BOOK NOTES

START WITH TRUST

In 2017, Travis Kalanick, Founder and CEO of Uber, called on two people to help him rebuild Uber’s reputation that had become toxic in part through a set of self-inflicted actions by the CEO. One included a video that had gone viral where Kalanick appeared completely dismissive of an Uber driver trying to make a living wage. Another cold-blooded action was when the company took extreme profitable advantage of a cab strike in NYC. Kalanick had lost trust.

How important is trust? The people helping Kalanick in 2017 (Francis Frei and Anne Morriss) wrote about trust in an article describing this situation. Trust is the basis for nearly everything we do as civilized people. It’s perhaps the essential form of capital for any leader. Traditional leadership narrative is about the leader—his or her vision, talents, and strategies. The authors argue the leaders’ job is to create conditions for their people to realize their own power and capacity. And to do these things you need the trust of others.

Trust has three core drivers: authenticity, logic, and empathy. People tend to trust you when they believe in the real you, have faith in your logic and judgement, and feel you care about them. Wobbles occur when trust signals are no longer stable. For example, you appear to care more about yourself than them. Followers don’t want someone at the wheel whose judgement they don’t trust. Kalanick was ultimately replaced at Uber as the company engaged -in a campaign to rebuild trust addressing the three pillars: authenticity, logic, and empathy.

MANAGER TO LEADER

Michael Watkins distinguishes through a case study the adjustments a manager must make in their thinking to become a leader in their company. He suggests these 7 seismic shifts must occur to move successfully from manager to leader.

1. Specialist to generalist…you've got to get your arms around the whole business now…not just a part. Business functions have their own managerial subcultures. Be careful when you make this change not to over manage and under lead.
2. Analyst to integrator…your new job is to understand and use the collective knowledge of functional teams to solve complex problems.
3. Tactician to strategist…here you are often moving from details to the big picture. You’ve got to learn to separate noise from signals. Strategic thinking can be practiced and improved.
4. Bricklayer to architect…now you need to harness and think in terms of systems especially when making organizational changes.
5. Problem solver to agenda setter…now you may spend less time fixing a problem and thinking more about which problems to fix.
6. Warrior to diplomat…now as leader you are using the tools of diplomacy—negotiation, persuasion, and alliance building to shape the environment to support objectives. It’s no longer winning a battle to defeat the competition.
7. Supporting cast member to lead role…you are now moving to the bright lights where you have a larger impact—often as a role model because people are watching you.

Related to leadership is the importance of authenticity (Ibarra). Start by being true to yourself and being coherent in what you say, feel, and do. Have enough self-monitors so you don’t stick to behavior that limits your leadership. It’s not okay to be an asshole all the time by claiming that’s just how you are. Might be time to change. Humility and curiosity about others can go a long way to enabling you to lead teams more collaboratively and successfully.

PRIMAL LEADERSHIP

Leadership gurus Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee’s research showed “good guys”—emotionally intelligent men and women finish first! The leader’s mood and behaviors drive the mood and behaviors of everyone else. Leaders with high emotional intelligence create climates in which information sharing, trust, risk taking, and learning flourish. The leader’s emotional intelligence is carried like electricity wires in an organization. This is primal—contagious and influences bottom line performance in an organization. The writers argue that leaders who are jerks may attain results, but their moods and actions will eventually catch th****em.

Research in intensive care units confirm that the comforting presence of another person lowers a patient’s blood pressure. The old cliche is true: smile and the world smiles with you. It helps when the leader is upbeat. Dynamic resonance has the greatest impact when it’s in tune with others around him. Emotional leadership is the spark…not solely…that ignites performance.

A FINAL FEW IDEAS

Did you ever have a physician that seemed devoted to updating your records and less so to examining and treating you. Authors Sutton and Rao use this example in a health care system that launched the Getting Rid of Stupid Stuff—aka GROSS in 2017 as an example of the importance of ridding your organization of obstacles that infuriate everyone. The default in most organizations is what we can add here. These authors argue having a good riddance review to identify objects/procedures, etc. that should be eliminated can reduce burdens. Think of subtraction, not addition.

Culture expresses goals through values/beliefs and guides through shared assumptions and norms. Authors Groysberg, et al. suggest cultural norms define what is encouraged, discouraged, accepted or rejected in a group. The culture can be managed when you become fully aware of how it works. Culture is a group phenomenon and doesn’t exist within a single person. They offer a framework to understand your culture, questions to ask yourself, and ideas to align strategy, leadership, and culture to drive positive outcomes. They are related!

Leaders, according to writer H. Jolly, will continue to face social and geopolitical tensions and crises in nearly every field. His view is to remind leaders that companies must see themselves not as soulless moneymakers, but human organizations made of people working together to support shared goals. Strategies rooted in purpose lead to the most successful outcomes.

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press, New York City, NY, 2025