Leaders Eat Last

at the end of the day, we trust the expertise of a special few people to know when to break the rules.

It’s all fine and good for a leader to expect the people to trust them, but if the leader doesn’t trust the people, the system will fail. For trust to serve the individuals and the group, it must be shared.

The responsibility of leaders is to teach their people the rules, train them to gain competency and build their confidence.

The responsibility of leaders is to teach their people the rules, train them to gain competency and build their confidence. At that point, leadership must step back and trust that their people know what they are doing and will do what needs to be done.

Our confidence to do what’s right is determined by how trusted we feel by our leaders.

Our intelligence gives us ideas and instructions. But it is our ability to cooperate that actually helps us get those things done.

Trust is like lubrication. It reduces friction and creates conditions much more conducive to performance.

It’s not how smart the people in the organization are; it’s how well they work together that is the true indicator of future success or the ability to manage through struggle.

Just as we can’t simply tell someone to be happy and expect them to be happy, we can’t just tell someone to trust us or to commit to something and expect they will.

Like the visionary and the operator inside a company, Democrats and Republicans in Congress, the Soviets and Uncle Sam in geopolitics, even Mom and Dad at home, the value of two opposing forces, the tension of push and pull actually keeps things more stable. It’s all about balance.

the more pressure the leaders of a public company feel to meet the expectations of an outside constituency, the more likely they are to reduce their capacity for better products and services.

The more we have, the less we seem to value what we’ve got. And if the abstraction of stuff makes us value it less, imagine what it does to our relationships.

when a leader embraces their responsibility to care for people instead of caring for numbers, then people will follow, solve problems and see to it that that leader’s vision comes to life the right way, a stable way and not the expedient way.

When we opt to stay above the clouds, relying only on information fed to us instead of going down to see for ourselves, not only is it harder to make the right moral decisions, it makes it even harder to take responsibility when we fail to do so.

when groups get bigger than about 150, the people are less likely to work hard and less likely to help each other out. This is a pretty significant finding as so many businesses work to manage their growth by focusing on cost efficiencies but ignore the efficiencies of human relationships.

The only way to truly manage at scale is to empower the levels of management.

The only way to truly manage at scale is to empower the levels of management. They can no longer be seen as managers who handle or control people. Instead, managers must become leaders in their own right, which means they must take responsibility for the care and protection of those in their charge, confident that their leaders will take care of them.

When we are able to physically see the positive impact of the decisions we make or the work we do, not only do we feel that our work was worth it, but it also inspires us to work harder and do more.

our bosses telling us how important our work is, is nowhere near as powerful as us getting to see it ourselves.

Whereas money has relative value ($100 to a college student is a lot, $100 to a millionaire is a little), time and effort have an absolute value. No matter how rich or poor someone is, or where or when they are born, we all have 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year.