Mr. Kaustubh's 'Kya personality hai tera' encouragement

    One Hindi sentence from my guru Mr. Kaustubh in 2013 rewired how I saw myself — and it taught me the real mechanics of Developing Others and the Pygmalion Effect, the leadership trait that turns average performers into stars.

    Mr. Kaustubh's 'Kya personality hai tera' encouragement

    Mr. Kaustubh's 'Kya personality hai tera' encouragement

    One sentence, spoken in Hindi by a man who had no reason to invest in me, rewired how I saw myself. It is the reason I believe leadership's most underrated job is not correcting people — it is convincing them, credibly, of what they are capable of.

    In short

    Where this sits on your Winning Kite

    Developing Others is the fifteenth trait on the EQ — left — side of your Winning Kite (KITE Leadership Framework). EQ traits govern how you understand and manage yourself and others; Developing Others is where that self-understanding turns outward and starts building people. Get the EQ side wrong — for example, giving feedback without empathy or self-awareness — and your RQ (relationships) and Success sides of the kite never get airborne, no matter how skilled you are on paper.

    An average student, and a line that didn't let me stay average

    I want to take you back to my college years, because that is where this story actually begins — not in a boardroom, not on a stage, but in a classroom where I was, by any honest measure, an average student. I did not stand out. I did not think of myself as someone who was going anywhere in particular. Confidence was not something I had in surplus; if anything, I had learned to expect very little of myself, because that is what the world around me seemed to expect too.

    Then in 2013, I met Mr. Kaustubh. He became, in every sense that matters, my guru — not because he taught me a subject, but because he saw something in me that I did not see in myself. He looked past the average grades and the quiet uncertainty and said one sentence that I still carry, word for word, more than a decade later: "Kya personality hai tera, tu to kuch bhi kar sakta hai." What a personality you have — you can do anything.

    It sounds simple when you read it on a page. It was not simple in what it did to me. That one line, spoken in Hindi, in a moment that probably felt unremarkable to him, sparked something I can only describe as a change in mindset. It was not that I suddenly became talented overnight. It was that someone whose judgment I trusted had looked at me and decided I was worth believing in — and once I had that belief on loan from him, I slowly started being able to generate it myself.

    With Mr. Kaustubh's continued support and guidance, I began to unlock potential I did not know I had. He taught me the value of hard work, of determination, of self-belief that is renewed daily rather than felt once and forgotten. He showed me, through his own patience with me, that with the right mindset and the right approach, almost anything becomes possible. I went on to build a career as an entrepreneur and corporate trainer — the very thing that has let me stand in front of the Indian Army, BRO, RBI, BARC, and JSW Steel and talk about leadership. None of that starts without that one sentence in 2013.

    The Pygmalion Effect: why belief performs like a strategy

    There is a name for what Mr. Kaustubh did, and it comes from organisational psychology: the Pygmalion Effect. It states that when leaders hold genuinely high expectations of their people, those people are more likely to perform at a higher level. Not because the expectation magically transfers skill, but because the expectation changes how the person sees themselves — and self-image is one of the strongest predictors of effort, risk-taking, and resilience there is. (This idea sits close to what Carol Dweck later popularised as the growth mindset — the belief that ability is not fixed but can be developed through effort and support. Mr. Kaustubh was living that principle before I had a name for it.)

    This was evident in my own experience, but it is not a private phenomenon — it shows up everywhere leaders take developing people seriously. When Anil Kumble was appointed head coach of the Indian cricket team in 2016, one of his biggest challenges was helping Ravichandran Ashwin regain form during a rough patch of inconsistency and shaky accuracy. Instead of criticising Ashwin, Kumble chose to hold positive expectations of him and back that belief with real support. He spent hours with Ashwin, analysing strengths and weaknesses together, helping him work on his variations and rebuild his confidence. In a match against England, when Ashwin was struggling, Kumble simply walked up to him and told him to stay calm and focus on his strengths. Ashwin took that in — and in the very next match, he delivered a match-winning performance, taking six wickets and helping India win. That is the Pygmalion Effect on a cricket field: belief, backed by support, converted into performance.

    The same pattern shows up with Ravi Shastri and a young, raw Jasprit Bumrah. Rather than criticise Bumrah's rough edges, Shastri chose to have positive expectations of him, encouraged him to work specifically on his weaknesses, and gave him the guidance to become one of India's leading fast bowlers. In every one of these stories, the mechanism is identical to what happened to me in 2013: a leader decides, ahead of the evidence, to believe in someone — and that belief becomes the environment in which real growth can happen.

