By: Suzanne Qualia - Published on June 17th, 2022
In the initial blog post in this series on trust entitled, “Trust: Nature or Nurture?,” the important question of how trust originates was raised. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? While it’s admittedly a combination effect (nature + nurture), the innate view of how we see the world, others in the world, and ourselves within the world has a profound initial impact on our ability to trust.
This series of blog posts related to TRUST will begin to help you understand and uncover this topic from a leadership perspective and, likewise, identify guideposts to watch out for and actions to take to build trust where it might be lacking today.
It matters, because our leadership effectiveness lies in direct proportion to the level of innate (‘nature’) trust we have in others. You might say, “YES, BUT if you trust too much, people walk all over you, take advantage of you, not produce results, and then things go off the rails.”
I’d like to propose that the more successful approach is a “YES, AND” approach. Yes, you trust others to a high degree AND you have the right balance of structure, measurements, milestones, and follow-up to know that things are on track, which will keep you from crossing the line into ‘distrust’ activities and actions. A “YES, AND” approach enables teams to flourish and be at their best, effecting the best bottom line results!
When a leader starts out believing that the team isn’t capable, isn’t motivated, isn’t engaged, and isn’t able to achieve established goals, then these very thoughts precipitate choices that lead to behaviors that bring about the exact results you fear. Leaders who harbor these conscious or unconscious beliefs, and then lead from that space, send strong and wrong signals to their team to become dis-engagers, de-railers, and de-motivators for the team.
What are some of these leadership behaviors that arise from these known or unknown beliefs of distrust?
Who wants to work for a leader or an organization that employs these behaviors? Organizational leaders who are questioning low levels of employee engagement might take a step back and determine whether there are mixed signals being sent.
The values statement on the wall might say, “people are our most valuable asset,” but then daily actions focus on minutiae and outcomes vs. creativity, ideation, passion, and zeal that employees willingly want to bring to the table in order to solve bigger, more important problems. This double or mixed message is a sure engagement buster for your team and organization. It won’t take long. This is why these beliefs and resultant behaviors are so dangerous for your team and for your organization.
Here’s to eliminating conscious or subconscious limiting beliefs around this topic of TRUST and exhibiting new behaviors that create new outcomes for you and your team, elevating trust, and effecting greater engagement, productivity, and bottom line results!
Namaste, until we meet again.