We All Need Someone to Keep Us Honest

Brian Faulkner, Bsc (Hons), BVM&S, CertGP (BPS), CertGP (SAM), MBA, MSc (Psych), MRCVS, explains the need for leaders to have someone in their corner to keep them honest about pace and progress.

Interview Transcript (slightly modified for readability)

“With respect to checking our own confidence and making sure that we’re not streaming into narcissism or arrogance, it is important to listen to the people that we respect. Sometimes it’s very difficult to be so self-aware that you know if you’re coming across as too pushy at times, too timid at other times. It’s very, very important to have mentors and benchmarking people who will actually tell you honestly and straight when perhaps you’re going too far, or perhaps you’re pushing too hard.

But that’s a very subjective and that’s a very, very fine line. And that’s why no man is an island. We need to be able to have other people to give us points of reference, benchmarking, and tell us the hard truth: that perhaps we’re going too hard.

Many leaders are very ambitious and very energetic, but they forget that everyone can’t run, or doesn’t want to run, at the same pace as them. And sometimes that ambition can leave people behind. There’s nothing wrong with ambition, as long as we take everyone together.”