The best and worse in leadership (based on my personal experience)

This is an extremely popular topic, for a particularly good reason: the type of leadership you exert, or experience will impact every facet of your life, and sometimes in very unexpected ways. Whether you are a great (or terrible) leader or led by one, the effects of this relationship will be felt by you and the people close to you, every day.

As a leader, it is imperative that you learn how to manage the unique personalities in your team and match them to the unique needs of the business you are managing. As a team member, those in leadership roles, often your direct manager, have the capacity of making things difficult while also holding the power to make or break your career. For example, in my first job (terrible) leadership affected my being in such a visceral way, after two years I found myself with a broken heart (aka, dumped!) and incredibly burned-out from my work. In my second, (great) leadership helped me accomplish tasks and overcome challenges that I had never thought myself capable of — all while having good work-life balance AND a fulfilling personal relationship.

I have no aspiration to design with the perfect leadership formula, I know this is next to impossible and there are (SO MANY) smart people thinking about it. Therefore, I will narrow the conclusions below specifically to my experience.

When I think about the best people I have worked for and WHY I enjoyed working with them — it is simple: they trusted me. And, during our interactions they unlocked roadblocks in my thought processes and imagination, enabling me to go above and beyond what I had achieved in the past. On the flip side, the people I have found it most frustrating to work with, were those that micro-managed the sh** out of my work and lifestyle.

The current pandemic reality, where working from home is becoming more and more normalized, will push this specific aspect of leadership i.e. trust, even more.

So, how do you get your boss to trust you? As a manager, how do you learn to trust your team-members? What exists as the basis for trust? Is it something that comes naturally from an innate sense, or rather is it developed over time?

When I think back to which leaders trusted me, it is likely because we connected on some level or had common ground to build on. It could be gender, education, race, background, political inclination… the list goes on.

Ergo, our implicit biases make it easier for us to trust certain people more easily than others. Not only is this is dangerous, but as (most of us) know, acting on biases can lead to unexpectedly negative repercussions for business and society.

So, how can we establish ‘fair’ trust, if it so often involves the ‘unfair’ condition of biases?

In my experience, the answer to this has been by relentlessly expanding my view of the world and of the people within it. Once we can achieve a broader perspective our biases will also naturally expand, allowing us to build trust with a larger and more diverse range of people.

To become an inspirational leader, increase your relationships where trust is the central component. Do this through:

• Self-knowledge: Reflecting on your own strengths and weaknesses, behavior patterns, and sentiments — will lead you to higher levels of emotional intelligence. As you gain more self-awareness, not only will you come to know yourself better, but you are also likely to develop a better understanding of others. This will allow you to be more empathetic and ultimately trusting of those around you. We are just human after all…
• Failure: Embrace failure and be weary of those who have not experienced it. My worst leadership experience was with a manager who had a ‘spotless track-record’. Everyone is bound to fail in life and if you’re currently working with someone that hasn’t, they may be a) not taking the right risks and b) about to experience imminent failure. This may be stating the obvious, but the former limits your ability for growth while the latter brings its own unique challenges. When one has never failed, one can find oneself being a bit arrogant… that often leads to bad decisions. On the contrary, after going through failure, a leader is more likely to value experiences that differ from their own and listen to others more intently.
• Courage: Having the courage to step out of your comfort-zone and relinquish control of all decision-making is essential for building trust. Let me elaborate with a story:
• Once I was responsible for structuring the finance team at a recently founded company. Although I did have experience working in finance, I had never directly built a team and needed to first learn what this team would be responsible for. Then I set out to organize the workstreams and hire for the needed capabilities. The fact that my boss gave me so much responsibility was an act of courage in and of itself. Yet, early on I encountered a dilemma during the hiring process: should I bring on board a young and motivated individual for the treasury position or hire someone with more relevant experience? I went to my boss for advice and remember her distinctly saying — “I would recommend the more experienced hire, but it is your choice now and your responsibility later”. Despite these words, I hired the younger candidate with an obvious and intense sense of drive. He was brilliant.

His brilliance however, which could have been pure luck, is not the takeaway of the story. The point is, if I had been scared or too intimidated by my boss — I would have just followed her advice. But since I knew she trusted me — I listened to my instincts. In short, if you want your employees to perform well, you have to be able to delegate responsibility, and that takes courage.

As a last caveat since I am sure I will be a lifelong student of leadership, the above reflections are an earnest attempt to summarize and share what I have observed first-hand thus far.