One of the best examples of the positive impact a confident leader can have on his team is a neat little vignette about Steve Jillings, CEO of FrontBridge Technologies before it was acquired by Microsoft in 2005. This was before FrontBridge acquired MessageRite in 2004, so I wasn’t there, but the story was shared with me by a few of the founders. In the early days FrontBridge was still only ten or a dozen folks and the founders were trying to persuade Steve to join as CEO. They were running out of cash and ongoing viability was a legitimate worry. The founders had been trying unsuccessfully to raise venture capital. While trying to recruit Steve, the founders were jointly conducting a group interview of him and one of them asked “If you had to place odds on your ability to raise venture capital, what would it be?” Without hesitation Steve instantly responded an emphatic “100%!”

That’s what I call no wiggle room. The difference between 99% and 100% is the difference between “something will probably go wrong” and “guaranteed success.” It’s flying a plane with no parachute. It’s burning the ships when colonizing a new territory. It’s exactly the confidence the team needed from its leader and was the start of an impressive path to a very successful exit.