18/05/2025
58% of employees would trust a stranger over their own boss. Not a typo. 58%. I had to read that twice when I first saw it. Your team would rather take advice from someone they just met than from you. Why? Because we've confused authority with leadership. Having a title doesn't make you a leader any more than having a piano makes you a musician. I've seen brilliant teams ruined by poor leadership. And average teams perform miracles under the right guidance. The difference wasn't skill or strategy. It was trust. Your team's performance is directly tied to how you show up every day. Not just what you say, but what you do.
The real question isn't whether you can manage a team. It's whether your team would choose to follow you if they didn't have to. What would they say about you when you're not in the room? That's the only leadership metric that matters.
-Dan Martell
