The Leader Who Walks Alongside (4) — A Leader Is Not a Perfect Person

I have a confession to make. I'm not someone who does all five of the things above well.

The 1:1 I Kept Putting Off

Some days, I don't listen to my team members as fully as I should. I use being busy as an excuse to postpone 1:1 meetings. Sometimes I ask for things before I give them. Once, a team member said to me, carefully, "I think you've been putting off our 1:1s a lot lately, boss." I started to make an excuse, then stopped. They were right. Being busy was true, but postponing the 1:1 meant putting that person last. From the following week, I made sure to do it properly again.

Pretending to Be Perfect Breeds Distrust

Team members don't expect a leader's perfection as much as you'd think. In fact, they distrust a leader who pretends to be perfect. The moment the thought "That person makes mistakes too, so why won't they admit it?" arises, trust collapses. Conversely, when a leader acknowledges their own shortcomings and still strives to improve, trust actually grows. "They're trying too. Let me try as well."

The executive who revived the world's largest software company captured this in a single phrase: shifting from "know-it-all" to "learn-it-all." When he put humility and empathy first, the company's stagnant market capitalization nearly rose tenfold within a decade.

One researcher said that showing vulnerability is not weakness but courage. Another study showed that when a leader acknowledges their own weaknesses and shows that they are learning, that humility spreads through the whole team and performance rises.

There's a closer example too. The head of an IT company went through a major incident just months after taking office, when a data center fire brought services to a halt. He bowed his head in public and admitted that he had seriously agonized over whether to step down or stay and clean up the mess. Rather than pretending to be perfect and making excuses, he laid his shortcomings and his responsibility bare. Responsibility doesn't lie in throwing away your position, but in honestly declaring that you will rebuild what has collapsed. Long ago, an independence activist raised not perfect heroes but people who polish themselves every day, with the words "strive to be sincere, and act with all your strength." When a leader is not a finished being but one who improves alongside others, people find themselves thinking, "Let me try too."

We don't even need to look far. Yu Seong-ryong, the state councilor who lived through the Imjin War, wrote the Jingbirok after the war ended. He recorded even his own misjudgments in full detail and titled it "a record to guard against future failure." Leaving a record of one's own failures, he believed, is what prevents the next one.

There's something I often say to my team. "There are times I don't know either. When that happens, I'll say honestly that I don't know. But let's find the answer together." I've come to realize that this gives team members a greater sense of reassurance than any grand vision statement. A leader doesn't have to be a perfect person. It seems enough to be someone who knows the right direction and walks toward it, and who shows that process honestly to their team.

In the next piece, finally, we'll talk about what it is that moves people to follow such a leader.