In today's corporate world, fear-driven leadership has created environments where bullying and vaguely psychopathic behaviours are normalised. Leaders often believe success requires ruthlessness, breeding cultures where employees feel unsafe to be themselves.
John Blakey offers a transformative alternative: trust-based leadership. His approach demonstrates that leaders who prioritise trustworthiness can deliver outstanding results without resorting to intimidation. By balancing results with responsibility and adopting a triple bottom line approach of profit, people, and planet, leaders can become a genuine force for good.
Organisations led through fear create self-fulfilling prophecies of decline. When we collectively "feed the bad wolf", we perpetuate cycles of distrust, stifle innovation, and crush employee morale. This leads to the concerning statistic that only 17% of UK adults believe the next generation will have better lives than theirs.
This conversation will help you
- Discover how trust-based leadership can yield exceptional results without resorting to fear or intimidation in corporate environments
- Learn practical strategies for "feeding the good wolf" through compassion, cultivating hope, and showing courage in your authentic self
- Understand how to overcome the fear of your own power and light, which may be more limiting than the fear of inadequacy
Highlights
- [00:07:33] The "psychopathic" world of corporate life
- [00:09:47] "But what about Donald Trump?"
- [00:14:28] The wolf that wins is the wolf you feed
- [00:16:34] Force for Good
- [00:20:00] Pace, then lead
- [00:21:48] Compassion, empathy, and sympathy
- [00:23:52] When you fear your light more than your darkness
- [00:30:42] John's latest calling to lead
- [00:36:19] What Fearless Forward means to John
- [00:36:59] Takeaways from Sally-Anne
Resources
What is Fearless Forward?
At some point in our lives we all get scared – of making the wrong decision, of not being a good parent, or that everyone will figure out we’re just making it up as we go.
I’ve spent years helping leaders work through fear, stress, and uncertainty. Now I’m making a podcast about how they face their fears and come out stronger.
It’s for founders, leaders, and business owners who feel like they’re constantly fighting uphill and not finding the balance they need to be effective at work and present at home.