Loyalty Starts at the Top
Loyalty is a two-way street that flows down before it flows up.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 86%
Liniger's rule for building trust is that loyalty is a two-way street that must start at the top and flow downward. The leader carries the first responsibility to be totally, 100% loyal to employees, and only then is that loyalty repaid. He illustrates with Herb Kelleher of Southwest, who publicly sided with flight attendants over an abusive drunk passenger, declaring the customer is not always right. Extend the same loyalty to vendors and customers and it comes back. This is his foundational answer to how you build trust and credibility with a team.
Origin
Liniger cites sitting in the front row of a Herb Kelleher speech where the Southwest founder said he'd throw a harassing passenger off the plane to protect employees, crystallizing Liniger's belief that loyalty must originate with the leader.
Core principles
- 01Loyalty is a two-way street.
- 02Loyalty starts at the top going down, not the bottom going up.
- 03It is the leader's responsibility to be 100% loyal to employees first.
- 04If you're loyal to employees, vendors, and customers, the loyalty is repaid.
How to run it
- 1
Own loyalty as your responsibility
Accept that as the leader you must be 100% loyal to your employees before you can expect any loyalty upward.
- 2
Side with employees who are doing their job
When staff are right and a customer is abusive, back the employee, even at the cost of the customer.
Pro tip Kelleher's rule: the customer is not always right; a valued employee outranks an abusive customer.
- 3
Extend loyalty across all stakeholders
Be loyal to vendors and customers as well; the loyalty compounds and is replayed back to you.
In the wild
Herb Kelleher told an audience that if a drunk passenger is harassing flight attendants, throw him off the plane; the employee doing their job is worth more than that customer.
→ Demonstrated top-down loyalty that Liniger says earns loyalty back from staff.
Common mistakes
Demanding loyalty upward first
Expecting employees to be loyal before the leader has proven loyalty to them reverses the direction loyalty actually flows and fails.
Reflexively siding with the customer
Always taking the customer's side over a staff member doing their job correctly signals disloyalty and erodes trust.
Is it for you?
Best for
Any leader trying to build durable trust and credibility with a team.
Not ideal for
Situations where an employee is genuinely in the wrong and loyalty would mean tolerating misconduct.
From the transcript
“loyalty is a two-way street and loyalty starts at the top going down not the down going up”
“if you're loyal to your employees your vendors your customers the Loyalty will be replayed”
From the episode
Dave Liniger: Top Leadership Principles to Achieve Extraordinary Entrepreneurship Success
Dave Liniger