Return to Blog Post Intro
The First Wave—Self-Trust & Personal Credibility
Character
- Integrity: Start by asking yourself, “Do you act in accordance with your values/beliefs?” As Albert Einstein said, “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.” In his business best-seller Good to Great, Jim Collins found that great company leaders were a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. He pointed out that they are more like Lincoln and Socrates than Patton or Caesar.
- Intent: What’s your agenda? The motive that inspires the greatest trust is genuine caring—about people, purposes, quality of what you do, and society as a whole. The agenda that inspires the greatest trust is seeking mutual benefit. Are you a “commons creator” (see October 2, 2013 blog post)? To inspire trust with your team, be transparent. I’ll admit that term is thrown around a lot these days. In this context, it simply means to declare your intent, agenda, and motives.
Competence
- Capabilities: Are your talents, attitudes, skills, knowledge, and style relevant? As Eric Shinseki, U.S. Army Chief of Staff said, “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.” Bill Gates put it this way, “The complacent company is a dead company. Success today requires the agility and drive to constantly rethink, reinvigorate, react, and reinvent.”
- Results: What’s your track record? Are you getting the right things done? We tend to get what we expect—both from ourselves & others. We need to expect more…and finish strong. A world-class runner said, “When you hit the wall and you feel like you can’t go on, instead of focusing on your exhaustion and going into the ‘survival shuffle,’ lift your head and pick up your pace.”
The Second Wave—Relationship Trust
Here are the 13 behaviors that—if applied consistently—will enhance your trust with others:
1. Talk Straight. A 2005 Mercer Management Consulting study found that only 40% of employees trust that their bosses communicate honestly. There is plenty of room for improvement in U.S. organizations today. Start by giving the “real scoop” to your team…not using “spin”, as our politicians have become accustomed to do.
2. Demonstrate Respect. Someone once said that you can judge a person’s character by the way he treats people who can’t help him or hurt him. How about you? Do you genuinely care for others? You should never attempt to be “efficient” with people and relationships.
3. Create Transparency. Transparent leadership is based on the principles of honesty, openness, integrity, and authenticity. As a leader, you should err on the side of disclosure. Don’t hide information.
4. Right Wrongs. This behavior goes beyond simply apologizing—it’s making up & making whole…doing what you can to correct the mistake…and a little more. John Huntsman, recent Presidential candidate, noted that Watergate wasn’t so much a burglary as it was the failure to recognize mistakes, to take responsibility for them, and to apologize accordingly.
5. Show Loyalty. Robert Townsend, former CEO of Avis put it this way, “It’s been my experience that the people who gain trust, loyalty, and energy fast are the ones who pass on the credit to the people who have really done the work. A leader doesn’t need any credit… He’s getting more credit than he deserves anyway.” Former President Harry S. Truman said, “You can accomplish anything in life provided you don’t care who gets the credit.”
6. Deliver Results. Early in my career, I learned the customer service principle to “under-promise and over-deliver.” That’s stuck with me over the years. Business leadership expert Dave Ulrich points out, “Future leaders will be less concerned with saying what they will deliver and more concerned with delivering what they have said they would.”
7. Get Better. One of my core values is improvement, so it is important to me to continually learn and change by seeking feedback and learning from my mistakes. As a leader, a good way to do this is to send out a brief inquiry to your team members, customers, or other key stakeholders with 3 questions. What should you “continue…stop…start” doing? You’ll be surprised at the rich feedback you can receive from such a simple approach!
8. Confront Reality. When leaders fail to address the “elephant in the room”, they erode trust with their teams. In his business best-seller Good to Great, Jim Collins coined the term “Stockdale Paradox”, quoting Admiral James Stockdale—a Vietnam Prisoner of War—who said, “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
9. Clarify Expectations. Blaine Lee, author of The Power Principle asserts that almost all conflict is a result of violated expectations. As a leader, never assume that expectations are clear or shared. It should be a 2-way street. Your team members have the opportunity to push back so that you can together form an expectation that is realistic and will work from both points of view.
10. Practice Accountability. Hold yourself and others accountable—but above all, leaders take responsibility for results. Sam Silverstein’s book No More Excuses (click here for more details) provides good advice for personal and professional accountability. J. Willard Marriott, Jr., CEO of Marriott International advised, “Get good people and expect them to perform. Terminate them quickly and fairly if you make the wrong choice.”
11. Listen First. Management guru Peter Drucker concluded an article on 8 practices of effective executives this way, “We just reviewed 8 practices of effective executives. I’m going to throw in one final practice. This one is so important that I will elevate it to a rule: Listen first, speak last.” I like to put it this way—have more questions than answers. I’ve found that to be a great leadership principle. Jack Greenberg, CEO of McDonald’s echoed that sentiment, “I’ve found the two best qualities a CEO can have are the ability to listen and to assume the best motives in others.” Are you assuming the best from your team members today? What are they telling you?
12. Keep Commitments. When describing my core value of integrity, I like to say that I will “do what I say.” Hank Paulson, CEO of Goldman Sachs, agrees when he says, “It is a leader’s responsibility to demonstrate what it means to keep your word and earn a reputation for trustworthiness.” Dennis Ross, former U.S. Ambassador put it this way, “Always deliver what you say you will. Never make a promise that you can’t follow through on.” And if you have conflicts between work & family commitments, apply “The 10-Year Rule”: ten years from now, what will I be glad I did?
13. Extend Trust. Ralph Waldo Emerson says it well, “Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves to be great.” Gordon Forward, former CEO of Chaparral Steel, explained his company’s philosophy, “We felt that a lot of the procedures in many organizations were designed to catch the 3% who were trying to cheat in one way or another. We decided to design our rules for the 97% we can trust. The others would stand out like sore thumbs, we figured, and they’d eventually leave. That’s exactly what happened.” Henry Stimson, former U.S. Secretary of State once said, “The surest way to make a man untrustworthy is to distrust him and show your distrust.” So, have a propensity to trust your team members.
Why is all of this important? Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, authors of The Leadership Challenge point out that trust is the most significant predictor of individuals’ satisfaction with their organizations. In fact, Covey echoes that when he says that after 20 years of research, his organization found that trust between managers and employees is the primary defining characteristic of the very best workplaces.
So, if you want to shoot for the stars as an out of this world leader, start by making sure you have credibility with others then employ these 13 behaviors to increase trust with others today!