By Sanjay Ishwarlal Upadhyay

10 Inspiring Leadership
lessons from a Teabag
• Given that most leaders are finding themselves
in hot water,
• Maybe we can learn a few lessons from
something that thrives in hot water: The
Humble Teabag. 
• As you sip your next cup of tea, here are some
leadership lessons to take away from the tea
bag. Lessons to help make your life the perfect
brew!
 1. What counts is what’s inside
the Teabag.
• All Teabags have different packaging, some with fancy one
some with simple one.
• But the quality of the beverage is determined by the tea inside
the bag – not by the label or the string. 
• What’s true for teabags is true for all of us too.
• The fancy title or the qualification or the Alma mater, the
clothes we wear and the label and the string, only make you
look nice.
• What really matters is  the kind of person you are deep down.
• Your beliefs and your attitude – that’s what defines the person
you are.
 2. The real flavor comes through only
when the Teabag gets into hot water.
• If you take a cup of lukewarm water and dip a teabag
in it, you won’t know how strong the tea is.
• To get the best flavor, you need to dunk the teabag in
hot water. And only them will its real strength show!
• Likewise, the true character of a leader shines
through in adversity.
• How does a person behave under pressure, when he is
in “hot water”?
• The hot water test is a good one for judging the
quality of the tea. And the true character of leaders
 3. Good teabag look forward to
getting into hot water.
• When a teabag sees hot water, it says, “Wow! Can’t
wait to get in!”  Teabags love hot water, they don’t
run away from it. They know they were made just for
this! This will give them a chance to show their true
worth.
• Great leaders relish on challenges. They love the
opportunity to test skills and prove their real mettle.
• Just as teabags love hot water. So the next time you
see a challenge, a tough situation, think like a teabag
and dive headlong into it, it may be the opportunity
you’ve been waiting for to show what you are capable
of.
 4. A Teabag must be porous.
• Imagine you have the best tea in the world and you put it
into a bag that’s impermeable. It won’t work. You just
won’t be able to make a cup of tea.
• For teabag to work, it need to be porous. You need the tea
and the water to come in contact with each other.
• In our lives too, we cannot survive and thrive in isolation
Leaders need to be careful not to build walls around
themselves that prevent people from reaching out to
them.
• As a leader, you need to be able to touch other people.
Else, all that’s inside will be wasted- untouched by all the
good around you the tea was meant to mix with the
water.
 5. Teabags work, never mind
where they are in the cup.
• Once you dip a teabag in a cup, it doesn’t matter where
the teabag sits. It could be at the top, on the side or right
at the bottom, it will work.
• The teabag’s efficacy is not linked to its position in the
cup.
• It is a mistaken notion that leadership is only about the
guy at the organization.
• Leaders are everywhere. And you shouldn’t let your
‘position’ in the hierarchy limit your impact as a leader.
Position is irrelevant.
• Leaders derive their strength from within- not from a title
or a position in the organization.
 6. Sometimes, one Teabags is
just not enough.
• If the pot is very large, then one teabag may not be
sufficient to make a good beverage. It can try its best,
but the tea will just not be strong enough. The
solution is simple add another teabag.
• And that can be true of organizations too. Sometimes
the enormity of the challenge could call for more than
one leader. And leaders don’t need to feel
inadequate-or incompetent- when asking for help.
• Asking for assistance is not a sign of weakness. It is
often a sign of great strength and self-confidence.
The solution is simple add another teabag.
 7. Sometimes, you need to add
some sugar and milk.
• If what you are looking for is a cup of tea with milk
and sugar, no teabag in the world can give that to you
by itself. You need to add milk and sugar.
• Sometimes, the business needs complementary skill
sets that no single leader can provide. Good leaders
learn to hunt in packs.
• Good Leaders find partners or colleagues who
complement their skill sets and fill in the missing
pieces. This helps ensure that the result meets the
objective.
 8. Someone else hold the string
always.
• No matter how strong the teabag is, it recognizes that
someone else holds the string in his or her hands. And
they can pull the teabag out and throw it away any they
like. No questions asked.
• That ‘s a humbling thought which leaders must never lose
sight of. No matter how powerful a leader becomes, he
must remember there is a string tied to him that’s in the
hand of some other stakeholder or the board.
• The realization of this truth can help ensure that leaders
don’t let power go to their and begin seeing themselves
as lords and masters of all they survey.
 9. It’s all about how good the
tea is. Not the Teabag!
• Nobody ever drank a cup of tea and said , ‘Wow, that was
a great teabag!’
• He’d say ‘That was a great cup of tea!’
• In the ultimate analysis, leaders get remembered not for
how good they themselves were, but for how good their
teams and the institutions that they built were.
• Too often , leaders get caught up with looking at
themselves in the mirror rather than turning the spotlight
on their teams, their organizations-and their results.
• Good leaders never forget – ‘it’s not about me. It’s
about them’.
 10. Eventually, Teabags need to
make way and get out.
• Teabags recognize that once the brew is ready, they
need to move on. They realize that if they stayed on
any longer, they’d some in the way of the person
enjoying his cup of tea! 
• Alas, too many leaders see themselves as being
indispensable and overstay their welcome! They get
so taken with their own abilities and greatness that
they start believing that if they were to leave, the
organization wouldn’t survive.
• So visualize the teabag. And remember that getting
out is a normal and necessary  part of the tea-making
process.
To Conclude…

•Just as the true flavor of a Teabag comes

through only when it is dipped in hot
water,
•The true character of a leader shines
through in adversity, under pressure.
•The hot water test is a good one for
teabags and for leaders.
 Content Credit
• http://inspireindeed.com/2016/inspiring-leadership-lessons-fro
m-a-teabag
/
 The next time you pick up a cup of
tea, savor the flavor. Enjoy the moment.
And think of the lessons too!

By Sanjay Ishwarlal
Upadhyay