Dr. Santrupt Misra learned about institutions long before he entered a boardroom. Growing up in Odisha, he stood in ration-shop queues, bought kerosene for his mother and carried home firewood. Around the family table, the talk moved through politics, the Constitution, war and the separation of powers. That mix of duty and large ideas gave him an education no career plan could have scheduled.
The formal record is wide. He studied human resources at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, taught there, completed three doctorates, joined Hindustan Lever, moved to the Aditya Birla Group, led businesses and later entered public life. At one stage, he oversaw information technology while joking that he barely knew how to spell it. Colleagues often wondered whether there was a plan at all.
Misra's answer is more useful than a chronology. Curiosity, learning and a willingness to experiment connected the moves. He declined the conventional management-trainee route, took the job available to him and kept accepting work that exposed an unfinished part of his ability. The roles changed. His habit of becoming a student again did not.
He compares new responsibility to driving somebody else's car. An experienced driver still needs a few awkward minutes to find the indicator and wiper. A larger brief works the same way. Preparation matters, but complete readiness is a fiction. The people who adapt fastest tend to bring resilience, humility and enough confidence to ask the basic question in the room.
That view shaped Misra's early responsibilities. In academia, he says a promotion that usually took eight to ten years came to him in three and a half. In business, the Aditya Birla Group trusted him with assignments beyond his existing experience. The important detail is his own assessment: he did not waste those openings. Trust survived because he turned opportunity into work that helped the institution.
This distinction matters for lawyers and executives chasing titles. If every new brief begins with a private calculation about visibility, status or the next salary review, the work becomes narrow. Misra argues that creating value for colleagues, the profession or the system has a way of repaying the individual later. The benefit is incidental, not the first line of the plan.
A practical career experiment can have guardrails. Before accepting an unfamiliar role, write down the capability it will test, the people whose judgment you respect and the first three questions you must answer. During the first 90 days, keep a record of decisions that surprised you. At the end, ask whether you learned a method or merely survived a calendar full of meetings.
Misra also resists being reduced to one professional identity. He calls himself a manager by profession and a teacher at heart. Corporate leadership, teaching, human resources and politics all involve human problems: trust, motivation, delivery and accountability. One field can strengthen another when the person carries lessons across instead of guarding a job description like a fenced plot.
There is one warning in his account. A career packed with milestones can become a blur. Looking back, he wishes he had slowed the RPM at certain points and absorbed more of what had happened. Reflection converts experience into judgment. Without it, even an impressive appointment may leave little more than a line on a biography.
I prefer this model to the polished five-year plan that assumes life will cooperate. Take preparation seriously, then leave room for the strange assignment, the unfamiliar car and the return to your roots. Readiness often arrives after responsibility has already knocked. Open the door, keep your ego small, and learn where the wiper is.