Be a great leader this Easter holiday and don’t read your emails

In 2019, I was the CEO of a fifty-person company I’d founded. I hadn’t studied management or business administration so things weren’t organised as well as they could be. I was involved in everything. And I mean everything.

Yet, for some reason, I didn’t think it would be a problem to take six weeks off that summer to go and visit friends and family in Australia.

I hadn’t really thought it through.

The day before I left, I sat down with our COO to hand over my notes and talk through what I was currently working on and, out of the blue, she asked me if I trusted her.

She then told me something that changed the way I thought about leadership forever.

“Trust is more than just saying it. Trust is letting go and giving someone the freedom to work the way they want to, even if it is different to yours.”

She said that if I really did trust her, I wouldn’t need to know what was going on in the company - and I certainly wouldn’t need to be involved.

She asked me not to read emails or messages, and not to answer any business calls while I was away. “If I need to speak to you,” she said, “I’ll find a way.”

“If you want me to run the company, let me run the company.”

I had the best six-week holiday ever. And guess what? The company survived just fine without me.

I never used to switch off during the holidays. I justified staying connected by saying my team needed me - that they didn’t want the responsibility. I thought I was helping.

But the truth was, deep down, I didn’t trust my team to do what I would do.

I see this behaviour in many leaders - the inability to truly let go and fully trust their team. It comes from a deep fear that people will do things differently - and it may go wrong.

The result?

They never give their team the chance to reach their full potential.

Why letting go is so, so important

People who feel they have ownership of their work - who feel trusted, and won’t be blamed if they make a mistake - perform way better than those not given any freedom.

And because a feeling of autonomy at work is one of the key drivers of workplace happiness, people who feel trusted are much happier too.

Tip of the week

This holiday, don't read your email. Hand over your role to someone else for a few days - and trust them.

Worried that something might go wrong? Try my Hippo method - it is the secret to having the best holidays ever.

According to the US Surgeon General, feeling trusted at work is a key driver of happiness in the workplace. It fulfils our human need for autonomy and flexibility.