“Your first job as a leader is not to judge. The second you start judging people as a leader, you will lose them”. That says Robin Dreeke in his book “The Code of Trust”.  “Be non-judgmental” is the 2nd of his set of 5 rules to lead and succeed. According to Dreeke, “leadership is power, but the leadership that is most brilliant and most effective, is soft power: humble, non-judgmental, validating, reasonable and generous”. I am personally sure you already met leaders in your career that responded to this description, but I fear it was a minority.  

In my previous article I talked about Robins Dreeke’s system of 5 rules that everybody can learn to gain trust and I highlighted the first one: “suspend your ego”. Dreeke is a former US Navy pilot and FBI Special Agent where he managed one of the FBI’s most prestigious behavioral programs.

Having worked for the FBI, Drake knows what he writes about: confessions from criminals typically come from empathy, sympathy, compassion, and understanding. No matter the cause of the crime. “That does not mean the good cop pretends to approve. It means he or she inspires enough trust for a criminal to stop denying responsibility, and transfers some of that trust to the criminal justice system. They simply see a nonjudgmental face in rent of them, feel a moment of release from fear, and conform to the natural human desire to unburden themselves of lies, guilt, remorse, and tension”.

According to Robin Drake, much of the difficulty of suspending judgment, on a day-to-day basis, comes from our own insecurities and fears. “The desire to feel superior to others is always tempting and is sometimes almost irresistible.  It gives us a sense of safety and status to think that we are better than others, and to let them know it—subtly, or not”. I think we all know situations when we were ourselves in this case, isn’t it?

One of Drakes guiding lights, is the Marine’s saying that any time 2 or more Marines are together, the one who sets the goal becomes the leader. He says that leadership is almost never a reward for reaching a goal, it is a reflection of your actions in the pursuit of a goal. “Leadership is all about doing, not being. It is easy to call yourself a leader, but it is never easy to lead. Leading is based on inspiring others to follow, and the only way to do that is to construct a mission that it’s all about your followers, not you”.

For Drake, your first job as a leader is not to judge. “You can evaluate proper performance of your people, and eliminate ineffective practices, but the second you start judging people—even if they’re not performing well or being effective—you lose them”, he says.

Drake pretends that if he judges the people around him, and always put his own needs first, no one will want him to lead, and it would create one humbling moment after another. But if his goal is to help everyone around him achieve their own goals—without judging them—people are happy to have him leading them, and the path to his goal is wide open.

That is logical, he says, but hard. He is as vulnerable to anxiety and anger as anyone else, and it is not hard for him – and only one else - to get emotionally highjacked. When he allows that to happen, though, emotion clouds his judgment, and humbling moments arise.

Therefore, he reevaluates his behavior every day, and makes sure it leads to his goals. If he starts to get arrogant, or complacent, or rebellious, he knows he headed toward the danger zone. Then it is time to correct the course and move forward.

“Course correction is something that people have to do themselves. If you try to impose it on someone else, they will think you are judging them. The best way to help people see their shortcomings without feeling judged is to just ask them questions about their ultimate goal”.

“But people are smart,” concludes Drake, “when you prompt them to refocus on their priorities, instead of taking a side trip to their insecurities, they go back to work at improving themselves. They usually do this with the resolve of a bird flying home to its nest”. Read also the other rules. (Picture by

Boris Misevic on Unsplash)