Trust and Leadership

If you don’t know me well enough or are unfamiliar with my writing, this isn’t going to go the way you think it will. I don’t know that for sure, ‘but preeeety confident.

I want to discuss how trust, money, status and leadership do not mix. I also want to talk about how ridiculous the cult of ‘Leadership’ and myriad courses that claim to teach it are, in the main, complete balderdash.

I will talk about myself first, and I may appear to be blowing my own trumpet, but what I’m getting at is that trust is not an act, and it is compromised by ‘trying to gain trust’ to gain money and/ or status. ?

I am in a relatively enviable position, having waded through a considerable amount of sh..e on the way. It is enviable because I can freely put my thoughts into the world. By freely, I mean without the need to couch what I say in terms of what will or might get me paid. I try not to be unkind, but I will err on friendly firmness rather than placation and sycophancy.

When it comes to personal, team, organisational, or any other kind of training, learning, or development, I will question motives and interests when they contain what are presented as immutable facts. Many people don’t like that… because they get paid or hope to get paid for their bag of tricks.

I’m not suggesting that when they acquired their bag of tricks, they didn’t think it was the pinnacle of rectitude (in most cases, they’re just delighted to have something that sells) – but they are trapped by what they’ve pronounced immutable. They cannot countenance the merest hint of any ideas or challenge to the contrary. OR, they will bend what they think is immutable but haven’t yet said if they think it will curry favour with a current or potential way to gain money and/ or status.

I can be firm about some ideas, very firm in some cases, to the point of plain disagreement. However, I am open to discussions that are well thought through and explained. I don’t like the idea of ‘accountability’ in terms of “standing by what you said” btw, it precludes dialectic synthesis and emergence.

Most people take my questioning as an affront. Most of the solid relationships I have, have come through that filter.

Most people are not discussing anything but rather trotting out a sales message. Most people find me ‘abrasive’ at first contact because if I think it’s warranted, I’ll question, or even reject or seek to correct. Then, I’m happy to receive the repost, but make it good… This is usually where the filter gets overcome. I respect people who do that. Most people don’t get the last bit; they get defensive and find people to talk to behind my back about how awful I am and get into little huddles of sycophancy.

Here's why I don’t really care. The strongest and most rewarding personal and professional relationships I have, the most meaningful work I do with people in terms of coaching, advice, or therapy, is with individuals who get that I’m trying to be helpful, I am honest, and above all, they can and do, trust me.

I am in a position where people who genuinely want to engage with themselves and their experience of life in relation to money, status, and power, their interpersonal relationships, and their standing in terms of what is genuinely important can trust me to be honest with them and not blow smoke where it should not go. I genuinely care about the outcome, and I’m not in it for the money or to preserve or extend my status. This does not in any way mean I am ‘right’ and will have my way come hell or high water. It means that I can apply what I’ve learned so far with honest intent.

These qualities are required of anyone who presumes the title of ‘leader’ or thinks they are in a leadership position. This cannot be taught. It cannot be acted ‘as if’; there is no faking it. Babies have an inbuilt ability to identify if people are trustworthy. By adulthood, it’s largely beaten out of them by conditioning, but it’s still there; there will be ‘something’ that everyone knows as a ‘feeling’.

I am not putting myself forward as a leader. I am far better at short explorations with individuals or small groups over a prolonged period than the ‘grind’ of leading anything bigger. What I’m trying to get at is that before ‘Leader’ can be claimed, before ‘Leadership’ can be done, there must be honesty and compassion, or as I’ve said before, love.

Genuine care for doing one’s best for other people. Being firm and honest, and also open and willing, if not eager, to have mistakes or assumptions corrected. Not doing or saying things that leave people in a compromised or worse situation. Not selling what sells and refusing to have constant review and correction, not being sycophantic or manipulative because your aim is personal advancement. Having honest intent, doing your thoughtful best, and doing it consistently.

I do know people; they are few, who offer leadership development and/ or organisational progress, who are genuinely interested in this level of honesty, and who do not ‘try to get them to trust me’ by way of ‘acting as if’ or use sales techniques and pop-psychology. These people demonstrate consistency and willingness to engage in synergy from a place of well-considered firmness and the ability to take on and apply their increasing knowledge.

Most people in this space are intractable pitchers of what sells. They are either happy enough to ‘get the gig’ while ignoring and avoiding all contradiction, knowingly or unwittingly.

I say to you, gentle reader, that leadership is an active way of being that must come from a genuine place of care for the betterment of the situation of others for its own sake and not for the sake of personal monetary gain, aggrandizement, or status. Such qualities can certainly be awoken, fostered, developed, and helped to maintain. Leadership becomes apparent and is only effective when trust has been gained through demonstration. This trust means all involved know that honest intent is aligned with solid experience, knowledge and wisdom. This trust means that acceptance is afforded for things to not always turn out for the best, but that we all tried together, and then for rapid review to take place and a way forward found.

Leadership and trust are inseparable. Trust cannot be ‘got’. It is not a resource to be extracted from others and used for ourselves. It is there, naturally.