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McKinnon: Leadership vulnerability becomes unproductive past the point of building trust

Todd McKinnon · 20VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management · Feb 22, 2021 · at 19:41

Todd McKinnon, co-founder and CEO of Okta, shares his view on executive leadership and warns against over-sharing personal anxieties with team members.

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“I definitely think you can be vulnerable to a point where it's almost, you're a downer, you know. I have this problem, and I have this angst, and I'm, I have this hang-up, and this is messed up, and you come across as a complainer, or as a, or it's just not productive. And I think that the, a good way to think about that is the objective is to build trust and loyalty and camaraderie, whether that's with a recruit or whether that's someone on your team or someone that's working for you or your person that you're working for. And you probably should be open and vulnerable and try to build that trust to the level that you can build trust and can build a relationship and can build a feeling of team and camaraderie and probably not much more. Because once you get there, it's like you can go into the zone of maybe complaining too much.”

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