Trust - Part 1. It's about who you are
Dave Sneddon
Transforming Life for Vulnerable Populations | COO | CEO | Building Financially Sustainable Cultures | Developing People from CNA to C-suite
Listen and watch HERE or read below.
You can’t buy trust when you need it – you need to earn it long before.
It is about who you are (empathy and sincerity) and what you do (competence and integrity)
Trust starts with how you treat people.
While I was travelling across the country for my first day in a new job, my mum died.
How my new work family responded set the tone for some of the biggest workplace changes of my career over the next few years.
The CEO and legal counsel were great but didn’t really know what to say or do. They trusted me and took my lead. They asked how and what I wanted communicated and to whom and they offered to postpone my start (no small thing as they had already waited 3 months for me to finish commitments at my previous position and had spent almost a year on the search – 9 months recruiting me).
Since my family at the time was scattered across 4 continents, I had nowhere else to go and focusing on work was helpful – so I stayed the week at my new corporate office and worked.
The head of HR went right into mother mode and made sure I had a private space for family calls, had food, and never had to worry about anything during my stay.
The head of marketing asked me to tell her about my mum and what she was like. If you have ever lost anyone close to you – this is exactly what you need, whether you know it or not.
The EAs were both so kind and helpful and funny.
On the reverse – one executive told me all about himself, then clearly and aggressively marked his territory. This one also called me 4 times during my mother’s funeral “just to run something past me for ideas”
Another executive got very agitated that I was still on the phone (with my sister arranging funeral details) because he wanted to take me to lunch. Mostly to show me his fancy car and tell me who I should fire right away (none of which I fired and one I actually promoted 3 times over the years)
领英推荐
How do you think those working relationships were when trust became priceless?
Over the next few years as we rebranded and restructured the company, started and ended whole business lines, and managed hundreds of healthcare locations with vulnerable people through a pandemic?
Leading those changes as CEO and communicating them to some very worried people – I knew who I could trust on my team. I knew who gave a darn about people.
Those first day impressions were reinforced again and again as these phenomenal leaders showed their compassion for the team and the clients.
There are plenty of leaders who can manage change. They can plot out the Gannt charts and make sure nothing is missed.?(On paper at least – as no less a strategist than Mike Tyson once commented “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”)
The level of trust amongst the team meant that nothing hit the floor – when things were inevitably dropped someone always stepped up and caught it. The team cared for and trusted each other – the work was always done as people stepped in and out of roles as needed.
Leading change is a different skill from managing change. If you have demonstrated empathy and integrity before the hard times come – people will follow. They will trust that you care about them. They will trust that you are doing what must be done. They will amplify that message and work for the change to be successful.
The Harvard Business review had a great article a few years back on the need for leaders to have empathy in change management. LINK HERE
Empathy. A characteristic conspicuously absent in many leaders is the one that is most needed. When you are doing the hard things - it matters if you care how it impacts people. They can tell if you mean it and are more likely to accept that it must be necessary if they know you give a darn about them.
It shouldn’t be hard – be a good mammal.
When you need the trust of a team you have to have earned it beforehand. It makes good business sense to treat people like people but mostly it’s just the right thing to do.