Tag Archive for: leadership development

Building Bridges Of Trust: Your #1 Leadership Priority

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“Trust is the new currency in life. It is critical to a productive workplace. Trust lies at the heart of every team, organization, and community, because without trust, you have no relationship.”

From the book Bridges of Trust: Making Accountability Authentic, by David Irvine and Jim Reger.

What is the most important thing on any team? Think of all the various teams you have been on in your life – sports teams, school teams, family teams, or teams in your workplace. Our experience is that teams that have high levels of trust are better in every way – they are more productive; they are more creative; the energy is high; people are motivated to be on them; and they are more fun! Contrast this to the experience of being on a low or no trust team and we’re sure you will agree with us that the difference is not incremental – it’s huge.

Trust enrolls people in a worthwhile vision. It then enables full passion, commitment, freedom, energy, health, effectiveness, and engagement. Trust makes everything happen in organizations. If you can earn and build trust,  you can lead. If you can’t, you won’t be a leader. It’s that simple, and it’s that complex.

Questions that assess trust

  • Can they deliver results?
  • Do they stand by me under pressure?
  • Do they tell me the truth?
  • Do they fulfill their promises?

Seven Things We Know About Trust

  1. Trust cannot be commanded, coerced or controlled. It can be only invited and earned.
  2. Trust is a function of three primary qualities:
    1. Character (your trustworthiness);
    2. Competence (your skill level); and
    3. Connectability (your ability to connect with people).
  3. Trust is a rather delicate flower. What can take years to build can be destroyed in one action.
  4. Trust is not a prerequisite; it’s an outcome. It takes courage to trust. While trusting people can be risky, not trusting people is a greater risk. Blind trust is naïve. Mature trust, on the other hand, has lived through betrayal and responded with courage.
  5. Trust in others begins with self-trust. You won’t trust others beyond your capacity to trust yourself.
  6. Trust must be constantly earned.  It’s like a chequing account; you have to keep making deposits if you want to have something to withdraw.
  7. You don’t have to be perfect to be trustworthy. You simply have to be honest, sincere, and willing. Most broken trust can be repaired.

Seven Ways To Build Trust

  1. Be accountable. Accountability – the ability to be counted on – is, in many ways, the foundation of trust. Think carefully before you make a promise. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Then honor your agreements.
  2. Be Competent. This is a given. If you are leading a team of engineers, you aren’t going to be trusted if you claim to be a competent engineer unless you can demonstrate this. When I consult with a team of engineers, my competence comes from my reason for being there. I better be a great presenter or workshop facilitator. I had better have done my homework to research their culture, their industry, their organization.
  3. Be Honest. Tell people what you know, and tell them what you don’t know. People will see through dishonesty and inauthenticity. When I work with an organization such as the RCMP, I obviously can’t build trust on my ability as a police officer. What I can do is tell them that, and let them see that I’m an expert in leadership development, the people side of their work when they aren’t policing.
  4. Extend trust. Trust presents a paradox in that it needs to be earned, but to be earned, it has to first be given.  Yet trust, without the facts to base it on, is naiveté.  That is why trust is often given in small amounts over time.  As we experience success trusting an individual, we are more and more willing to trust further. Behaviour begets behaviour. Trusting others invites trust. Make trust a conscious objective.
  5. Deliver results. If I want to establish trust with a new client, what is the one thing I can do to make that happen quickly? Deliver results.
  6. Learn to connect. Your capacity to build trust ultimately depends on your capacity to connect. Listen at least twice as much as you talk. Take time to understand before being understood. Let people see who you are, which allows them to like you, not just respect you. The key in relationships is to be personal. Acknowledge feelings. The key is not just walking around; it is opening up, paying attention, and being in touch. People really don’t care how much you know until they know  how much you care.
  7. Be in touch with reality. Know about what goes on in the “meetings after the meeting.” Get down to the cafeteria. Know what people are talking about in the hallways. Do your homework to know what is really going on inside people – when they don’t have to be polite.

What’s your experience of fostering trust in your workplace or home?

“Trust is the new currency in life. It is critical to a productive workplace. Trust lies at the heart of every team, organization, and community, because without trust, you have no relationship.”

From the book Bridges of Trust: Making Accountability Authentic, by David Irvine and Jim Reger

What is the most important thing on any team? Think of all the various teams you have been on in your life – sports teams, school teams, family teams, or teams in your workplace. Our experience is that teams that have high levels of trust are better in every way – they are more productive; they are more creative; the energy is high; people are motivated to be on them; and they are more fun! Contrast this to the experience of being on a low or no trust team and we’re sure you will agree with us that the difference is not incremental – it’s huge.

Trust enrols people in a worthwhile vision. It then enables full passion, commitment, freedom, energy, health, effectiveness, and engagement. Trust makes everything happen in organizations. If you can earn and build trust,  you can lead. If you can’t, you won’t be a leader. It’s that simple, and it’s that complex.

Questions that assess trust:

  • Can they deliver results?
  • Do they stand by me under pressure?
  • Do they tell me the truth?
  • Do they fulfill their promises?

Seven Things We Know About Trust

  1. Trust cannot be commanded, coerced or controlled. It can be only invited and earned.
  2. Trust is a function of three primary qualities: 1) Character (your trustworthiness); 2) Competence (your skill level); and 3) Connectability (your ability to connect with people).
  3. Trust is a rather delicate flower. What can take years to build can be destroyed in one action.
  4. Trust is not a prerequisite; it’s an outcome. It takes courage to trust. While trusting people can be risky, not trusting people is a greater risk. Blind trust is naïve. Mature trust, on the other hand, has lived through betrayal and responded with courage.
  5. Trust in others begins with self-trust. You won’t trust others beyond your capacity to trust yourself.
  6. Trust must be constantly earned.  It’s like a chequing account; you have to keep making deposits if you want to have something to withdraw.
  7. You don’t have to be perfect to be trustworthy. You simply have to be honest, sincere, and willing. Most broken trust can be repaired.

