A Personal Mentor, Anytime You Want. That’s What This Book Delivers

Mainak Dhar

But how many people have access to such a mentor? A book by author Mainak Dhar, which seeks to help young managers learn invaluable leadership lessons through bite-sized, hundred-word answers to common career and leadership challenges, seeks to close this gap.

Published by Bloomsbury India, the book, Leadership in 100 Words, is inspired by a popular series of Dhar's LinkedIn posts (#leadershipin100words), which garnered over one million views. These were sparked by conversations Dhar was having with people he was mentoring, which made him realise that while he had been blessed with many great mentors throughout his career, many others did not have access to mentors to help guide them in life and career choices. These posts sought to address common questions people have about careers, through simple, straightforward advice- one hundred words at a time.

The COVID lockdowns of early 2020 made Dhar even more interested in mentoring. Seeing many young people facing career uncertainties, he made an open offer of help on LinkedIn, and soon was mentoring several dozen people- helping many of them think through their career choices in terms of what best fit them and playing to their passions and points of difference.

Through this experience, Dhar realised that many people needed the benefits of mentoring but did not have access to mentors. He hopes his book helps bridge the ‘mentoring gap' by making accessible his experience, and the accumulated wisdom of his mentors, to a large audience, who may not otherwise have access to mentorship from senior leaders. As the book's back cover says, it aims to almost become "A personal mentor readers can carry with them".

An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Dhar has worked in the corporate sector for over twenty-five years, with blue-chip multinationals like Procter & Gamble and General Mills, and is currently the CEO for India and South Asia with a leading multinational. He is also a prolific author, with more than twenty books to his credit. His last book, Brand New Start- Fast-Start your Career with the Power of Personal Branding, also published by Bloomsbury, won a Gold at the Non-Fiction Awards and a Bronze at the Reader's Favorite Awards in the United States. Leadership in 100 Words is available on Amazon (at https://www.amazon.in/Leadership-100-Words-Complex-Challenges/dp/9354355501/), other online retailers and in leading bookstores.