For best-selling American author Brene Brown, a strong leader has the courage to be weak.
The Texan academic rose to stardom after her 2010 TEDx Talk, The Power of Vulnerability, went viral - almost 24 million people have now watched it.
She's known as America's `self-help queen', a term the respected scholar says she resents when she takes to the global speaker circuit.
And despite being in huge demand, Ms Brown says she's still paid on average half or what her male counterparts earn.
"So now I charge more to make it ethically appropriate," she told a Business Chicks event in Sydney.
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The Oprah-approved author is in Australia to promote her latest book, Rising Strong, and to unveil new research about innovation in the workplace.
She's worked with special ops in the military, multinational corporations and startup entrepreneurs to discover what good leadership looks like.
After six years at the coal face, Ms Brown says brave leaders need to risk emotional exposure to shift work cultures toward success.
When we armour up against vulnerability, problems like disengagement, shame and blame cultures and workplace bullying emerge, she found.
Ms Brown says one of the key ingredients in effective teams is trust, and you can't cheat time in building it up.
"Trust is not a grand gesture, it's a collection of very small moments," she said.
You can't develop trust in moments of crises either - by that time it's too late.
But asking for help is one of the most significant ways to earn the trust of your workers, Ms Brown said.
"Admitting you're out of your depth or in over your head fundamentally changes the way people think of you," she said.
"It means you're not going to ram our business into the ground pretending like you know what you're doing."
Showing up at funerals is another big trust earner.
Attending the funeral of a colleague's loved one shows you see that person as a human being in pain - it shows empathy.
Ms Brown also said honesty, or "being ballsy", is a major trait of transformational managers.
"The tap dance, bullshit, gloss it up... that is not leadership," she said.
"People clap for the truth."
After analysing 150,000 pieces of data, Ms Brown found many companies lifted technical experts to high positions who lacked communication and leadership skills.
"That would be like saying to me, `the pilot is down and we need you to take over, because you have a shit tonne of frequent flyer miles'", she said.
Others try to lead with fear, which Ms Brown says has reached fever pitch in the US.
She believes since the 9/11 terror attacks and the global financial crises, American society has been plagued by trauma and shame that manifests itself in obesity, addiction and debt.
Billionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump is tapping into this fear for political leverage, Ms Brown said.
"But fear has a short shelf life, and you can only lead by it for a certain amount of time before it erupts," she said.
