May 21 2026
Eric Douglas

Looking Under the Hood: What Do Great Leaders Do Differently?

Looking Under the Hood: What Do Great Leaders Do Differently?

Looking Under the Hood: What Do Great Leaders Do Differently?
Most people don’t immediately think of trust and spark when they think about great companies.
They think about products or services. They think about iconic CEOs. But most people haven’t
had the opportunity to peer under the hoods of dozens of organizations to see what makes them
run smoothly. Or to recognize what’s common to them all.


Our firm has had the honor and privilege to get under the hood and work with many great (and
many not-so-great) leaders and organizations. In our role as consultants and coaches to CEOs
and organizations around the globe, we’re able to see up close the day-to-day behaviors of
people in charge of running and building companies. We’ve been given the opportunity to try
different strategies. And we see what works.

So what have we observed? First, the best-performing companies and organizations invest in building cultures where talented people come to work each day not dreading what they do but truly believing in the company and its products and services and eager to add value. These are cultures where
people are inculcated with the spirit of stewardship, of running it like they own it. Where people
know that they can disagree, hash it out, and come together as one to focus on getting
something done.

Second, communication is the glue that builds great companies. Communication is the real
currency—not money— because communication builds trust. As one CEO told me: “It’s about
communication. It’s about honesty. It’s about treating people in the organization as deserving to
know the facts. You don’t try to give them half the story. You don’t try to hide the story. You treat
them as true equals, and you communicate and you communicate and communicate.” People
need to trust one another if they’re going to work together effectively. They need to regularly
engage in tough conversations, identifying issues, chewing on options, figuring out the best
approach, and going into battle thinking as one. Without trust, people will quickly resort to their
own selfish behaviors, sowing discord and eventually wreaking havoc in the company.

Third, great companies—particularly as the pace of change accelerates—are fired up to
innovate. Innovation happens because people feel free to envision new products, services, and
ways of doing things. It happens because people trust that their ideas will be received positively.
They can envision a future in which their creativity will yield something better—both for the
company and for themselves. Whereas communication builds trust, empowerment generates
spark. People need to feel empowered—that they literally have the power—to experiment and
try things. This means creating pockets of local invention, where small teams work together
unburdened by bureaucratic oversight.

It’s about trust and spark: Envision an engine room with two levers on the floor. Pull one and
you generate high levels of trust. People share responsibility, cooperate readily, and accept
compromises swiftly. Pull the other and you stoke the fires of innovation. People quickly identify
gaps in quality and fill them, and eagerly sponge up new ideas and put them to work building
value. Pull both levers together, and you have a leadership culture. What’s important is that you
understand the dynamics of these two forces: trust and spark.

You can learn more about the 10 practices that build trust and spark innovation in my book, The
Leadership Equation.

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