Rashmi – Mumbai College Professor Who Cares

    A Mumbai college professor's students top university exams — but her real edge is that she genuinely cares. Rashmi's story shows why Relationship Quotient (RQ) matters as much in a classroom as in a boardroom.

    Rashmi – Mumbai College Professor Who Cares

    Rashmi – Mumbai College Professor Who Cares

    Rashmi teaches at one of Mumbai's most prestigious colleges, and her students consistently top university examinations. But ask around campus why students love her class, and marks are the second answer, not the first. The first answer is always some version of: she actually cares. That one distinction — between being respected for competence and being trusted for character — is the entire difference between EQ and RQ, and it is why Rashmi belongs in a chapter about Relationship Management.

    In short

    Where This Sits on Your Winning Kite

    In the Winning Kite (KITE Leadership Framework), success is not a solo trait — it is what happens when three forces work together: EQ (left side, how you manage yourself and read others), RQ (right side, how you build and sustain relationships), and PQ (bottom, how you get things done). Rashmi's story is a textbook RQ example. She is not necessarily the most brilliant academic in her department — the book never claims that. What lifts her above her peers is that she has mastered the right side of the kite: she builds relationships so strong that students trust her with things far beyond the syllabus. That trust, in turn, feeds back into better academic outcomes. This is the loop the Winning Kite describes — EQ and RQ are not separate from performance, they produce it.

    The Story: A Professor Who Sees the Whole Student

    In Stars at India Inc., Avinash Chate opens the Relationship Management (RQ) section with a simple but pointed question: have you ever wondered why some people seem to climb the professional ladder effortlessly? His answer is that it is rarely pure talent or hard work alone — it is who you know and, more importantly, how well you manage those relationships. He builds this idea through a set of quick, real-feeling portraits from very different corners of Indian working life, and Rashmi is one of the sharpest of them.

    Rashmi teaches at a prestigious Mumbai college. On paper, her credentials are what you would expect: strong subject command, a track record of students topping university examinations. But Avinash is careful to draw the reader's attention past the exam results to what is actually driving them. "Her popularity," he writes, "stems from something deeper: she genuinely cares about her students' wellbeing." That single sentence carries the whole chapter's argument. Care is not incidental to her teaching — it is the mechanism behind the results.

    What does that caring look like in practice? Rashmi takes time to understand her students' academic struggles — not just flag that a student is falling behind, but sit with why. Is it a concept they haven't grasped, a subject they're anxious about, a schedule that's overwhelming them? She goes further still, into personal challenges — family pressure, financial stress, the ordinary and extraordinary things 19- and 20-year-olds are quietly carrying while they're expected to perform in a lecture hall. And she offers guidance beyond textbooks: not academic content, but the kind of steady, human counsel a mentor gives when a student needs someone who has their back.

    The consequence, Avinash notes, is that Rashmi builds lasting relationships — not transactional, semester-long interactions, but real bonds that continue after students graduate. Those relationships foster mutual respect and trust, and that trust enriches her entire teaching environment. Students who trust their professor participate more, ask more honest questions, take more risks in their thinking, and — not coincidentally — perform better in exams. The classroom becomes a place where the emotional climate itself is a teaching tool.

    Why Avinash Places Rashmi Here — Not Just Among Corporate Names

    It would have been easy for the book to make its RQ case entirely with corporate examples. Instead, Avinash deliberately steps outside the office. Just before Rashmi, he introduces Rahul, a software engineer in a Bengaluru tech firm who resolves conflicts through patient listening rather than blame, and who has become the person his team wants leading them — not because he is the strongest coder, but because he is the one people trust to hold a room together. Then comes the line that sets up Rashmi: "But RQ isn't just for corporates."

    That sentence is the whole point. RQ is not an office skill you switch on with a badge and a desk. It is a human capability that shows up wherever people depend on each other — a classroom, a shop floor, a supplier negotiation, a sales territory. Avinash follows Rashmi with Gaurav, a plant supervisor in a Pune manufacturing firm who makes a habit of chatting informally with workers on the shop floor. That simple, unglamorous habit builds rapport and trust, which in turn makes conflict resolution smoother and measurably reduces attrition. Then Anjali, founder of a Delhi-based sustainable clothing brand, who uses high RQ to build genuine connections with suppliers, customers, and even competitors — empathizing with suppliers' challenges and aligning her business goals with their growth, which has made her business resilient even amid fierce competition. And Vishal, a pharmaceutical sales manager in Hyderabad, whose entire career hinges on maintaining strong relationships simultaneously across doctors (customers), suppliers, his own sales team, peers, and his own management chain.

    Lined up together — an engineer, a professor, a plant supervisor, a founder, a salesman — the message is unmistakable: RQ is universal. Rashmi is proof that this holds true even in a profession built around knowledge transfer, where you might assume subject mastery alone would be enough. It isn't. Care and connection outperform competence-alone every time, because people don't just want information from you — they want to feel understood by you.

