The Leaders People Remember

On Sunday, 20-year-old Kimi Antonelli finished third at the Mexico City Grand Prix and became the youngest world champion in Formula 1 history. He beat a record Sebastian Vettel had held since 2010, and he wrapped up the title with four races still to go.

It's a remarkable result. What interests me more is what happened twelve months earlier.

A difficult first year

In 2025, Antonelli was 18 and had been given one of the most scrutinised seats in sport: replacing Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes. His rookie season had good days and bad ones.

At the Dutch Grand Prix, he ran wide in the very first practice session and got stuck in the gravel. In the race, a late move on Charles Leclerc went wrong, both cars were out and Antonelli was given a penalty. A week later, at his home race in Monza, he finished ninth. His team principal, Toto Wolff, didn't sugar-coat it. He called the weekend "underwhelming", and then said it twice more for good measure.

Plenty of people had already decided Antonelli had been promoted too soon.

What his leader did

What Wolff said around those weekends is worth a closer look, because he did two things that most of us find hard to do at the same time.

He was honest. "Underwhelming" isn't a word anyone wants to hear from their boss, particularly in public. But it was true, and Antonelli later said he agreed with it. He took it, in his words, "as fuel to do even better".

He kept believing. After Zandvoort, Wolff said his "100% belief is in him in the long term, and that is just part of the learning". He'd told everyone in advance it would be a year of learning, and that "there would be moments where we'd tear our hair out". Anyone who has managed a team, trained a new colleague or raised a teenager will recognise the feeling.

A year later, Antonelli went back to Monza, started 19th on the grid and won.

The leaders we remember

Ask people to describe a leader who changed something for them, and the answers are rarely about charisma or speeches. They tend to sound like this:

• They believed in me before I'd proved anything.
• They told me the truth, even when it was uncomfortable.
• They let me get things wrong without making me feel like a failure.
• They were the same person on a bad day as on a good one.

None of these is about being the loudest person in the room. They're about holding two things together: high standards and steady belief. Leaders who only offer belief can feel pleasant but leave people unsure where they stand. Those who only offer honesty can be accurate and still leave people too anxious to take a risk. The ones we remember manage both.

Harvard researcher Amy Edmondson has spent decades studying what she calls psychological safety: the shared sense that it's safe to speak up, ask questions and admit mistakes. Her work suggests that teams where people feel safe to own their errors tend to learn faster. That's not because they make more mistakes, but because the mistakes get talked about and fixed rather than hidden. "Just part of the learning" is psychological safety in five words.

It isn't only about job titles

Most of us lead someone, whether that's a team, a family, a new colleague we've been asked to look after or a group of volunteers. And all of us lead ourselves.

That last one is worth pausing on. Think about how you speak to yourself after a mistake. Is it closer to "underwhelming, and I still believe in you", or does the honesty arrive without any of the belief?

Many of the capable, high-achieving people I work with are generous leaders to others and harsh ones to themselves. They would never speak to a struggling colleague the way they speak to themselves after a difficult meeting.

A few questions to sit with

• Who is the leader you remember, and what exactly did they do?
• Who are you leading right now, formally or not, and do they know you believe in them?
• When you give honest feedback, does the belief come with it?
• What would change if you led yourself the way you'd want to be led?

Final thoughts

Antonelli's title will be remembered for the record. The part I'll remember is a leader who looked at an 18-year-old having a difficult year and said, in effect: that wasn't good enough, but I still believe in you.

That combination is rarer than it should be, and most of us can offer more of it.

If you're stepping into a leadership role, finding your way in one, or wondering how to lead yourself through a change, coaching is a good place to think it through. You can book a free introductory call here.