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Shalini Srivastava
Leadership Mastery Expert, Business Transformation Consultant & Leadership Coach
More than ever, today, there is a need for such strong, thoughtful, and impactful leaders. But leadership does not come with a title or a team. It comes through learning to lead oneself, managing the mind that manages everything else, and understanding one’s own thoughts before trying to understand others.
That shift in perspective changes the very meaning of leadership, and it is this understanding that inspired Shalini Srivastava to begin her journey in leadership coaching.
Where Coaching Found Its Root
Shalini Srivastava began her career in sales and marketing, driving numbers, building strategies, and leading teams. But along the way, she realized that despite managing targets and people, she hadn’t learned how to lead herself. This realization led her to question what true leadership is about managing one’s mind that manages everything else. By understanding herself better, she could understand others better, which naturally led her to coaching.
Shalini has gathered 30 years of experience in coaching and training, first as part of her professional roles and, for the last six years, through her own leadership coaching business. Today she brings her coaching expertise to varied industries including retail, FMCG, pharma, IT, manufacturing, hospitality, real estate among others. Her focus has been on helping individuals, teams, and organizations grow by evolving themselves, taking ownership of their growth, and becoming more accountable.
Motivation behind her Journey
What truly motivated Shalini to step into coaching was her curiosity about human behaviour. Observing various leaders, some highly effective and others struggling, made her realize that the difference lies in awareness and understanding of one’s own mind. This insight became the foundation of her work: by helping people understand what drives their actions and bringing awareness into their leadership, she saw the possibility of shaping stronger, more conscious leaders.
Today, Shalini works as a leadership and business coach, helping leaders and teams develop self-awareness, strengthen their leadership skills, and create impact within their organizations.
Distinctive Approach
Shalini’s coaching spans three dimensions: individuals, small and medium-sized organizations, and large companies. With large companies, her focus is on helping them scale in the right way by building clarity, compliance, and leadership culture, and aligning leaders with the organization’s direction. With smaller organizations, her role is to bring structure so that growth is not accidental but intentional, helping them understand vision, set goals, assign accountability, and monitor progress. With individuals, her work goes deeper into habits, behaviours, beliefs, and limitations, creating awareness that leads to growth.
What sets Shalini apart is her ability to blend strategy, psychology, spirituality and growth into a holistic approach. She says, “It’s not about fixing what’s wrong, but evolving what’s right within”.
She says, “For me, it is not just about boosting performance metrics but about working with the person behind the performance, The inner energy, the mind that drives it. Once that is aligned, everything else becomes possible”. As she shares in her book, “When your inner energy aligns with your intent, leadership flows effortlessly”.
Challenges Leaders Face & Shalini’s Way Forward
Over the years, Shalini has noticed two major challenges while working with leaders. The first is ego. Many leaders are well-read and highly knowledgeable about leadership theories and strategies. But that very knowledge becomes a barrier, limiting their openness to evolve. They understand the concepts yet struggle to live them.
The second challenge is time. Leaders are so consumed by the urgency of delivering results that they neglect their own inner growth. Their focus is on performing, achieving, and getting things done, while internal reflection and self-awareness always take a back seat. As she writes in 'The Evolving Leader in You',“When you stop growing within, everything outside eventually pauses too”.
To address these challenges, Shalini sets two ground rules at the beginning of any coaching assignment. She must be able to connect with the leader at a deeper, internal level, and they must commit time to the process. She uses reflection-based tools, self-awareness exercises, probing questions, and real business scenarios as mirrors that help leaders see themselves more clearly. This process enables them to monitor their actions, build leadership habits, and align their choices with their long-term vision.
The Journey Forward
Shalini keeps herself updated through a genuine curiosity that has guided her entire journey. From leadership psychology, business environment and organizational design to culture transformation and human behaviour, she reads widely and draws insights from a mix of mainstream and esoteric subjects, including spirituality, quantum physics and astrology.
Right now, she’s exploring how AI can enhance leadership coaching, creating feedback systems for clients, and even experimenting with AI-driven storytelling and short films.
Recently, she published a book, “The Evolving Leader in You”. The book looks at leadership as something situational rather than fixed, using human evolution and the Indian Dashavatara metaphor to illustrate how leaders can bring the right energy in different situations. Through stories, reflections, and practical questions, it encourages leaders to move beyond a single style and respond to what a situation truly demands.
“Leadership isn’t about who you are at all times; it’s about who you choose to become in this moment”.
Distinctive Approach
Shalini’s coaching spans three dimensions: individuals, small and medium-sized organizations, and large companies. With large companies, her focus is on helping them scale in the right way by building clarity, compliance, and leadership culture, and aligning leaders with the organization’s direction. With smaller organizations, her role is to bring structure so that growth is not accidental but intentional, helping them understand vision, set goals, assign accountability, and monitor progress. With individuals, her work goes deeper into habits, behaviours, beliefs, and limitations, creating awareness that leads to growth.
What sets Shalini apart is her ability to blend strategy, psychology, spirituality and growth into a holistic approach. She says, “It’s not about fixing what’s wrong, but evolving what’s right within”.
She says, “For me, it is not just about boosting performance metrics but about working with the person behind the performance, The inner energy, the mind that drives it. Once that is aligned, everything else becomes possible”. As she shares in her book, “When your inner energy aligns with your intent, leadership flows effortlessly”.
Leadership isn’t about titles or roles, but about a deep desire to contribute and shape the future by connecting who you are now to your highest potential through growth that begins within
Challenges Leaders Face & Shalini’s Way Forward
Over the years, Shalini has noticed two major challenges while working with leaders. The first is ego. Many leaders are well-read and highly knowledgeable about leadership theories and strategies. But that very knowledge becomes a barrier, limiting their openness to evolve. They understand the concepts yet struggle to live them.
The second challenge is time. Leaders are so consumed by the urgency of delivering results that they neglect their own inner growth. Their focus is on performing, achieving, and getting things done, while internal reflection and self-awareness always take a back seat. As she writes in 'The Evolving Leader in You',“When you stop growing within, everything outside eventually pauses too”.
To address these challenges, Shalini sets two ground rules at the beginning of any coaching assignment. She must be able to connect with the leader at a deeper, internal level, and they must commit time to the process. She uses reflection-based tools, self-awareness exercises, probing questions, and real business scenarios as mirrors that help leaders see themselves more clearly. This process enables them to monitor their actions, build leadership habits, and align their choices with their long-term vision.
The Journey Forward
Shalini keeps herself updated through a genuine curiosity that has guided her entire journey. From leadership psychology, business environment and organizational design to culture transformation and human behaviour, she reads widely and draws insights from a mix of mainstream and esoteric subjects, including spirituality, quantum physics and astrology.
Right now, she’s exploring how AI can enhance leadership coaching, creating feedback systems for clients, and even experimenting with AI-driven storytelling and short films.
Recently, she published a book, “The Evolving Leader in You”. The book looks at leadership as something situational rather than fixed, using human evolution and the Indian Dashavatara metaphor to illustrate how leaders can bring the right energy in different situations. Through stories, reflections, and practical questions, it encourages leaders to move beyond a single style and respond to what a situation truly demands.
“Leadership isn’t about who you are at all times; it’s about who you choose to become in this moment”.
