In this episode, Girish Ananthanarayanan, COO of the education non-profit Peepul, talks about the importance of building trust for delivering good and effective leadership.
“Trust that your team has entrusted themselves with you, and trust that they are trying their best. Have high expectations of them, but also support them in their journey, which may look different from yours,” Girish says. “Nobody wakes up in the morning and says they’re going to be a horrible person who doesn’t get the job done: that’s not what happens… Trust is at the core of collaboration; trust is at the core of unlocking peak performance.”
Today’s leaders need to be self-aware and think about how their actions affect others. Leaders who reflect on their actions discover what areas they need to work on and improve. This isn’t always easy. “The toughest part of this is recognising that you could be a bull in a china shop; that you could be part of the problem and not part of the solution,” says Girish.
Leaders need to be vulnerable and open with the teams around them at times, Girish added. He acknowledged this gets harder as people rise through their careers, but that’s what makes it so important to preserve this approach.
“What happens to people as they reach senior positions – heads of state or heads of organisations – is that feedback loops get cut. They don’t have a way of knowing if they’re doing well from their team honestly, in a risk-free way. You need to ensure that you’ve got those feedback loops,” he said.
Leaders also have a duty to drive performance in their organisations, and it can be tricky to strike the right balance with promoting personal and professional development of the team. Leaders can overcome a tendency to micromanage by trusting the team, Girish says.
