Pratiksha Mentoring Mohini: The Collaboration Story That Builds Leaders
How one senior colleague's decision to collaborate instead of compete turned a nervous new joiner into a confident leader — and what it teaches every manager about the trait of Collaboration and Cooperation.
When Mohini walked into her new job, she had the skills on paper but none of the confidence in her chest. What changed her trajectory wasn't a training manual — it was one senior colleague, Pratiksha, who chose to build Mohini up instead of quietly outshining her. That one decision is the entire trait of Collaboration and Cooperation in action.
In short- Pratiksha, an experienced and emotionally intelligent employee, saw potential in a new, under-confident colleague named Mohini instead of seeing competition.
- She chose to actively collaborate — mentoring, giving feedback, sharing knowledge — rather than protect her own position.
- Mohini grew from a hesitant new joiner into someone capable of leading herself, and the wider team benefited from the ripple effect.
- This is Trait #23, Collaboration and Cooperation, on the EQ side of the Winning Kite — and it sits right alongside the "Fevicol skill" and healthy boss-subordinate relationships in the same chapter.
- You can build this trait deliberately with peer mentoring, team-building practices, and conflict-resolution habits — it does not have to be accidental.
Where this sits on your Winning Kite
Every trait in Stars at India Inc. has an address on the Winning Kite (KITE Leadership Framework). The kite has four sides — EQ on the left, RQ on the right, PQ at the bottom, and Success at the top, the point all three sides are meant to lift you toward. Collaboration and Cooperation is Trait #23 of 25 on the EQ (Emotional Intelligence) side — under the cluster of skills Avinash Chate groups as "Motivating Others." It is a trait about working well with people, not just working hard alone. A kite with a strong EQ string but a torn RQ string still won't fly straight — and Pratiksha and Mohini's story shows exactly why the two are stitched together.
Who Are Pratiksha and Mohini?
Mohini was a new employee. When she first joined the company, she was inexperienced — the kind of inexperience that isn't really about ability but about not yet having proof that you belong in the room. She lacked confidence. Anyone who has watched a fresher in their first few weeks knows the pattern: hesitating before speaking in meetings, over-checking every small decision, staying quiet even with a good idea because the fear of being wrong is louder than the idea itself.
Pratiksha was already established in the company. She likely had high levels of emotional intelligence, and — this is the important part — she was able to work well with others. Not everyone with seniority has that combination. Plenty of experienced employees see a new joiner and, consciously or not, treat them as a threat to be managed rather than a colleague to be grown. Pratiksha did the opposite. She looked at Mohini and recognized her potential. Not her current output — her potential. That distinction is the seed of every good mentoring relationship.
The Choice to Collaborate
Here is where the story turns from a nice observation into a real leadership lesson: Pratiksha decided to collaborate with Mohini to help her grow. That word — decided — matters. Collaboration in this story wasn't a job description. Nobody assigned Pratiksha to be Mohini's mentor. It was a choice made by someone who understood that lifting a colleague up doesn't diminish you; it multiplies what the team can do.
By working collaboratively, Pratiksha did three concrete things:
- She mentored Mohini — sharing knowledge and context that isn't written in any onboarding document, the kind of institutional know-how that only comes from someone who has already made the mistakes.
- She provided feedback and support — not criticism thrown over the wall, but the steady, two-way kind of feedback that tells a person both what went wrong and that someone is invested in them getting it right next time.
- She helped Mohini build the skills needed to lead — moving the relationship beyond "doing tasks correctly" toward "being ready to take charge."
As a result, Mohini gained confidence and began leading herself. Read that phrase carefully — leading herself. The goal of good mentoring was never to make Mohini dependent on Pratiksha. It was to make Mohini capable of standing without her. That is the real test of whether collaboration was genuine: does the person you helped eventually need you less, in the healthiest sense of that word?
Why This Is Collaboration, Not Just Kindness
It would be easy to file this story under "Pratiksha was a nice person." But collaboration and cooperation, as an emotional-intelligence competency, is more specific and more strategic than niceness. People who have this skill can focus on getting a job done while also building and keeping good relationships with their coworkers. They are skilled at sharing plans, information, and resources with others, and they promote a friendly, cooperative climate in their workplace.
Pratiksha wasn't sacrificing her own goals to help Mohini — she was expanding them. A confident, capable Mohini was good for the team's output, good for the department's reputation, and, indirectly, good for Pratiksha's own standing as someone who develops talent rather than hoards it. When colleagues work well together and collaborate effectively, they can help each other grow and achieve success. That's not altruism dressed up as strategy — it's the recognition that success at work is rarely a solo act, however much individual scorecards pretend otherwise.
This is also where emotional intelligence does its quiet work. It highlights the role of EQ in building strong relationships and supporting others, which ultimately leads to greater success for the organization as a whole. Pratiksha had to read Mohini's hesitation correctly — to see potential where a less perceptive colleague might have seen only inexperience — and then had to manage her own instincts (impatience, the urge to just do it herself faster) to give Mohini room to develop.