    Belief alone isn't enough — clarity has to follow it

    It would be incomplete, though, to say that Developing Others is only about warm words. Belief opens the door; clarity and structure are what let a person actually walk through it. Shane Warne understood this when he took over as captain of the Rajasthan Royals in the first edition of the IPL in 2008. The team was not considered strong, but Warne changed that by developing his players with precision. He had clear, individual conversations with each team member, understood their specific strengths and weaknesses, and assigned clear roles. Swapnil Asnodkar, the opener, was told to bat aggressively and maintain a high strike rate. Graeme Smith was asked to play a more cautious, stabilising role at the top of the order. That clarity — each player knowing exactly what was expected of them — created unity and confidence, and the Rajasthan Royals went on to win that first IPL season.

    You see the same discipline in the Chennai Super Kings during IPL 2023, where MS Dhoni, as coach and captain, built a strong sense of unity by communicating roles and expectations clearly with players like Shivam Dube and Ajinkya Rahane — both of whom went on to deliver exceptional performances in exactly the roles they were given clarity on.

    What developing others actually requires of you as a leader

    Pulling these threads together — my own story with Mr. Kaustubh, Kumble and Ashwin, Shastri and Bumrah, Warne and Dhoni with their teams — a practical shape emerges for how you develop the people around you at work:

    None of this works, however, without the two EQ qualities that sit right alongside Developing Others on the kite: empathy and self-awareness. Without empathy, you cannot correctly read what a person actually needs to hear. Without self-awareness, you risk projecting your own bad day onto someone else's feedback conversation. Skip either, and every effort at ‘developing’ your team will meet quiet resistance instead of growth. (This is close in spirit to what Daniel Goleman identified as the emotional intelligence competencies underlying good leadership — self-awareness and empathy as the base layer everything else is built on.)

    Why this belongs on the EQ side of your kite, not just in an HR policy

    It would be easy to file ‘developing others’ under performance management — a checklist, a template, an annual review cycle. But the Kaustubh story is proof that the real engine is emotional, not procedural. He did not schedule a development conversation. He said one sentence, at the right moment, because he had actually seen me and believed what he said. That is EQ working exactly as it should — self-awareness and empathy on his part, translated into a belief he was willing to say out loud to someone who badly needed to hear it.

    If you are leading a team today, ask yourself honestly: is there someone on your team who is capable of far more than they currently believe about themselves? And have you ever told them that — specifically, sincerely, the way Mr. Kaustubh told me? That single act, repeated consistently and backed with real support the way Kumble backed Ashwin and Warne backed his openers, is very often the highest-leverage thing a leader can do in an entire quarter.

    If you want to build this capability across your leadership team — not as a slogan but as a practiced skill — explore Avinash Chate's Signature Corporate Training Programs or browse the full set of corporate training topics, including sessions built specifically around Developing Others, feedback, and the Pygmalion Effect. And if you'd like to bring Avinash in to speak or train your organisation directly, get in touch here.

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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 Pygmalion Effect in leadership?

    The Pygmalion Effect is the psychological finding that when a leader genuinely holds high expectations of someone, that person tends to rise to meet those expectations. Belief expressed sincerely and consistently changes how a person sees their own ability, which changes their effort, which changes their results.

    What happened between Avinash Chate and Mr. Kaustubh?

    In 2013, when Avinash Chate was an average, low-confidence college student, his guru Mr. Kaustubh told him, 'Kya personality hai tera, tu to kuch bhi kar sakta hai' (What a personality you have, you can achieve anything). That single line of belief became a turning point that helped Avinash go on to build a career as an entrepreneur and corporate trainer.

    Where does Developing Others sit on the Winning Kite framework?

    Developing Others is Trait #15 on the EQ (Emotional Intelligence) side — the left panel — of the Winning Kite Leadership Framework. It works alongside Empathy and Self-Awareness, and it feeds directly into the RQ and Success sides of the kite.

    How can a manager apply the Pygmalion Effect at work?

    Start every feedback conversation by naming a genuine strength, be specific about what you believe the person is capable of, give them stretch assignments that match that belief, and follow up so the belief is reinforced by real support — not left as an empty compliment.

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