Be Honest. Be Humble. | 120 Seconds to Better Leadership

*Video Transcription*

So I conducted a profile on a CFO last week, and he profiled, actually, I think one of the strongest profiles I've ever written, even though he was still fairly new to roll and still had a lot to learn.

And one of the things that was buying him a lot of trust and credibility was his humility.

And one of the ways that he demonstrated that humility was to say, "I don't know", you know, if someone asked him a question that was out of his depth and that can feel like a scary thing to say, especially when you're new to role and you might be feeling like you have a lot to prove.

If you want to read more about that,

Check out my book Bombproof, there is a whole chapter on that.

It can feel scary to say "I don't know." And what I noticed, though, was that he was very comfortable with it because he is such a humble leader and what that has earned him is trust because people know that he won't kind of "BS" them and fake an answer.

So they trust him.

They know he's going to be honest, and he's the kind of person to that adds in that accountability piece of, "I don't know, but I will go research it and get back to you." And he does.

He goes and does his research, figures it out and comes back. So big difference between saying, "I don't know" and letting that be the end of the answer and saying, "I don't know, but I will find out for you."

So for this guy, at least in the environment that he's working in, that kind of humility has really garnered him the trust and the credibility that he so needed.