Why being trustworthy is only half the real deal
I've been quite fixated on the notion of trust in leadership for some time now, and more recently as a result of my research and experiments around the building and measurement of social capital in team settings.
Stephen M. R. Covey (son of the Stephen R. Covey) has written some of the best books out there on this notion of trust and I particularly like his latest, Trust & Inspire, which makes a compelling case about the difference between "enlightened command and control" versus contemporary "trust and inspire" leadership approaches.
As part of what Covey calls the 2nd Stewardship of Trust & Inspire Leadership, he illustrates the eye-opening fact that many leaders focus on being trustworthy, but are very often highly untrusting of others. This completely erodes the whole trust equation. Without both trustworthiness and trusting (as an action taken), there cannot be any genuine trust.
I thought about this and it is absolutely true. I have worked with so many executives who absolutely had integrity and projected trustworthiness as part of their own leadership brand, but who habitually started with distrust in their dealings with others. They felt the trust had to be earned by these others - usually other leaders or their direct reports. But this is the vicious cycle that to some extent proves the virtuous one.
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1 年I completely agree JR. Trust can be both a feeling and an action, but you are right that it needs to be an action. I only recently discovered Brene Brown's BRAVING framework as a way to evaluate trust in self or others. This framework helps individuals know what actions are missing and they need to do to build trust with others.?
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1 年I couldn’t agree more. Some of the trickiest interactions I’ve had with previous bosses have been around me trusting my team, and them (the bosses) finding that hard to deal with. This has led to a few heated conversations along the lines of, “But why don’t you know what X is doing right now?” “Because I trust X to be doing their job in the way we agreed they would. Once they deliver [insert task here] then we’ll evaluate what went right and what both of us need to improve.” “But you’re X’s manager. You need to know exactly what they’re doing or what’s the point of you being here?” “My job is to choose the right people, who are qualified and motivated to to the job, and offer them strategic guidance. Not to breathe down their necks and tell them what to do all day, or how will they ever learn how to replace me?” “[Stunned silence]”