More specifically, we follow leaders who connect us to a mission we believe in, who clarify whatâs expected of us, who surround us with people who define excellence the same way we do, who value us for our strengths, who show us that our teammates will always be there for us, who diligently replay our winning plays, who challenge us to keep getting better, and who give us confidence in the future.
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They [team leaders] understand that the path you will take to your best performance will be unpredictably different from theirs.
The act of following is a barterâwe entrust some part of our future to a leader only when we get something in return.
That âsomething in returnâ is confidence.
And what gives us confidence in the future is seeing, in a leader, some great and pronounced level of ability in something we care about.
We follow people who are really good at something that matters to us. We follow the spikes.
Each truly effective leader cultivates his or her mastery in a way that communicates to us something certain and vivid. Itâs as if we trust leaders only when theyâve proven to us that theyâve opened more doors than we have, seen round more corners than we have, dived deeper than we have, taken themselves more seriously than we have. We trust the seriousness of this. We trust its predictability. We are drawn to its specialness. We sense its authenticity. We are attracted to the beautiful clarity of great ability, the brief moments of awe. We ignore everything else.
Two questions in the survey showed the strongest relationship to a workerâs feeling of trust in his team leader:
- Do I know clearly what is expected of me at work?
- Do I have the chance to use my strengths every day?
This data suggests that these two conditionsâknowing what is expected, and being able to play to oneâs strengthsâare the foundations of trust. When a team leader, despite the ambiguities and the fluid and fast pace of the world of work, can help team members feel clarity about expectations and a sense that their best is recognized and utilized frequently, then trust is built, and a Fully Engaged team becomes more likely.
One way to think of these results is to imagine a team leader having three distinct jobs. Her first is to ensure her team members feel connected to the purpose and future of the company, even though she may not directly define those. Her second is to ensure that her team members, as a group, understand and support one another. And her third is to ensure that her team members, individually, understand whatâs expected of them and how they can do their best work now and in the future, all while feeling recognized for who they are.