Trust: A Leadership Essential

Learning to trust is one of the most difficult challenges we humans face; yet, it’s a leadership essential.

Why trust is difficult

While many of us, in an honest assessment, would agree that we have a difficult time trusting others, we may not understand why. Here are some possible reasons for the challenges we, as leaders, face in trusting employees:

• We aren’t sure whether the person possesses the skills and abilities to do the job.
• We aren’t sure how committed the person is to doing the job well.
• We don’t know what level of integrity the person possesses…and in which situations their integrity will be tested.
• We don’t know what personal challenges the person is currently facing.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. The more important question is “How can we learn to trust in the face of all these uncertainties?”

My experience

As someone who has been in leadership roles for over 50 years, here’s what I’ve learned:

People live up to, or down to, my expectations.

When I let people know that:

• I believe that they have the talent necessary to accomplish the goal.
• I trust them to make good decisions.
• I trust them to meet the deadlines we set jointly.

They work diligently to not disappoint me. Who among us wants to disappoint someone who believes in us? Plus, if they sense that something isn’t going to work, they’ll tell me in advance so that we avoid wasting time and energy on what will become a failed effort.

Let’s contrast that with a distrusting approach in which I:

• Dictate to them what they’re going to do, how to do it and when to have it done.
• Follow up regularly to see what progress they’re making.
• Regularly offer suggestions on how to do the task more efficiently.

Workers in this environment don’t feel trusted, don’t feel that their skills and abilities are recognized, don’t feel that they can offer input of any kind without fear of falling into disfavor with me, their boss. Consequently, they do the bare minimum to keep their jobs. In other words, they live down to my expectations.

Actually, the most talented often leave in favor of a better environment because they know that they possess the ability to produce results…which is what the better employers appreciate.

Takeaways

It’s easy to trust when you realize that it’s human nature to want to avoid disappointing those who believe in us.

You exhibit trust in your employees when you express your beliefs that they:

• Possess the skills and ability to produce the desired result.
• Make good decisions.
• Meet jointly-set deadlines.

When you exhibit this type of trust, you create an environment in your organization which enables you to attract and retain top talent…even when you can’t pay top salary.

The following resources will not only help you attract top talent, but improve the skills and abilities of the talent you already employ.

Resources

Making the EXCEPTIONAL Normal program helps you identify and nurture emerging leaders who elevate all around them to higher levels of performance and greater job enjoyment.

Financial Awareness & Strategy program where employees learn to identify opportunities to improve financial results and prioritize these opportunities on the basis of which produces the greatest impact with the least effort. Greater financial awareness = Better decisions.