Trust in Leadership: 3 lessons to empower your team

Giving leaders a blank check to pursue big goals is a powerful display of trust. It shows that you believe they will do the right thing, take ownership, and be accountable for the results. Such intelligent risk taking can lead to a remarkable return on investment.

For example, sales of Oreos outside the U.S. increased from $200 million to more than a billion dollars in six years as a result of a blank check. But not all experiments will succeed. In fact, failure is often part of the process that ultimately leads to success.

Watch Sanjay Khosla, Senior Fellow for Kellogg’s Markets and Customers Initiative, discuss blank checks in this video.

The Trust Project at Northwestern University aims to create a unique body of knowledge about Trust by connecting scholars and executives from diverse backgrounds to share ideas and research.