There is no one bigger right now than Chris Stapleton. He’s not just the king of country music with eight GRAMMYs and an ACM Entertainer of the Year award, Stapleton earned People’s Choice Crossover artist of the year after collaborating with such artists as Pink, Taylor Swift and Justin Timberlake.    

But you may have never heard the name Chris Stapleton if it wasn’t for his record label’s leadership. A true trait of leadership is trusting your people and following their intuitions.

According to GQ, when Stapleton was 37 he was struggling to get recognized as a band’s front man. The country music singer was a behind-the-scenes songwriter. The first album he produced for record label Universal Nashville was a flop. But the label listened when Stapleton asked for another chance, offering to record an album and support it with live shows. That album was Traveller, and it earned Universal Nashville and Stapleton two GRAMMYs. 

There’s a leadership lesson here: trusting your team and employees is critical. Not many follow through with it, but it is one of the keys to business success. A leader believes in his or her team, listens and gets out of the way.

Be a leader. Trust your people, let them make decisions and offer solutions, then support them, and let them do it!

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