Trust is a latency killer 🏎️💨

12 years ago, I landed my first "big job" at Bitdefender.

I wasn't sold by the tech stack or the product. I was sold by the hiring manager, Alin. During the final interview, I got the most authentic, unfiltered conversation of my young career. No corporate slang, no fluff. Just: "We need great engineers, and we think you're one."

In Linux, when you don't have permission to run a command, you use sudo. It forces the system to obey. It overrides checks. It is absolute authority. To my young mind, Alin had the title. He had "root access". I expected him to use it. But in all my time there, he never once used sudo on his team.

He never said, "Do this because I'm the manager." Instead, the protocol was always:

• 🧩 "Here is the context of the problem. I need you all to come up with a plan."
• 🌱 "We have to get this done. I trust you to figure it out, or reach out if you're blocked."

Alin taught me that Trust isn't a "soft skill"—it's an efficiency mechanism.

• 📚 Trust in the Individual: We hire smart people to own the solutions.
• ⛰️ Trust in the Leader: I will stand my ground and shield your growth.
• 🤲 Mutual Trust: We don't blame; we debug and build together.

The Leadership Reality Check

Being a leader isn't about having the permission to force things through. It's about having a team that executes because they want to, not because you sudo'd them into it.

It is never easy. Hard decisions still need to be made. People will be disappointed. But I've learned that people can handle bad news (90% of the time) if they trust the source. They cannot handle ambiguity or manipulation.

Alin gave me a blueprint. My goal is to pass it on, so that 12 years from now, the next generation of leaders understands that Trust > Authority.

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