Great Leaders Believe in Their Team

Great leaders believe in their team – even more than they do in themselves.

Here’s a story about the late, great John R Caldon – an inspirational leader and former Deputy MD of Macquarie Group.

In 1990, John was the head of a rising but little known division at Macquarie called PSF: Project and Structured Finance.

Corporate Advisory was the richer and more glamorous division at Macquarie at the time, because it was responsible for high profile mergers and acquisitions.

A senior director from Corporate Advisory asked to meet with John in his office and wanted to know how he’d managed to build PSF to be half the revenues of Corporate Advisory in only five years. He ended the meeting by saying: “John, I’ve gotta give it to you – you’ve done an amazing job with your team, none of whom are world-beaters. I don’t know how you do it.”

Far from accepting it as a compliment, John paused for dramatic effect, smiled and said: “Well, I’m sorry they don’t impress you but I think they’re pretty damn marvellous.”

Afterwards, in recounting the story to me, John said: “Can you believe what he just said? He was saying I was great but my team was a bunch of hopeless jokers. Are you kidding me? That’s my team he’s talking about! He’s got some f*^%ing hide saying that!”

By 1995, PSF had equalled the revenues of Corporate Advisory. In 1998, when John resigned to start his own business, PSF’s revenues were double those of Corporate Advisory.

Great leaders refuse to accept praise without sharing it with their team. They think and act in terms of “we”, not “I”.