Trust

I discussed destructive-leadership in my previous article. The next question is how to restrict or restrain the destructive-leadership in an organization. Is there a "good" ember that can counter a destructive ember? The answer is yes. However, deciding what "good" is a puzzle and then balancing the "good" across an eco-system where multiple levels of food chains operate and benefit is an overwhelming task. 

What do you mean by "good" in a corporate sense? In simple words, the processes of governance, disclosure, and transparency. Good corporate governance usually means timely and accurate disclosure of information to your employees ( even clients and business partners). The expectation is being proactive, comprehensive, and transparent rather than tweaking or withholding information and being reactive.  

Once a dynamic process of disclosure and transparency is established - Trust develops. Trust is a critical emotion operating deep inside that lubricates the corporate cogs. Once you build trust across the organization, leadership, colleagues, associates - motivation flows like a river. Hence, the good ember to counter destructive leadership is trust. Like CI/CD process, organizations must foster continuous processes for developing, building, and maintaining trust across its workforce. However, it is easier said than done. 

What is Trust? Trust is a powerful tool (logical acts or emotion) to manage your decisions. At its heart, trust is an assurance that lets us manage risk in our relationships with others. Trust is an instrument that helps people work closely together, and a lack of trust keeps reminding them to remain guarded. The next interesting aspect of trust is that we seldom worry about the role trust plays in our day to day interactions with others. Trust operates in the background, but it comes to the forefront when some element of risk emerges in the relationships. 

How do you build trust? Or how does someone trust you? We need to understand the three dimensions of trust. Trust usually develops using qualities grouped under three dimensions: 1. Ability 2. Integrity and 3. Loyalty.

Ability: It is the mix of your technical skills, competencies, and execution. When someone works with you or you, work with someone, both the parties naturally validate the expertise and capabilities that can accomplish a specific task. Hence, a key ingredient to gain trust is the ability because functional abilities usually reflect a solid track record in delivering the promise. It eliminates the ambiguity or uncertainty in getting things done. If you do not keep up your promise, it poorly reflects on your ability to deliver. Trust gets into the doubtful zone. 

Integrity: It is the mix of shared values such as principles, fairness, and character and right expectations, such as reliability and consistency between the parties. Integrity, for example, is a person's commitment to honesty and a willingness to do what's right. Another feature of integrity is humility and a rock-solid ethic to uphold what is right, correct, and honorable, even when you are in an unfavorable position. When people make judgments about integrity, they often think of strong character, stability, and reliability. 

Loyalty is the preservation and maintenance of faith and the truth in personal relationships between parties. It is managing the confidence, keep a secret, or protect them rather than take advantage of the situation to point the blame at them or support their well-being and development. Loyalty is complex. Loyalty takes time to develop, until then, a fear circulates - such as "anything you say shall be used against you." Can I count on him or her in confidence? 

Where does the "Trust" fall within these dimensions? If you draw a Venn diagram of these three dimensions - the center part is trust. Once you establish the qualities of these three dimensions, trust develops.  

Good leadership today is all about truth and trust. Trust issues may arise in any of these dimensions, or even a combination of factors. In the more extreme cases of perceived trust abandonment, betrayal shows up. Good leaders take charge and deal with trust in their daily interactions, gain balance and control over this powerful tool towards moving their initiatives forward, improve collaboration and execution across the organizations.

Usually, we notice three different kinds of trust in a corporate setting,

• Strategic Trust - The trust employees have in the people running the show to make mindful strategic decisions.
• Personal Trust: The trust employees have in their managers
• Organizational Trust: The Trust beyond any individual but in the company itself

To conclude, Building trust across your organization dampens destructive-leadership qualities. Trust harmonizes the entire organization towards free-flowing morale and efficiency. Also, quite often, trust is mistaken for respect. Someone earns your respect because of social status, power, or cultural norms such as age. We do not need a close relationship to respect someone, while trust is an entirely different form of energy operating deep across two parties interacting more closely. You can fake respect and go along with the crowd; however, faking trust has much more significant consequences. Good leadership today is all about truth and trust. Trust is the glue that ties all relationships together, including the ties linking the leader and the led. 

Good luck.