Trust & Inspire

Don't confuse the writer of this book Stephen M.R. Covey with his famous late father Stephen R. Covey who is best known for The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. However, he is also a bestselling author himself who has made it his mission to understand trust in organizations. In his new leadership book Trust & Inspire, he is explaining how we should adapt our leadership style to the changing world.

According to Covey, Trust & Inspire is the new way to lead. Its goal is to unleash people’s talent and potential – to truly empower and inspire them – rather than try to contain and control them. It’s about trusting people to do the right thing and inspiring them to make meaningful contributions. It's about connecting with people, through caring and belonging, so that we - and they - can successfully respond to our disruptive world. It's about then connecting people to purpose so they feel inspired not only by an organization's leaders, but also by a sense of purpose, meaning, and contribution in their work.

At its core, a Trust & Inspire paradigm flows from a fundamental belief in the potential and greatness inside people. It is about seeing, communicating, developing, and unleashing the potential for greatness within people – tapping into what’s inside. ?When we inspire other people, we breathe new life, purpose, and passion into them and us. We offer a new perspective, not only of their work and world but also of them as humans. Because we genuinely see greatness within them, they begin to see possibilities for themselves they hadn't previously considered or even seen. They look beyond artificial limitations.

‘A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader; a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.’ ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

The 3 Stewardships of a Trust & Inspire Leader

A fundamental belief of a Trust & Inspire leader is that leadership in stewardship. The 3 Stewardships of a Trust & Inspire leader are following. Each of these 3 Stewardships is accompanied by a crucial descriptor.?

Modeling, or Who You Are

The best what to become a Trust & Inspire leader is to model the behavior that you would like to see. We must walk the talk before people will listen to our talk. We might say all the right things, but if our words don’t match our actions, they lose all meaning.

Greek philosophy of influence, best represented by Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Ethos is your personal credibility how people view you, whether they believe what you say. Pathos is about feelings and relationships. It's being emotionally in tune with others and their needs. Logos is about logic, whether you are rational in the work you do with people. Notice the sequence of these three ideas. You start by focusing first on your credibility and then on your relationships with others before focusing on the logical work. Too often, leaders make the mistake of starting with Logos the rational work they're trying to help others accomplish, before they focus on their credibility and relationships with people. Doing so comes across as "telling" rather than "showing’; as directive rather than instructive. Like the Greeks, we've learned that when it comes to people, it's more effective to start the opposite way, focusing first on credibility and relationships. Doing so comes across as "showing."

Trusting, or How You Lead

The very first job of a leader is to inspire trust, and the second job of a leader is to extend trust. As organizations and as a society, we’ve become very good at measuring the cost of trusting too much, but we’re not very good at all at measuring the cost of not trusting enough.

It is possible to have tow trustworthy people working together and to have no trust between them … if neither person is willing to extend trust to the other. In my experience, the most significant challenge is not a lack of trustworthy people – the biggest challenge is trustworthy people who do not extend trust to other trustworthy people. Trust is only achieved when someone is willing to extend it to the other – to be trusting.

Inspiring, or Connecting to Why

We can intentionally seek to connect with ourselves, with people around us, and with our team. With ourselves, the connection is a sense of authenticity as we find our why. With those around us, the connection is a sense of caring as we build relationships. With our team, the connection is a sense of belonging as we create inclusion. Independent from the actual work we do, we can inspire through these connections alone.

A Trust & Inspire leader start with why but goes a step further and helps people connect the work they do to that why – in other words, they “Connect to Why”.

The Fundamental Beliefs of a Trust & Inspire Leaders?