The Same Chapter, Two More Angles on Collaboration
Avinash Chate places Pratiksha and Mohini's story inside a chapter that circles the same trait from several directions, and each one sharpens the lesson.
The "Fevicol Skill" — Being the Glue
Earlier in the same chapter, Avinash writes about his college friend Shrinivas, who had a unique ability to bring people together — the glue that held their friend group intact, planning every trip down to the detail. Shrinivas later became an entrepreneur and carried the same instinct into his professional team, creating an environment of camaraderie where people voice their opinions and contribute their unique talents. Ganpatrao Appasaheb Patil, chairman of Datta Sahakari Sugar Factory in Kolhapur — whom Avinash met while training in Sangli, at a factory surrounded by coconut trees and greenery — shows the same skill on a bigger stage, building relationships with employees, politicians, farmers, and banks like Dr. Appasaheb Urf Sa.Re.Patil of Jaysingpur Bank, all in service of a cooperative business culture.
Pratiksha's mentoring of Mohini is the Fevicol skill applied one-on-one — glue at the individual level, holding a new employee to the team long enough for her to find her footing.
Projective Identification — What Collaboration Prevents
The chapter also warns about what happens when collaboration is absent. Avinash recounts coaching a small 20-person firm where, in a meeting, the boss suddenly started shouting at a sales professional named Nandini — projecting her own insecurities and doubts onto Nandini instead of recognizing her own role in the team's struggles. This pattern, called projective identification, is collaboration's opposite number: instead of building someone up, a leader tears them down to avoid facing their own gaps. Avinash worked with the boss to build self-awareness and communicate honestly with Nandini, which rebuilt the relationship and, in time, the sales numbers. Pratiksha's story is what happens when a senior colleague chooses the opposite path from the very start.
How to Build This Trait on Your Team
Collaboration and cooperation isn't a personality trait some people are simply born with — it's a set of habits you can install deliberately. From the same chapter, here are the practical tools worth building into your team's routine:
| Tool | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Collaborative software/platforms | Keeps tasks, resources and communication transparent, so cooperation doesn't rely on memory or goodwill alone. |
| Team-building activities | Icebreakers to complex problem-solving tasks that build trust and camaraderie before a crisis forces it. |
| Conflict resolution training | Active listening, empathy and negotiation skills so disagreements get resolved, not avoided or escalated. |
| Peer feedback systems | A structured way for colleagues — not just managers — to recognize contributions and flag improvement areas. |
| Goal-setting exercises | Aligning individual and team objectives so cooperation is the fastest route to everyone's own targets too. |
Notice that Pratiksha didn't need any of this infrastructure to do what she did for Mohini — she simply had the underlying emotional intelligence. But most teams can't rely on hoping for a Pratiksha to show up. Building these systems is how an organization manufactures more Pratikshas instead of waiting for one.
The Manager's Takeaway
If you lead a team, the practical question this story leaves you with is simple: when a new, under-confident employee joins your team, do your senior people see an asset to develop or a threat to manage? Psychologist Daniel Goleman's research on emotional intelligence has long argued that the ability to read and manage relationships — not raw technical skill — is what separates good performers from great leaders. Pratiksha and Mohini's story is a small, human-scale proof of that idea, playing out in an ordinary Indian workplace rather than a case study from a Western business school.
Collaboration and cooperation, done well, produces a very specific kind of leader — one who did not claw their way up alone, and who therefore knows how to help someone else climb too. That is exactly the kind of culture Avinash Chate builds inside organizations through his Signature Corporate Training Programs and the wider set of corporate training topics he delivers to teams across India — from the Indian Army and BRO to RBI, BARC, JSW Steel, and more than a thousand leaders and counting.
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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 trait of Collaboration and Cooperation in emotional intelligence?
Collaboration and Cooperation is Trait #23 on the EQ side of the Winning Kite. It is the ability to work well with others toward shared goals while building and protecting relationships — sharing information, resources and credit, resolving conflict constructively, and helping colleagues grow rather than competing with them.
What is the story of Pratiksha and Mohini about?
Pratiksha and Mohini is a real workplace example from Stars at India Inc. Mohini joined a company as an inexperienced, low-confidence new employee. Pratiksha, a more experienced colleague with high emotional intelligence, chose to collaborate with and mentor Mohini instead of guarding her own turf. Mohini grew in skill and confidence and went on to lead herself, and the whole team benefited.
Why does mentoring a junior colleague count as collaboration, not just kindness?
Because collaboration is about working together toward a goal you both want. Pratiksha did not mentor Mohini out of charity — she recognised that a more capable, more confident Mohini made the whole team's output better and made her own job easier. That mutual benefit is what separates true collaboration from one-way generosity.
How can a manager build a culture of collaboration and cooperation like this?
Reward team outcomes over individual credit-grabbing, pair experienced employees with new joiners deliberately, run conflict-resolution and peer-feedback practices, and model open, non-defensive communication yourself. Avinash Chate's corporate training programs build this through practical exercises rather than lectures.
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