Mr. Ankush – trainer who chose duty over personal crisis

    When Ankush's father fell seriously ill, the training batch in Pune could not be rescheduled. He went anyway, delivered every session with full focus, and taught our whole company what commitment really costs.

    Mr. Ankush – trainer who chose duty over personal crisis

    Mr. Ankush – trainer who chose duty over personal crisis

    Some employees are committed when it's convenient. A rare few are committed when it costs them everything. Mr. Ankush, one of the trainers on my team, is the second kind - and his story, from the pages of my book Stars at India Inc., is one I still tell in every leadership room I walk into.

    In short

    Where this sits on your Winning Kite

    Commitment is Trait #9 in the Emotional Intelligence cluster - the left side of your Winning Kite (KITE Leadership Framework). On the kite, the top is Success, the right is RQ (Relationship Intelligence), the bottom is PQ (Productivity), and the left is EQ - the traits that let you manage your own inner state well enough to act with integrity under pressure. Commitment sits here because it is not a skill you perform when life is calm. It is a muscle you find precisely when life is not calm - which is exactly what Ankush's story proves.

    The story: a batch in Pune, a father in crisis

    Mr. Ankush is one of the trainers on my team - a shining example of commitment to our company. From the day he joined, he consistently demonstrated a dedication that went beyond his job description. He took on additional responsibilities without being asked. He never hesitated to travel to distant locations, sometimes well outside his comfort zone, to make sure that other trainers received adequate preparation and were capable of delivering their own sessions effectively. In an organisation that runs on trainers showing up, ready, in cities they've never seen before, Ankush had become someone we simply relied on.

    Then came the test that no training manual prepares you for.

    Ankush had a batch scheduled in Pune. Around the same time, his father fell seriously ill. Any parent, any child, will tell you what that moment does to your mind - the fear, the guilt, the instinct to drop everything and be there. Ankush requested the company to extend or reschedule the Pune batch. It was not an unreasonable ask. But the batch genuinely could not be moved - the participants, the venue, the client's own calendar were all locked.

    So Ankush faced a decision that had no comfortable answer. Stay with his father and let the company - and, more importantly, the participants waiting in Pune - down. Or travel to Pune, honour the commitment he had made months earlier, and carry his fear for his father with him the entire time.

    He chose to go.

    He travelled to Pune. He conducted the training sessions with full focus and complete professionalism. Nobody in that room that day would have known what he was carrying. He received excellent feedback from the participants - the kind of feedback that reflects genuine engagement, not just going through the motions. Only once the batch was complete did Ankush allow himself to exhale, and turn his full attention back to his father, whose condition, thankfully, improved.

    Why this is commitment, not martyrdom

    I want to be precise about what Ankush's story is - and what it is not. It is not a story that says "sacrifice your family for your job." That would be a dangerous, wrong lesson, and it is not the one Ankush's story teaches. He did not abandon his father. He made a hard call inside a genuine bind - a batch that could not be moved, and a father whose condition, while serious, allowed for Ankush to keep his word and then return.

    What makes this commitment, in the true sense, is that Ankush did not let his personal turmoil leak into his professional delivery. He walked into that Pune classroom carrying real fear, and he still delivered sessions good enough to earn excellent feedback. That is emotional regulation of the highest order - the ability to hold two realities at once, the crisis at home and the responsibility in the room, without letting one destroy the other.

    Daniel Goleman, whose work on emotional intelligence has shaped how the world talks about EQ, describes self-regulation as the capacity to manage disruptive emotions and impulses effectively. Ankush's Pune batch is that idea made flesh. He didn't suppress his worry - he simply refused to let it become an excuse. That refusal is what separates a committed professional from merely a compliant one.

    Commitment is tested in crisis, not in comfort

    Here is the pattern I have seen repeat itself across every organisation I have trained - the Indian Army, BRO, RBI, BARC, JSW Steel, and more than a thousand corporate leaders in between. Commitment is easy to fake when everything is going well. Anyone can look dedicated on a good day, with a full night's sleep, a calm mind, and no crisis pulling at their attention.

