Marc Haine argues that bosses often excel at connecting with peers and officials but fail with their own staff. He describes a leader managing 300 people who had no real relationships with any of them, only surface-level interactions. True leadership requires moving beyond small talk to build genuine trust.
Do you have the competencies required to build trust? Some of those could be the ability to form relationships. And I don't mean the shallow sit-on-the-surface-based relationships. Not the, hey, how you doing kind of relationships. But true connections to others. I had one boss who came into work every day. Every single day, he would walk into the office, hit the escalator, and go straight up the escalator to his office. In his mind, he had great relationships with people on his level, with government officials, with people in his industry who were CEOs. He had great relationships and intimate kind of deep-down relationships with some of these people. But when he came down to his 300 or so staff, his relationships with people were extremely superficial. So, what does that look like for you? Do you have the capacity to inspire others?
