If you want your team to trust you, stop walking in front of them and start walking with them.

That’s the leadership lesson that Gabriela Bejarano understands well and demonstrated in our tour of Las Catalinas, the Northwest shore of Costa Rica, last year, pictured here.

I was visiting a development site in Guanacaste, and we spent time touring the towns Gabby runs on the ground.

She’s managing the entire development for American-based investors. The scale, complexity, and expectations are enormous. She carries responsibility that would overwhelm most people, and she does it with a calm steadiness that’s immediately noticeable.

And while her title and authority are impressive, they aren’t why people follow her.

Gabby moved through the site with grace and confidence. Teams listened closely as she guided decisions forward and kept the work moving without friction or drama. It was obvious she’d earned the trust of everyone around her long before we arrived.

Watching her work highlighted authentic leadership.

One way is to force compliance – tell people what to do, apply pressure, and push results through. Work gets done, but respect doesn’t follow.

The other is to walk alongside your team, model the standard, and let people observe what “good” looks like in action. This is how Gabby leads.

It’s why I consider her the quintessential project manager – one who leads by example instead of strong-arming. People follow her because they trust her judgment and want to emulate how she shows up every day.

Leadership that lasts can’t come from authority alone. Leaders need to earn trust, step by step, by walking with their team and setting the example worth following – like Gabby.

Mark Lester, Principal, LANDCO NEXA