    The real test of commitment always arrives disguised as bad timing. It shows up as the deadline that lands the same week as a family emergency. It shows up as the client call that clashes with a personal setback nobody else knows about. It shows up, as it did for Ankush, as a sick parent and an immovable training batch.

    This is why I tell leaders: if you want to know who on your team is truly committed, stop watching them on their easy days. Watch what they do when life gets in the way. The employee who still shows up, still delivers, and still gets excellent feedback in the middle of a personal storm - that employee is not just doing a job. They are demonstrating a trait that no amount of skill training can manufacture.

    I think often of Captain Vikram Batra, whose story I also tell in Stars at India Inc. During the Kargil War, after capturing the heavily fortified Point 4875, Batra was hit by enemy fire while clearing the area of remaining troops. Despite his injuries, he refused to be evacuated and continued leading his team until the position was secured - a commitment that cost him his life and earned him India's highest military honour, the Param Vir Chakra, posthumously. I am not equating a training batch with a war zone. But the underlying trait is identical: the refusal to let personal cost become the reason you break your word to the people depending on you.

    What Ankush's story asks of every professional

    When the batch needs someone to show up even though rescheduling would have been easier - will you? When there's a crisis in your own life at the worst possible hour - will you still deliver on what you promised, or will you use the crisis as a reason to quietly let people down? That is what commitment looks like, stripped of all the corporate language around it.

    Committed professionals are, in a real sense, the natural boosters of any organisation. They are the ones who stay focused when focus is hardest to find. They are willing to bear short-term personal cost for a promise they made - not because someone is watching, but because keeping their word matters to who they are. That is precisely why companies quietly build their most important work around people like Ankush, and why such employees are the ones who eventually get handed bigger responsibilities and greater trust.

    How to build - and spot - commitment on your team

    Commitment is not a trait you can install with a single training session, but you can deliberately cultivate the conditions that grow it.

    Commitment on its own is powerful, but on the Winning Kite it works alongside Relationship Intelligence and Productivity to actually lift performance - a deeply committed person who cannot collaborate, or who burns out from never saying no, will still struggle to rise. That balance is exactly what I unpack further on the Winning Kite (KITE Leadership Framework) page, and it's the backbone of the workshops I run through our Signature Programs and the wider corporate training topics we deliver for teams across India.

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    Avinash Chate

    TEDx Speaker · Founder, The Future Corporate · Author of Stars at India Inc.

    Avinash has trained the Indian Army, BRO, RBI, BARC, JSW Steel and 1000+ corporate leaders across India. His work focuses on leadership, emotional intelligence and behavioural training rooted in Indian values and modern business needs.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What is the story of Mr. Ankush in Stars at India Inc.?

    Mr. Ankush was a trainer at Avinash Chate's company who was scheduled to conduct a training batch in Pune. When his father fell seriously ill, he asked the company to reschedule the batch, but it could not be moved. Rather than skip his commitment, Ankush travelled to Pune, delivered every session with full focus and professionalism, and received excellent feedback from participants, before returning to be with his father.

    Why is commitment considered an EQ trait rather than just a work ethic?

    Commitment requires you to regulate your own emotions - fear, grief, anxiety - well enough to keep a promise to someone else. That emotional regulation under real personal pressure is what places Commitment on the EQ (left) side of the Winning Kite, alongside Emotional Awareness and Self-Regulation.

    How can I tell if an employee is truly committed or just compliant?

    Compliance shows up when things are easy. Commitment shows up when things are hard - a personal crisis, a thankless task, a deadline nobody is watching. Test it by observing behaviour during genuine setbacks, not by asking employees to describe their own dedication.

    Does being committed mean sacrificing family for work?

    No. Ankush did not abandon his father - he made a hard call in a genuine bind, delivered on his word, and went straight back to his father's side once the batch was done. Real commitment is not glorified overwork; it is keeping your promises even when it costs you something, while still returning to what matters most.

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