    The Kite-String Analogy

    Avinash uses a memorable image right after these portraits: "If your professional journey is a kite, RQ represents the vital string that helps you maneuver smoothly through the turbulent winds of workplace dynamics. Without strong relationships, even the most talented individuals struggle to soar." Apply that to Rashmi directly. Her subject knowledge is the kite itself — necessary, but inert without something to guide it through the wind. Her RQ, her genuine care for her students, is the string. It is what lets her navigate difficult conversations with struggling students, handle parent expectations, mentor young people through personal crises, and still keep the whole classroom flying steady toward strong results. Cut the string — remove the care — and you still have a kite (a competent lecturer), but it will spin, stall, or crash the moment the wind gets difficult.

    The Essential Relationships — and Where Rashmi's Sits

    The book maps out the relationships every professional must manage: with management and seniors (which shapes appraisals and promotions), with subordinates and team members (which builds mutual respect and productivity), with colleagues (which reduces friction and enables teamwork), with customers (which drives referrals and repeat business), and with vendors and partners (which affects operational reliability). Rashmi's core relationship — with her students — maps most closely onto the "customer" and "subordinate" categories combined: students are the people she serves and the people she is responsible for developing. She has clearly mastered that particular quadrant of RQ, and the ripple effect is visible in exam toppers year after year.

    RQ BehaviourWhat Rashmi DoesResult
    Active listeningUnderstands each student's academic struggle in detail, not just the symptomTargeted, useful guidance instead of generic advice
    EmpathyTakes personal challenges seriously, not just academic onesStudents feel seen as people, not just as grade outcomes
    Going beyond the roleOffers guidance beyond textbooksMentorship that outlasts the semester
    AuthenticityCares genuinely, not performativelyMutual respect and trust that enrich the entire teaching environment

    Applying Rashmi's RQ at Your Workplace

    You don't need a classroom to apply this. Avinash distills the practical tips for boosting RQ into four habits, and Rashmi embodies all of them. Practice active listening — don't just hear, acknowledge feelings and respond thoughtfully; this is exactly what she does when a student is struggling, rather than offering a one-line dismissal. Empathy matters — always try to understand situations from others' perspectives; Rashmi does this instinctively when she separates an academic problem from a personal one. Regular check-ins — keep informal, regular contact with your team and peers, because it shows genuine concern and strengthens bonds; this is the daily texture of how she operates, not a once-a-semester gesture. And authenticity wins — people can sense sincerity, and they value it deeply; Rashmi's students trust her precisely because her care isn't manufactured for appraisal season.

    If you manage a team, ask yourself Rashmi's question in reverse: do the people who report to you, or work alongside you, believe you actually care about their wellbeing — or do they believe you care about their output? The two are not the same, and people can tell the difference instantly. Rashmi's students top exams not despite her caring about them as people, but because of it. The same causal chain runs through Indian offices every single day: managers who invest in people, not just projects, get better projects out of those people.

    This is also where Emotional Intelligence and Relationship Quotient visibly interlock — a dynamic the psychologist Daniel Goleman has long argued for in his work on EQ, and one the Winning Kite frames structurally: your EQ (self-awareness, empathy, self-regulation) is what makes strong RQ possible in the first place. Rashmi's empathy — an EQ trait — is the raw material her RQ is built from. You cannot fake the string of the kite; it has to be spun from something real.

    If your organisation is trying to build a culture where managers, team leads, and client-facing staff develop this same instinct — care that translates into measurable trust and measurable results — this is precisely the terrain covered in Avinash Chate's Signature Corporate Training Programs and the broader corporate training topics built around the Winning Kite framework.

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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

    Who is Rashmi in Stars at India Inc.?

    Rashmi is a professor at a prestigious Mumbai college whose students frequently top university examinations. Her popularity, Avinash Chate writes, comes not from her subject mastery alone but from genuinely caring about her students' wellbeing — she takes time to understand their academic struggles and personal challenges, offering guidance beyond textbooks.

    What is Relationship Quotient (RQ)?

    Relationship Quotient (RQ) is your ability to build and sustain trust-based connections — with seniors, peers, subordinates, customers, and vendors. In the Winning Kite framework, RQ is the right side of the kite, working alongside EQ (left) and PQ (bottom) to lift Success (top).

    Why does Rashmi's story matter outside academia?

    Because it proves RQ is not a corporate-only skill. Whether you are a professor, a plant supervisor, a sales manager, or a startup founder, the same principle applies: people perform better and stay loyal to those who genuinely understand and invest in them, not just those who are technically the best.

    How can I build RQ like Rashmi did?

    Avinash Chate recommends four practical habits: practice active listening instead of just hearing, try to see situations from the other person's perspective, keep regular informal check-ins, and stay authentic — people can sense when care is genuine versus performative.

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