Trust in leadership
Have you ever had a boss who said “I trust you” then hovered over your desk pointing out the things they would do differently? I think we all know how it feels to be micromanaged; whether it be well-intentioned over-supervision to obsessive control. But are we aware of the actual impact lack of trust has on our leadership?
Trust matters
In their recent study of 87,000 leaders, Zenger and Folkman* examined the foundations of trust in the context of corporate leadership and discovered that level of trust is highly correlated with a person’s overall leadership effectiveness. Of the three core elements of trust identified – positive relationships, judgement, and consistency – a leader’s positive relationships had the most substantial impact on trust. When judgement and consistency were high but positive relationships low, the trust rating diminished disproportionately. Zenger and Folman conclude that if positive relationships are never built or become damaged, it is difficult for people to trust in leadership.
So, trust is critical to our effectiveness as leaders. Regardless of how competent we are technically or how well we manage processes, we are not behaving as leaders if we do not build trust with the people around us.
Start with trusting yourself
Our skills and ability enabled us to reach leadership positions. Trust in us was largely built on the foundation of people respecting our capabilities and believing that they can depend on us to problem-solve and deliver. But as the people around us grow in their potential, they need greater challenge, opportunity for growth, and autonomy, and they expect their leaders to provide the platform for that. They will look for signs that we are willing to adapt to allow them to grow.
This means we simply need to do the work on ourselves. People will only trust us when we trust ourselves. This comes from stepping into growth mindset to better know our weaknesses, our blind spots that hold us back and our aptitude for change. Only when we know how we need to change can we start to trust ourselves and apply it in building more authentic and sustainable relationships with others.
Growing trust in others
To enable relationships to thrive, focus is diverted from who we are to how we help others to grow. Attending to our own process of change frees us to encourage others to do the same. Having to deal with the shift from fixed mindset to growth mindset makes us more attuned to the process of learning and growth. We can closely identify with the vulnerabilities and uncertainties of learning, and empathise with how it feels to commit to change. As we role-model resilience, we connect others to their own resourcefulness and capability to grow.
When we place trust in ourselves to grow, we put trust in others to learn for themselves. And change happens.
References:
* Zenger, J. and Folkman, J., The 3 elements of trust, Harvard Business Review (2019, 5 February). Available from: https://hbr.org/2019/02/the-3-elements-of-trust
Botsman, R., Who can you trust: How technology brought us together and why it might drive us apart (2018) Public Affairs.