A title can give you authority.

It cannot make people want to follow you.

That distinction sits at the heart of my conversation with Joe Davis, author of The Generous Leader: Seven Ways to Give of Yourself for Everyone’s Gain.

Joe spent nearly four decades at Boston Consulting Group, where he served as a managing director and senior partner, led BCG North America, and founded BCG’s Center for Inclusion and Equity.

During that career, he learned something that can be difficult for ambitious executives and new managers to accept:

Leadership is not a competition to prove you are the smartest person in the room.

In many situations, the ability to get the best thinking and effort from other people matters far more.

A Leader Does Not Need to Have Every Answer

Early in Joe’s career, a mentor gave him feedback he never forgot.

Put Joe and another exceptionally talented consultant in separate rooms with a difficult analytical problem, his mentor told him, and the other consultant might solve it first.

Give them a solution that now had to be implemented across an organization, however, and Joe would get it done.

Why?

Joe understood how to collaborate.

He could surround himself with talented people, recognize where others were stronger than he was, and bring people together to accomplish something that no individual could accomplish alone.

That lesson eventually became part of his philosophy of generous leadership.

A leader’s value does not come solely from supplying answers.

It also comes from creating an environment where good answers can emerge.

What Happens When the Boss Always Has the Answer?

There is a hidden cost when a manager believes leadership requires always knowing what to do.

Employees start learning the rules.

If the boss always supplies the answer, why offer one?

If suggestions are routinely ignored, why make them?

If every meaningful decision comes from above, why exercise judgment?

Eventually, a manager can unintentionally train capable employees to wait for instructions.

Joe told the story of a manager who was so uncomfortable admitting he did not know the answer that he would sometimes leave the room before his team could ask him what they should do next.

Then one day, he stayed.

The team eventually reached a difficult point and turned to him.

What should we do?

His answer was simple:

“I don’t know either.”

Instead of losing confidence in him, the team became energized.

Ideas started flowing. Assumptions were challenged. People began working through the problem together.

His willingness to admit uncertainty did not stop leadership.

It created participation.

Vulnerability Is Not the Same as Weakness

Joe learned another version of this lesson while leading BCG North America during COVID.

He was responsible for thousands of people who were dealing with enormous uncertainty.

People had questions about their jobs, their health, their families, the economy, and what would happen next.

Joe did not have every answer.

During one virtual town hall, he became emotional while discussing his son-in-law contracting COVID.

The reaction surprised him.

Employees reached out afterward because they had seen something they needed from their leader: humanity.

Leadership sometimes requires saying:

I don’t know.

I’m concerned too.

We are going to figure this out together.

None of those statements eliminate accountability or responsibility.

They eliminate the need to perform certainty when certainty does not exist.

Generous Leadership Is Not Soft Leadership

The word “generous” can create the wrong impression.

Generous leadership does not mean avoiding accountability, difficult feedback, or uncomfortable decisions.

Joe defines a generous leader as someone who gives of themselves without an expectation of direct personal benefit in order to help others grow, develop, and thrive.

Sometimes helping another person thrive requires a conversation they would rather not have.

Joe shared the example of a successful colleague who transferred from Europe to the United States and struggled for roughly two years.

Eventually, Joe told him that the current situation could not continue. He needed to return home, quit, or be fired.

It sounds harsh when separated from the circumstances.

The outcome tells a different story.

The colleague returned home and became successful again.

Allowing him to continue struggling indefinitely would not have served him.

Sometimes directness is generosity.

Good Feedback Helps People Get Better

Joe shared another example involving a 30-year-old consultant making a presentation to senior executives.

The consultant repeatedly used the word “like” throughout the presentation.

Joe addressed it directly afterward.

The feedback was uncomfortable. The consultant later told Joe the moment had been extremely embarrassing.

He also stopped doing it.

That conversation reinforced another important leadership principle:

Correction can be an act of care.

Useful feedback is specific. It is grounded in something observable. It gives the person information they can actually use to improve.

Telling someone, “You need to communicate better,” gives them very little to work with.

Showing them exactly what happened, explaining the impact, and identifying what needs to change gives them a path forward.

Avoiding necessary feedback may feel nicer in the moment.

It can also deprive someone of information they need to grow.

Inclusion Means Hearing From People Who Know What You Don’t

Joe’s experience founding BCG’s Center for Inclusion and Equity also shaped how he thinks about inclusion in leadership.

For him, inclusion involves deliberately creating opportunities for people with different perspectives, experiences, and levels of seniority to contribute.

He described making a point of engaging the least-tenured person in a meeting.

That small action communicated something important to everyone else in the room:

This person is not here merely to take notes.

Their perspective matters too.

Joe also described preparing for an important leadership meeting with a group that included senior partners as well as his chief of staff, assistant, and logistics personnel.

Someone later questioned the unusual mix.

Joe’s reasoning was straightforward.

He wanted people in the room whom he trusted to tell him the truth.

Better leadership decisions are difficult to make when information is filtered through layers of hierarchy and everyone around the leader is reluctant to challenge assumptions.

Small Acts Can Have a Big Impact on Employee Engagement

Not every important leadership behavior requires a major initiative.

Joe calls attention to the power of small acts.

An employee mentions that their child has a soccer tournament over the weekend.

On Monday, the manager remembers and asks how it went.

A team member does exceptional work.

The leader sends a short message recognizing it.

A junior employee enters a meeting.

The senior leader asks for their perspective.

These actions may take seconds.

Their meaning can last much longer.

They communicate:

I noticed.

I listened.

Your contribution matters.

That is part of how trust and employee engagement are built.

Granted Authority Versus Earned Authority

A promotion changes your title immediately.

It does not instantly provide experience, judgment, credibility, or the trust of the people you are responsible for leading.

Those have to be developed.

Granted authority can produce compliance.

Earned authority produces something more valuable: followership.

When people trust the leader and identify with the team, they begin doing things that cannot be captured in a job description.

They solve problems before being told.

They help coworkers.

They protect standards.

They notice what needs to be done and take responsibility for it.

That is the difference between people who merely work for a manager and people who take ownership of the organization around them.

The Goal Is Not Softer Leadership

The goal of generous leadership is not to lower expectations.

It is to create people who are increasingly capable of meeting higher ones.

That requires humility.

It requires listening.

It requires accountability.

It requires direct feedback.

It sometimes requires the confidence to admit you do not have the answer.

The strongest takeaway from my conversation with Joe Davis may be this:

Leadership is not about demonstrating how much you can do without other people. It is about creating an environment where other people can do more because of your leadership.

Listen to the Full Conversation

🎧 Listen to the full podcast:
https://open.acast.com/public/streams/5cd334e4e3b953af742edd5d/episodes/6aa3055cb54f356fc79e2b54.mp3

▶️ Watch the full conversation on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/S-Gibkrv_3Q

Learn more about Workforce Alchemy:
https://workforcealchemy.com/

Connect with Mason Duchatschek:
https://masonduchatschek.com/

Learn more about Joe Davis and The Generous Leader:
https://joedavis.com/