Shoba Mohan
A chance foray into travel and circumstances for Shoba Mohan led to enterprise and entrepreneurship. The result was RARE India in 2004. Shoba’s myriad interests and evolution in travel run parallel to that of RARE, yet writing about issues, nature, and conservation continue to be areas of personal interest.
With over 20 years in the travel industry, Shoba Mohan sits on board of several associations such as RTSOI and has recently been appointed as the Brand Ambassador for Transformational Travel Council. Often called upon for her views and vision for a conservation and community-based tourism economy, Shoba has moderated sessions on Indian tourism, trends, luxury and sustainable tourism while having rendered keynote addresses on conscious luxury travel, over-tourism and impact tourism.
She has worked with schools and designed programs to educate and inspire children about nature and their role to preserve and protect the planet. She works tirelessly to uphold the image and beauty of the country through the strengths she sees as a powerful narrative to promote every aspect of the country.
For Shoba, empowering and engaging with the people she is leading is the easy part, but how it is perceived is the challenge. Ownership and constant learning are something she advises her team. She also encourages them to learn from each other as each one of us has unique skills that they can contribute to the strength of the team. She constantly reminds her team of the fundamental of being together; “We are all in this together. We work together and have each other’s back. Enjoy the spoils of all the hard work together.” It works with some and not with others. Especially in the pandemic, the thing they had to battle the most is the employee perception and their sense of entitlement.
“I am in the ranks and work as one of the team, I don’t give orders. I also report like they should all do to the senior team. I also give complete freedom to people to lead a function without interfering.”
Empathy, according to Shoba, is essential for leadership. In fact, without empathy, one cannot manage anything, not even a small home. But empathy, especially in the Indian context, in small businesses, is taken as a weakness and often employees have an entitlement complex that works against the principle of empathy.
Next Vacation: Shoba has been travelling quite a lot in the pandemic, of course, with necessary protocols. She has just finished a Central India FAM, been to Goa, and now she is headed for a Rajasthan intensive.