Why Trusting Your Team Is the Best Decision You’ll Ever Make as a Leader
How Trusting Your Team Builds Stronger Teams and Better Leaders
While it may seem like a reach to go from never-going-to-class college dropout to founding my own technology company, I certainly wasn’t the first. If anything, the least likely.
I was pretty much a fuck-up my whole childhood. Some would say, and fairly, that my childhood extended way beyond those traditional childhood years. I am not quite sure when the “cause and effect” lesson finally hit home with me, but it certainly was sometime in my early twenties.
Which makes that reach to company founder and CEO that much harder to believe. Yet, it happened. Much of that credit goes to my lovely wife, Joanne, as we had been married for fifteen years by then. Although I am still a work in progress, she certainly smoothed out my rough edges and put somewhat of a leash on my “ready, fire, aim” business model.
Ready, fire, aim was my company’s business model, with BCD promising immediacy and delivering excellence. This was the same business model I had used as a salesperson, generating millions in revenue for other companies throughout my career in the computer industry. I only left those companies when they would jack around my compensation the year following me breaking their bank. And always with some bullshit excuse.
But it wasn’t all about the money. Money is fleeting, as I had learned from those previous lessons. While money may be fleeting, trust never is – or shouldn’t be, anyway.
After opening the company and building the team supporting both our customers and me, I gave – or, at least, attempted to provide – the employees more than a healthy paycheck. I gave them trust. I gave them empowerment. And I gave them a voice. And an open door, literally.
Why Empowerment and Open-Door Leadership Create Real Loyalty
My office door was always open; when I had important, more private meetings, I would have the door mostly closed, just open enough for someone to stick their head in.
The issue with closed office doors is that employees tend to think you are talking about them. The mostly closed door signaled that “if you really need me, interrupt me.”
It’s those little things that mean the most to the team. You can talk trust until you are blue in the face. Showing trust is reciprocal.
BCD thrived because of our team members. Our evolution was also due to that sum of the whole. They are why, when we transitioned from HPE over to DELL in 2017, it kept the disruption to a minimum. Or at least, the mayhem was kept to a minimum. It WAS mayhem. But the team made it more of a controlled mayhem.
Interestedly enough, we thrived in mayhem and chaos. We were at our best in those moments. When everyone feels part of something uniquely special, chaos is right in the wheelhouse.
But that was the company I built. No rules, just go for it. If it feels right, do it. I would trust their judgment until they gave me cause not to, which was very rare. This did not mean we didn’t adhere to basic business rules, such as opening new customer accounts, and, for that matter, customers honoring their credit terms.
Trusting Your Team and Customer-Driven Leadership in Action
And that’s what made us great. It wasn’t me. I was merely the conductor waving the baton. It was all those employees trusting their team members, and every single one of them feeling like they were part of something special. Because they were, we all were. No one had to say it. We all just felt the live current running through our bodies.
We all answered to the same boss – the customer. THAT is how you run a sales organization. Or any company, for that matter. The customer calls the shots. You decide on how high you want to jump. Or, even if you’re going to jump.
The only thing harder than maintaining a relationship is keeping one. That is never done on promises. Instead, that is always done consistently. Trust matters.
My company, BCD, was always a mosaic of the companies I had worked for before it opened in 1999. I sold over a billion dollars through those companies over those fifteen years and had plenty of momentum. And relationships. I may not have any framed college degrees on my office wall; instead, I settled on four framed State Farm purchase orders totaling over $100 million. I got my business degree by NOT going to class. While I would not recommend that now, as I am sure the formula would not fly thanks to advanced technology, it really did “Work for Me.”
The greatest life lesson I learned was building my own business. One thing I knew for sure was that I could never have done it on my own. I had great, honest support at home and from team members who believed in the mission and my enthusiasm.
It’s never about the person; it’s always about the team. Keep your ego in check and let things happen. Trust the team, especially when you’re the one who built it.
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To learn about this entire journey, pick up a copy of 𝙄𝙩 𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙁𝙤𝙧 𝙈𝙚: 𝙈𝙮 𝙇𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙎𝙚𝙞𝙯𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙊𝙥𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝘽𝙪𝙞𝙡𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙎𝙪𝙘𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨 today! Also available now in audiobook format!
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