Trust and Success in Global Leadership

Trust and success go hand in hand.?

This is especially true in global leadership: There will be no success if there is a lack of trust across teams, organizations, and leaders.??????

At Lenovo, we hire brilliant people from around the world.? With this, we trust them to do what is best for both their careers and our company. As a global team of over 77,000 people across 180 markets , we work in a complex myriad of different time zones, cultures, and languages, so freedom and trust are intrinsically linked at every level of how we work.?

With such a huge organization, and with touchpoints in every corner of the world, navigating leadership can be a daunting prospect. However, I believe that leaders of companies of any size or scale can successfully navigate the pathways set ahead of them, with the right focus on trust, adaptability, authenticity, and culture.?

In leadership, adaptability is key

Leadership is a key role in a team sport. When we’re at home: We eat dinner, converse with our friends and family, and sleep — we are equal. However, when we head into the office or switch on our hybrid work tools, we transform into our roles within this team, where hierarchy, structure, and culture all take influence.?

It’s a similar dynamic to that of your favorite football, rugby, or cricket team. While the captain is there to encourage the team to the best of their abilities, it’s not the same relationship off-field. These team dynamics are created through hard work and trust. You trust your teammates to catch the ball, tackle, dive, and create opportunities. Similarly, at work, we do the same.?????

And in both instances, it’s the leader of these teams that encourage, guide, and steer the teams to victory.?

And with this role comes adaptability. As a leader, you have to work with different personalities, abilities, perspectives, hierarchies, and environments.?

I try not to take up space for the sake of it. If I am leading my team, I’ll take up more space, I’ll speak more, I’ll steer if the ship needs direction, and I will guide my teams to where we need to be. But, even if I am the most senior person in the room, I don’t speak just for the sake of speaking. There’s an authenticity and vulnerability in understanding that you don’t always have to be the loudest in the room – and I believe that’s a good thing.

This is a similar attitude to many of my peers at Lenovo. We understand the importance of effective communication. Leadership is not about being the loudest in the room, but working — in tandem with each other, the wider team, and the company as a whole — towards our common goals.?

The envelope of trust

A lot of my leadership ethos is fueled by freedom. I’ll give my teams my trust in an envelope when we meet. The so-called envelope of trust. This creates a sense of responsibility and ownership amongst my team that they can achieve more without heavy management. And it’s a big part of Lenovo’s global culture of doing what we say, and owning what we do.?

Because I’ve extended my envelope of trust to new team members from day one, they feel free to go about their jobs and be as nimble and effective as possible. As a result of this freedom (which comes, in turn, from a sense of security and belonging), teams feel empowered to do more without needing the heavy management of a leader who is doling out trust slowly and methodically. In fact, trust is even backed by neuroscience, as shown by Harvard Business Review . Companies who value trust and place it on their teams reported results with 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, 50% higher productivity, and 76% more engagement.?

This empowerment to own what we do, with responsibility at every level, is very much the Lenovo way. We hire with this in mind, and we continually invest in that culture to achieve our company goals. As the well-known management saying goes, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Without setting the right culture and tone for how we work, how we treat one another, and how we conduct ourselves at work, it can be much more challenging to unite teams around a shared strategy.

This is the same for every company looking to grow. Focusing on deliverables and outcomes is also vital to business success, of course, but other, less tangible measures can still create a culture that is focused on both individual and collective success, encouraging teamwork, and leading to growth.?

At Lenovo, Culture is Key to Our Success

My leadership style wasn’t learned overnight at Lenovo. But its culture was what attracted me to work here. The culture at Lenovo is key to our success: The ability to embrace freedom and entrepreneurship while still maintaining responsibility and ownership across all our global markets.

People work differently. And when you add in time zones, organization charts, team roles, and global culture, you have a complex arrangement that can be difficult to manage — if, that is, you don’t do one critical thing for your team: Trust and empower them to do their jobs.