Over a Cliff

We ask leaders to be a lot of things. Clear. Decisive. Strategic. Resilient. Calm under pressure. Good with people. Good with numbers. Good in a crisis and, perhaps more difficultly, good when there is no crisis but everyone is tired and it is 4.47pm on a Friday.

Somewhere in that very long list is another responsibility we do not talk about nearly enough.

Leaders need to make people believe.

Believe in the work. Believe in the direction. Believe that whatever mess we are currently standing in can be worked out. Believe that the difficult conversation is worth having. Believe that there is a reason to care beyond simply getting through the week.

Not every day. Not endlessly. We are still talking about workplaces, not cults.

But there is an energy that exists around certain leaders that makes people want to contribute.

We have been thinking a lot about what creates that difference. A recent Scandal rewatch party may have had something to do with it, which is perhaps not where most serious leadership thinking begins.

There is a line Abby uses about Olivia Pope: “Over a cliff.”

As in, wherever Olivia goes, she goes too.

And honestly, we get it.

Yes, there is plenty about Scandal that has lodged itself permanently in our brains. The white hat. The coats. The fantasy of walking into a disaster, saying “it’s handled” and having everyone simply believe you.

But the reason early Olivia Pope is so compelling has less to do with her certainty and more to do with the way she believes in her people.

She backs them. She trusts them. She makes them feel like they are part of something, not simply employed by it.

They are gladiators.

It is dramatic, obviously. This is television. But underneath all of that drama is something very real.

When somebody believes in you that much, it changes the way you show up.

The leaders who have inspired us most have made us feel part of what they were building. There was usually an alignment of values, but it went further than that. There was a sense that we were in the trenches together. They listened more than they spoke and, importantly, they actually listened.

What you said could change the conversation.

Your perspective was not something to politely collect before returning to the decision that had already been made.

That kind of leadership does something to people.

And this is where inspiration gets misunderstood. It is easy to hear the word and imagine the big speech. The all-staff presentation. The charismatic person standing at the front of a room talking about purpose while everyone dutifully nods along.

The inspiration we are talking about is much quieter.

It is built in ordinary moments.

Anyone can look resilient during a 90-minute board meeting.

The better test is an everyday Tuesday afternoon.

How do you respond when somebody gets something wrong? Do you listen when you are tired? Does the newest person in the room get taken seriously? Do your values survive inconvenience? When somebody disagrees with you, do you become curious or defensive?

That is where people decide whether they trust you.

And maybe that is why “over a cliff” works, even though following someone unquestioningly over an actual cliff is objectively terrible advice.

Great leadership should create more thinking, not less. You want people who challenge you. You want someone willing to say, “I think we are getting this wrong.” You want a team capable of making good decisions without waiting for the person with the biggest title to speak first.

“Over a cliff” should never mean that I have handed my judgement over to you.

It means something closer to: I understand what we are trying to do. I believe in it. I trust you. And I trust that if this becomes difficult, you are not going to leave me standing there by myself.

That is shared purpose.

And perhaps the most inspiring thing a leader can give someone is the feeling that they have their back.

Not blind praise. Not endless “you’ve got this”. Genuine, authentic belief.

I trust your judgement. I want to know what you think. I will back you in the room. I will tell you when I disagree. If something goes wrong, we will work it out together.

You are never going to be everyone’s cup of tea, and leadership almost always  gets worse the moment being universally liked becomes the objective.

But you do need to understand what makes your people care.

Some people are inspired by the mission. Some by autonomy. Some by becoming exceptional at something. Some by belonging. Some by seeing exactly who benefits from their work.

The job is not to inspire everyone in exactly the same way.

The job is to be curious enough to find out what makes the people around you believe.

And maybe there is another part of this that matters.

The teams we build.

If you spend enough time saying, “We can do this,” eventually you should be building something where you are not the only person capable of saying it.

One day you will be tired. Or uncertain. Or simply unable to see the answer. And someone you have spent years backing will look across the table and give some of that belief back to you.

“We can do this.”

There is something quite beautiful about that.

Maybe the sign of an exceptional leader is not that everybody relies on them for energy. Maybe it is that they have created enough belief around them that it starts moving in every direction.

You believe in them. They believe in you. And, somewhere along the way, you all start believing in what you are building together.

Nobody has to be the source of everything.

Maybe that is what “over a cliff” really gets at.

Not blind loyalty. Not one person at the front with everyone else following behind.

Something much more mutual.

Whatever happens next, we are in it together.

Maybe not over a cliff.

But close enough to the edge to know who has your back.