Employees who can't trust their leader to be vulnerable are not going to be vulnerable and build trust with one another.
Interpretation
Trust in leadership fosters vulnerability and connection among employees.
This quote emphasizes the critical role of vulnerability in leadership. When leaders demonstrate their own vulnerability, it creates an environment where employees feel safe to be open and honest, fostering trust and collaboration among team members. Without this trust, employees are unlikely to show vulnerability themselves, which can hinder teamwork and communication within the organization.
In practice
In a team meeting to promote open communication and trust-building.
I know that any group of people can become a team if they do the right things, but I came to realize over time that if you acquire or develop the right kind of people, that process of building a team is going to be much more effective and easier.
The truth is that intelligence, knowledge, and domain expertise are vastly overrated as the driving forces behind competitive advantage and sustainable success.
The kind of people that all teams need are people who are humble, hungry, and smart: humble being little ego, focusing more on their teammates than on themselves. Hungry, meaning they have a strong work ethic, are determined to get things done, and contribute any way they can. Smart, meaning not intellectually smart but inner personally smart.
Team members have to be focused on the collective good of the team. Too often, they focus their attention on their department, their budget, their career aspirations, their egos.
Teamwork remains a sustainable competitive advantage that has been largely untapped because it is hard to measure (teamwork impacts the outcome of an organization in such comprehensive and invasive ways that it's virtually impossible to isolate it as a single variable) and because it is extremely hard to achieve (it requires levels of courage and discipline that few executives possess) - ironically, building a strong team is very simple (it doesn't require masterful insights or tactics).
Clients don't expect perfection from the service providers they hire, but they do expect honesty and transparency. There is no better way to demonstrate this than by acknowledging when a mistake has been made and humbly apologizing for it.
People want to be on a team. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves. They want to be in a situation where they feel that they are doing something for the greater good.
That is what leadership is all about: staking your ground ahead of where opinion is and convincing people, not simply following the popular opinion of the moment.
He [President Franklin D. Roosevelt] died in harness, and we may well say in battle harness, like his soldiers, sailors and airmen who died side by side with ours and carrying out their tasks to the end all over the world. What an enviable death was his.
There can be no limitation of that authority which is to provide for the defense and protection of the community in any matter essential to the formation, direction, or support of the NATIONAL FORCES.
That's all managing is: just coming up with the right questions and getting the right answers.
Stress and anxiety at work have less to do with the work we do and more to do with weak management and leadership.
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