By
Matthew Hearfield
July 14, 2025
Updated
July 14, 2025
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In this episode of The STEM Career Coach, Donnie Maclary sits down with Sumesh Rahavendra, Chief Digital & Strategy Leader at Pos Malaysia, to reveal how you can stop waiting for promotion and start leading at the level you aspire to right now.
Whether you’re an early-career engineer or a senior technologist, this candid, framework-driven conversation gives you the exact mindsets and behaviours to step into leadership, before the promotion arrives.
From technical expert to strategic leader
Act based on the role you want, not the role that you're in.
Many technical professionals hit a ceiling. not because they lack skill, but because they fail to shift mindset. Sumesh Rahavendra stresses that advancing from a technical role to a broader leadership role requires more than just deeper technical knowledge; it requires clarity, strategic thinking, and the ability to scale systems and people. It’s not about solving isolated problems it’s about building scalable solutions that unify operations, talent, and outcomes.
He challenges emerging leaders to think like the leaders they want to become. By aligning actions with aspirational roles, professionals can prepare themselves mentally, operationally, and emotionally for greater responsibilities. “Thinking better” becomes more important than “doing more.”
Customer-first thinking at every level
The customer pays your salary, customer pays your bonus... Without the customer we’re nothing, and we’ve got nothing.
For Sumesh, putting the customer at the centre isn’t just a value it’s a strategic imperative. Too often, internal conversations become siloed, and the “why” behind a product or process gets lost. He recalls a formative moment when a CEO reminded him who really signs the checks: the customer. That mindset reorients everything from product development to leadership meetings.
He points to Amazon’s symbolic “empty chair” for the customer as an example of how organizations can systematise customer-first thinking. The goal isn’t just external it's internalising customer empathy throughout the company, from C-suite to front line. As Sumesh notes, “If the voice of the customer is not in this room, then what is the point?”
Curiosity, deep dives, and ownership: Building influence without authority
Extraordinary results are produced by people who profoundly own what they’re doing.
What really builds influence beyond your formal title? According to Sumesh, it’s a combination of insatiable curiosity, the ability to deep-dive into details, and a strong sense of ownership. These traits fuel credibility and trust, especially in cross-functional or matrixed environments where authority is distributed.
Curiosity drives questions that uncover better answers. Deep dives show commitment to understanding not just skimming. And ownership creates a sense of leadership at any level, motivating individuals to deliver results as if the business were their own. It’s this mindset that transforms subject-matter experts into trusted influencers.
Micromanagement vs Empowerment
Letting go of a false illusion of control can produce significantly better results.
Micromanagement is often rooted in fear fear of losing control, fear of failure, fear of being judged. Sumesh reframes this dynamic: control is an illusion. Leaders who learn to trust their teams and create clear check-in mechanisms (instead of hovering) enable better performance and more ownership.
He emphasizes that micromanagement stifles creativity and erodes trust. True leadership lies in creating psychological safety, establishing direction, and stepping back to let people excel. And the irony? Teams often deliver better results when the manager steps away and gives them space.
Cross-Functional leadership through lifelong learning
It’s in your DNA—if I don’t know something, I want to go figure it out.
Despite now leading digital strategy at a national carrier, Sumesh didn’t start in tech he studied economics and built his early career in commercial roles. What enabled his rise across C-level roles in different functions wasn’t a specific degree, but a relentless desire to learn. “Curiosity is almost a need,” he says and that need leads to growth.
This hunger to learn transcends job titles. From sales to tech to people strategy, Sumesh pursued roles outside his comfort zone because they gave him the chance to learn something new. In today’s hybrid work world, cross-functional leadership is more important than ever and it starts with a learning mindset.
Key takeaways
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Leadership growth begins when technical professionals think and act beyond their current role.
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Keeping the customer’s voice central is vital to both strategic clarity and organizational alignment.
- True influence is earned through curiosity, deep understanding, and taking full ownership of outcomes.
- Empowered teams thrive when leaders trade control for trust and structured autonomy.
- Lifelong learning is the gateway to cross-functional leadership in an ever-evolving tech landscape.
Article and quotes have been edited for brevity and clarity.
