstition holds us back. But the art of self-promotion is something we can learn from our Western counterparts.

One of the best chapters in my book, titled “Wisdom from the Ultimate Tridevi,” comes almost at the end. It is about Indra Nooyi sharing her journey and insight. She has always been very vocal about the power of being known for the results you delivered and not just the position you held. She exhorts women not to be afraid to tell the world about their accomplishments. It is not a coincidence that she is one of the best-known leaders in the Indian community. She is a world-class CEO and a household name across America.

How did these leaders overcome self-doubt and imposter syndrome?

Being mansplained, dismissed, talked over, seeing someone take credit for your work, and having a toxic boss can certainly feed into your self-doubt. But one thing that struck me was how little imposter syndrome there was. Maybe because it takes so much courage to come to a new country as an immigrant—often to a small town where nobody can pronounce your name, relate to your food or your traditions—and that makes you build that inner conviction from day one.

It also helps if you have a partner who’s in the foxhole with you. In those cases, you’re both cheering each other on and going to fight the world out there, which may be biased and difficult to navigate.

Another factor with the women was their immigrant parents. The expectation of all the sacrifices your parents made to get you where you are is a type of collective expectation. Sometimes that can be crippling, but when taken in the right way, it also keeps you going.

That motivation from the formidable mothers whom many women spoke about really stood out for me. There are some strong examples of women who overcame self-doubt. One is Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, currently the CEO of Xero and founder of theBoardlist, an organization that helps women get on public boards.

She previously served in a position where she was criticized for being too intense in how she spoke to the secretaries on her second day at work. Completely puzzled by the criticism, she tried for six months to change her behavior but continued to receive negative feedback. Rather than shrinking to fit into the expectations of the role, Cassidy followed her principle of “Go where your values fit and your strengths are valued.” She left that company and went on to Google in the early days, where she made tremendous impact. She then went on to lead several companies and is now seen as a very experienced founder and CEO in Silicon Valley.

Another example is Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi, who leads a company that manufactures everything from vacuum cleaners to ventilators and now powers AI systems. At many times in her career, she would wonder if she was ready for the opportunities presented to her.

Having leaned into these different opportunities, she realized that you’re often “ready enough.” Today, she uses that phrase not just to tell women to feel confident about the opportunities they’re being presented but, more importantly, to tell male champions who want to hire them that they’re ready enough.

How should women today prepare to be Lotus Leaders of tomorrow?

The five traits of the framework I’ve developed are known as the “petals of lotus leadership.” It’s a way to both fulfill your ambitions and compose a life.

The first petal has to do with fusing the so-called feminine and masculine styles of your leadership, which I alluded to earlier. The second is to pursue curiosity rather than simply climbing the linear rungs of a ladder. The third is building harmonious relationships. The fourth is redefining abundance beyond material wealth to also include community enrichment, family harmony, team uplift, and giving back. The fifth is to own your power by combining the first four traits in a way that suits your specific position, your personality, and where you are in your journey.

In the book, I outline the traits of the framework with hard-hitting business stories from the women’s experiences. At the end of each section, I offer practical advice. These tips and tricks are especially helpful to rising stars who are not yet in the corner office and need a guidepost for how to get there.

What challenge in your life best reflects the metaphor of a lotus blooming in muddy waters?

In 1996, I was 33 years old and working for Steve Jobs. I spent a year working very closely with him as his communications adviser.

It was a tough time for him, but he was someone who never gave up on believing in himself. He taught me the meaning of the word “chutzpah.” It’s a Yiddish word that connotes audacity, brazen courage. It is similar to the word “himmat” we have in Hindi, which refers to bravery or inner strength.

I was working for Jobs at his tech company NeXT, but he was also the chairman of Pixar, an animation studio in which he had invested a few years earlier. He had an idea for a joint communications role for someone he trusted to help him with both of his companies.

I didn’t have any entertainment technology experience. Since the folks at Pixar were creative geniuses with a very different culture from the tech company I was more familiar with, I was hesitant about speaking with them about what my value-add could be there. Jobs clearly wanted them to feel that whoever he offered as a resource was someone that they valued.

He talked to me about chutzpah, about how I didn’t do a good job of marketing my strengths to that team. And he was right. I ended up not having that opportunity come my way, which was obviously disappointing. But from that experience, I really learned that you must have inner conviction, along with self-advocacy. If you’re not sitting in the chair at the table, you should be missed. Your absence should be felt even more than your presence.

As AI transforms workplaces, what leadership qualities should women prioritize?

In the world of AI, there are two really important qualities to consider: curiosity and storytelling with a soul.

The [career] ladder doesn’t work anymore for anyone. Instead, you zigzag around a rock wall and find a hold wherever you can to move forward. That extremely important mindset of curiosity and experimentation emerges in the examples of so many women in my book. The second leadership quality—storytelling with a soul—is one that is close to my heart. I don’t think AI can mirror that.

Why did you write this book and why now?

During more than 40 years in Silicon Valley, I worked with many men. At the same time, I kept running into these incredible women leaders who commanded the same power and respect as the men. But their stories were not told. And I was especially outraged that the success narrative around Indian Americans in the US kept getting focused on the men alone.

Yet the men are not the only ones. More importantly, we [Indian women] need to answer the question of how we succeeded as a way to help the next generation have a playbook to follow. That was the genesis of the project.

Given the vulnerability and humility with which the women in the book have shared their stories, I’m hopeful that it’s going to be a way for young leaders to embrace this practice and learn from it. These women in the book are so approachable and have been so honest about the mud that they navigated, whether it was a brain aneurysm, losing a parent young, having a child with special needs, and more.

As for why I wrote it now, we’re navigating a polycrisis of AI anxiety, economic uncertainty, political instability, among other challenges. It’s especially important to give the next generation a sense of optimism, a sense that they can lead with calm and resilience, and that they can make an impact on the world. They can do that and still be able to both have a life and fulfill their ambitions.

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