For creating some of the best global CEOs of today, you do need to thank Indian parenting especially the Indian mothers of a specific era.

There is no denying the fact that, whether it is Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, along with the top bosses of IBM, Adobe, Palo Alto Networks, VMWare, Twitter and Vimeo, they all have one thing in common, and that is, they are all of Indian descent. And going forward, it is quite likely that, this list will continue to grow.

I have seen people sight a number of reasons for this phenomenon, and I do think most of them are valid. For example, if you grew up in India during a specific time period ( 60’s -90’s to be more precise ), then you would know that from securing a birth certificate to school admissions, getting a phone line, to getting jobs, or getting access to Gods in a temple required developing especial negotiation skills and creating tools that is popularly known in India even today as “ jugaad”. So in a way, the system helps you become a natural manager.

Your ability to adapt, make good use of the existing resources or even when there is none, investing in right relationships that you can leverage to get things done, becomes part of your nature. And yes to a large extent the schools also play a role without a doubt. You do end up learning all this at a very young age from watching your parents navigate their way through life in India of a specific time period.

If you were to deep dive into the family structure and the role Indian mothers played then, you will realise that, most children growing up in middle class India at a specific time period were given the right pedigree needed to make them a success.

As a child, the mother was not only your anchor, but also the confidant, the protector, as well as the go-to-person for anything and everything. Unknowingly, you kept learning from her sacrifices, how she prioritised you and the family over herself, how she kept investing herself non stop everyday in your living, making sure you are protected from the wear and tear of living. You also learnt the power of ordinary and routine from your father among other things.

And if you were lucky enough to find yourself a strong anchoring partner then, your road to success was pretty much a guarantee.

A lot of factors and variables continuously play a role in the overall journey of a human being especially the trajectory and also the direction of that journey a human is on. And that is why one should give the right credence to the upbringing of a child. Because the fact is, most current Indian origin CEOs running large corporations have benefitted from the style of parenting that is also culturally quite intertwined with their overall approach.

So therefore, following the rule of credit where credit is due, I think, we should learn to acknowledge the important role that Indian mothers have played in creating the star managers of today. A tiger mother approach hasn’t worked, and will not work. I would go as far as to say that “ mother represents the type of love that knows no boundaries or barter, a mother represents the anchoring love that lives on even after she dies “, and this cultural upbringing of Indian mothers has helped create a breed of well liked global CEOs who are of Indian origin.