Why the Right Leader Can Change Everything
January 8, 2026
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Leadership requires relationships, not the surface kind of relationship, but the type that includes trust, commitment, and conflict.
Connection built on elements like these is authentic and helps bring out the best in managers and team members. To take it a step further, the quality of the relationship between leader and team member is the most critical factor in engagement vs disengagement and being productive vs. unproductive.
Marcus Buckingham said, “People don’t leave bad companies; they leave bad managers.”Research supports this; a recent Gallup study found that the #1 reason people quit their jobs is a bad boss or immediate supervisor.
Unfortunately, many managers forget the gravity of their role and its impact on those they get the opportunity to lead. They make the mistake of believing they are there to enforce rules, ensure quality work, and hire/fire employees.
While those are all important, leadership is so much more. The primary job of a leader is to elevate others. To do that requires a balance of being caring and demanding. Watch the last 20 seconds to learn more:
Caring is essential because of a world-class leadership principle:
Connect before you correct.
I define caring in Building the Best as “to contribute to someone’s long-term success and well-being.” Don’t just take my word for it. Researchers at the University of Berkley studied what motivates productivity in professionals.
One of the common mistakes I see in participants of the Accelerate Leadership Program is that they try to optimize and be efficient regarding relationship building. Steven Covey said,
"You can be efficient with things but not people. With people, you must be effective."
Covey meant that efficiency, focus, and optimization are critical in time management, but they don’t work with people. When it comes to relationships, we must focus on being effective. This means forging bonds of mutual trust with team members through time and communication.
In today’s fast-paced “what have you done for me lately” culture, it’s easy to forget that relationships matter. Solid relationships make us human and is a significant differentiator from AI.
Having solid relationships makes us human and is a significant differentiator from AI.
As you may have guessed, there is no hack or shortcut to caring about your team. If you don’t care, maybe now is the time to look for a position other than leadership. However, most leaders struggle to demonstrate that they care about others through their actions.
One of the easiest ways to show you care is by implementing this simple technique within the first minute of every interaction; it’s what I call the “One Better Question Rule.”
Curiosity is defined as the strong desire to learn or know something. Many managers start their interactions with a curiosity that isn’t effective and doesn’t serve a purpose. Typical questions include: “How was your weekend?” or “How was your day?” While nothing is wrong with these questions, they are filler questions that don’t demonstrate genuine care and aren’t connected to a deeper purpose.
Instead of these overused questions, ask better questions connected to a purpose, like employee retention. If you want to ask a question to provide great leadership, here are some examples: The difference would look like this:
Average Question:
Better Questions to Demonstrate Leadership:
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how much more powerful the better questions are than the average question. The trick is that better questions can become a habit if you keep them visible and commit to asking one daily. You can download the complete list of Communication to Demonstrate Caring Leadership for free here.
Author Patrick Lencioni told me something I will never forget, “People need to be reminded more than they need to be taught.” Here is a key reminder: give your undivided attention to your team member’s response. Great leaders care by asking insightful questions and paying attention to the response. If you fail to give your undivided attention your their response, the quality of the question didn’t matter.
Great leaders care by asking insightful questions and paying attention to the response.
While this might seem obvious, most likely you are busy and have a lot of things on your mind, so giving someone your undivided attention is a gift worth giving.
Leadership requires relationships. Caring about others by asking insightful questions laced with curiosity is a dynamite way to demonstrate through your actions that you care.
Try the “One Better Question Rule” in every single interaction with your team. The best part is that they will look to mimic this behavior with others in the organization, and you will create a chain reaction of care.
64-Day Excellence Planner: The most important decision you make every day is what you focus on. Get the 64-Day Excellence Planner to help you stay focused on the most important things and achieve your goals.
Communication to Demonstrate Care: Get the tool to ask better questions to team members to reduce voluntary employee turnover. Download it for free.
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About the Author John Eades is the CEO of LearnLoft, a leadership development helping companies improve performance through leadership. He was named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices. John is also the author of Building the Best: 8 Proven Leadership Principles to Elevate Others to Success. You can follow him on Instagram @johngeades.
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