Earning Leadership Capital

It’s Friday at noon, and a long-time client just dropped a pressing request in your lap—something needed for a Monday meeting.

You run a small consultancy where client relationships are everything, and they rarely make last-minute asks. You know this is important.

But you can’t handle it alone. You need your team to step up over the weekend—an apparent expenditure of leadership capital.

What influences your team to care about the client and your request for support outside of regular business hours? Even deeper, what shapes an environment where you don’t even have to ask?

How do you ensure you have leadership capital available to spend?

The answer lies in how you’ve shown up in all the moments before and demonstrated to your team that you genuinely care about them.

What Is Leadership Capital?

Consider leadership capital as a bank account.?

Every interaction is a deposit or withdrawal, shaping whether people feel valued, respected, and supported or whether they see you as self-serving.

When the balance is high, your team will operate above expectations. When it’s low, even simple requests will feel like burdens.

Earning Leadership Capital

Deposits happen when you lead with trust, integrity, and genuine care. They come from…

• Showing up daily—caring about your team beyond work outcomes.
• Leading with integrity—making decisions that align with values.
• Recognizing effort—giving credit where it’s due.
• Supporting personal lives—encouraging balance and flexibility.
• Empowering ownership—delegating with trust, not micromanagement.
• Taking responsibility—owning mistakes and modeling accountability.

…and any other interactions that lift people instead of drain them.

Spending Leadership Capital

Withdrawals happen when we ask our teams to go above and beyond or make personal sacrifices. To do things that we know won’t be easy. As leaders, if we’re pushing the boundaries in our organization, that’s a common need.

So, to preserve our ability to make those asks while maintaining trust, we also must be mindful of the consequential behaviors that create not only expenditures but persistent leaks in our leadership capital:

• Lack of transparency—keeping people in the dark.
• Taking the credit—not acknowledging team contributions.
• Inconsistent communication—creating uncertainty.
• Neglecting development—failing to invest in growth.
• Prioritizing self-interest—putting ego above the team.
• Deflection of ownership—avoiding accountability.
• Allowing a toxic culture—neglecting corrective action on poor behavior.
• Ignoring the human side—disregarding genuine care for the team.

…and any other interaction or behavior that is a drain instead of a lift.

Managing Leadership Capital

Awareness and intentionality are essential to managing leadership capital.?

Without values, standards, systems, and guardrails, we can lose sight of the constant deposits and withdrawals.

We must be consistent in our decisions, actions, and behaviors, realign to our values and principles when we get off-center, and repeatedly “check the balance.”

Here are the core principles to follow:

• Assume you have less than you think—small withdrawals add up fast.
• Be intentional about deposits—invest in?relationships?daily.
• Spend it wisely—use it when it truly matters, but use it.

Your team comes through. When asked for support over the weekend, they are more than willing to provide it.

But it’s not simply because you asked—it’s because when you ask, they know you genuinely need it and that you’re always mindful of their time and well-being.

It’s because of all the times they’ve needed to leave work early to make their kid’s ball game, and you, without hesitance, say, “That’s where you should be.”

Whenever you’ve made a mistake, you immediately take ownership and communicate transparently how you would do it differently next time.

The most critical aspect of earning leadership capital to reinforce is showing up for the team with daily thoughtfulness, demonstrating that you genuinely care.

Don’t assume they know—vocalize it; reinforce it with action.

Your team shows up because you’ve consistently shown up for them. It’s not about the ask—it’s about the trust you’ve built long before you needed it.

If you had to withdraw significantly tomorrow, would your leadership capital account have enough to afford it?

Check out this short video on Jocko Willink's perspective on this topic (4 minutes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgV26nd9fvY

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Follow me here on LinkedIn for more content on leadership, personal development, and the work-life dichotomy.

I also offer leadership coaching, helping people align their decisions, actions, and behaviors with values and principles. You can schedule a free consultation here.

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