The Leaders People Actually Follow
There’s a big difference between having a leadership title and being someone people genuinely choose to follow.
That distinction sat at the heart of our conversation at Camelot SHIFT and an excellent follow on from our last debate at Camelot SPARK.
Three senior insurance leaders, with very different careers and leadership styles, came together to talk about what leadership looks like in practice, particularly when organisations are changing and the answers are often far from clear.
Trust, honesty, consistency and curiosity all came through strongly and repeatedly.
One attendee described it afterwards as “one of the best sessions I’ve ever heard.”
These were some of the ideas that stayed with us.
Trust is built in the small things
Trust came up almost immediately, but not as something leaders can simply ask for or expect from their teams without question.
The reality is that it comes from consistency. Following through on what you say. Being open when something has gone wrong. And being willing to communicate, even when you don’t yet have the perfect answer.
That becomes particularly important during periods of uncertainty.
Examples from financial crisis, acquisition, start-up environments and COVID all pointed towards the same conclusion: waiting for certainty before speaking can do more harm than good.
One anecdote brought this to life particularly well: a weekly team call introduced during the uncertainty of COVID was still running more than six years later. The lesson was simple. Even when there is not much new to say, acknowledging what people are dealing with can be more valuable than silence.
Sometimes saying we know this is happening, we’re thinking about it and we’ll keep talking to you is enough to stop silence being filled by speculation and anxiety.
Own the narrative when change gets difficult
Large organisations are very good at producing change narratives. The harder job is making them mean something to the people affected.
A strong theme from the session was the importance of leaders taking a very corporate message and translating it honestly for their own teams.
What does the change actually mean here? What is known, what’s still uncertain, and where does the leader themselves stand?
That also means being prepared to challenge upwards when necessary, rather than simply passing a message down to the rest of the organisation. And people can usually tell the difference between a leader who actually believes what they are saying and one who is repeating the approved line.
One practical example shared was the idea of rewriting the corporate narrative before taking it to your team. Not changing the facts, but translating the message into something you can confidently stand behind, explain clearly and answer questions on honestly.
Great leaders do not need to have all the answers
One of the most revealing parts of the discussion came when the panel were asked what they had needed to unlearn.
For some, it was the instinct to have an opinion on everything. For others, it was stepping in too quickly to solve a problem or believing leadership credibility depended on technical expertise.
One idea summed it up particularly well: it is not always about being right. It is about getting it right.
The discussion also touched on the familiar “HIPPO” problem, where the highest-paid person’s opinion can become the direction, simply because they spoke first. Or loudest.
Sometimes a better contribution is a question.
And sometimes the most useful thing the senior person in the room can do is give everybody else enough space to answer it.
Leadership is not about the title
There was also a strong sense that leadership means being prepared to take the bullet. When things go wrong, you stand in front of your team. When things go well, you don’t need to be the person collecting the credit.
Titles can create authority. They do not automatically create followership.
Throughout the session, leadership was framed less around status and more around responsibility: creating direction, helping other people develop, and knowing when your involvement helps and when stepping back will get a better result.
AI makes the human part of leadership more important
Inevitably, the conversation moved towards AI. But the more interesting question was not whether leaders should be using it, but what leadership looks like as AI begins changing the work people do.
There was realism about the fact that roles will change. Some tasks will disappear and different capabilities will become more valuable.
Simply reassuring people that AI is “here to help” is unlikely to remove legitimate questions about what that means for their job.
The discussion drew a useful distinction between jobs and tasks. A great deal of repetitive administration can be removed without removing the need for the person doing the role. But leaders still need to be honest that some roles will look different in future.
At the same time, technology can give leaders back time. The challenge now is to use some of that time for the things technology cannot replace: coaching, development, difficult conversations and being genuinely present with the people you lead.
Leaders can’t stay at arm’s length from the technology itself either. Curiosity came up repeatedly. If leaders are going to make decisions about how AI changes their organisations, they need to understand enough about it to ask better questions and make better calls.
The next generation may expect something different
The closing conversation turned to retention and the expectations of younger employees.
Long careers inside one company may become less common, which puts more pressure on organisations to create a culture and sense of purpose that people genuinely want to be part of. Newer generations can also be more willing to question why something is done a particular way.
That is useful, provided organisations do not immediately train that curiosity out of them. The leadership challenge is to give people the context they need without surrounding every new idea with the reasons it cannot work.
So what makes someone a leader people actually follow?
The next decade is also likely to ask leaders to make bigger decisions with less certainty. The technology will keep moving, roles will keep changing, and waiting until every answer is available may simply mean waiting too long.
There was no single leadership model offered during the session, and that was probably one of its strengths. What emerged instead was something far more practical.
People are more likely to follow leaders they trust, who communicate clearly, admit when they don’t know the answer, and create enough space for others to contribute.
Expertise still matters. But so do decisions and accountability.
Leadership is not strengthened by pretending to have certainty where none exists. In a period of significant change for insurance, the ability to bring people with you may matter just as much as knowing where you want to go.
Continue the conversation at Camelot GATHER
The wider Camelot community comes together again on 9 December at 1 Moorgate Place, London for Camelot GATHER, our biggest event of the year.
We’ll be bringing senior leaders together for another evening of honest industry conversation, connection and a proper end-of-year celebration.