Seven Ways To Build Trust

  1. Be accountable. Accountability – the ability to be counted on – is, in many ways, the foundation of trust. Think carefully before you make a promise. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Then honor your agreements.
  2. Be Competent. This is a given. If you are leading a team of engineers, you aren’t going to be trusted if you claim to be a competent engineer unless you can demonstrate this. When I consult with a team of engineers, my competence comes from my reason for being there. I better be a great presenter or workshop facilitator. I had better have done my homework to research their culture, their industry, their organization.
  3. Be Honest. Tell people what you know, and tell them what you don’t know. People will see through dishonesty and inauthenticity. When I work with an organization such as the RCMP, I obviously can’t build trust on my ability as a police officer. What I can do is tell them that, and let them see that I’m an expert in leadership development, the people side of their work when they aren’t policing.
  4. Extend trust. Trust presents a paradox in that it needs to be earned, but to be earned, it has to first be given.  Yet trust, without the facts to base it on, is naiveté.  That is why trust is often given in small amounts over time.  As we experience success trusting an individual, we are more and more willing to trust further. Behaviour begets behaviour. Trusting others invites trust. Make trust a conscious objective.
  5. Deliver results. If I want to establish trust with a new client, what is the one thing I can do to make that happen quickly? Deliver results.
  6. Learn to connect. Your capacity to build trust ultimately depends on your capacity to connect. Listen at least twice as much as you talk. Take time to understand before being understood. Let people see who you are, which allows them to like you, not just respect you. The key in relationships is to be personal. Acknowledge feelings. The key is not just walking around; it is opening up, paying attention, and being in touch. People really don’t care how much you know until they know  how much you care.
  7. Be in touch with reality. Know about what goes on in the “meetings after the meeting.” Get down to the cafeteria. Know what people are talking about in the hallways. Do your homework to know what is really going on inside people – when they don’t have to be polite.

What’s your experience of fostering trust in your workplace or home? What is your leadership priority?

On Staying Connected As A Leader

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Recently I was inspired by an executive who was participating in one of my leadership programs. Several years ago, he arrived to lead a division within his organization and found out there were eighty-four offices spread throughout the area within his stewardship. “For the first year,” he said to me, “I made it a goal to visit everyone office. I spent about three quarters of the year travelling that first year, and although I missed my goal by six offices, I have since had the chance to meet with every team in the division.”

“What did you talk about?” I asked.

“No agenda; just a connection. That was all that was important. Everyone wants to be acknowledged, listened to, and connected with. We all need to feel that somehow we belong. I intimidated many of the teams because they had never had their divisional leader show up in their office. This just made me realize that I need to do this more. Most of them loosened up and talked about their families, their goals, and their life’s priorities. I received suggestions about how to make the organization better and had a chance to share my values and vision. It was all about making the connection, showing that I cared, and making some deposits in the trust account. It’s not rocket science. You just have to make creating connections a priority.”

How do you connect with those you serve? How do you build trust? How are you staying connected as a leader?

How Is The Pace Of Your Life Affecting Your Leadership Presence?

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When I am helping leaders strengthen their authentic leadership presence, I find it is important they understand how the pace of our life affects our connection to others. In the words of the philosopher Piero Ferrucci, we are in the midst of a “global cooling.” Human relationships are becoming colder. Interactions with others are becoming more rushed and impersonal. Values such as profits and efficiency are taking on greater importance at the expense of caring and authentic presence.

Think about it. You make a phone call to a person and you get a digital voice recording with a list of options. You park your car and find out the parking attendant has been replaced by mechanism for inserting your credit card and keying in your license plate number. You send an email to a colleague instead of walking down the hall and having a face-to-face conversation. Rather than playing street hockey with a group of friends, kids are now more likely to be alone in their bedrooms in front of a computer screen. Instead of a face-to-face conversation with a bank teller or customer service representative, we now bank and make many transactions on line. Your doctor, pressed for time, now focuses on the test results and data on a computer screen instead of listening to you and looking at you. Rather than a travel agent that we have come to know and trust, we book vacations on line. We check in at the airport and buy our theatre tickets at kiosks rather than from real people at a booth or a counter.

I’m not interested in going back to the “good old days.” There were lots of problems with those “good old days.” What I am interested in is bringing balance to this world. Do we stop and realize the effect of all this automation and hurried pace on our workplaces, our families, and our lives?

One expert on the pace of life, Robert Levine, has been studying time as it is experienced in various cultures. Levine measures three different variables; The time it takes to buy a stamp in a post office, the speed at which pedestrians walk across the street, and the accuracy of clocks in a bank. What he discovered was that there are faster cultures than others, in which punctuality and precision are rewarded, while other cultures are slower and less precise. Western society is the fastest; Brazil, Indonesia, and Mexico are the slowest. Levine doesn’t make a judgment that some cultures are necessarily “better.” There are advantages and disadvantages to both slow and fast cultures. In cultures where the pace is hurried, cardiovascular disease is more widespread.

Is all this technology helping us improve the quality of our connections and the quality of our lives? Is it helping us be more kind and charitable?

Much emerging research is telling us that the more we hurry, the less we are able to connect, and the less we connect, the less we care, and the less we care the less real influence we have.

One of my favorite studies along this line was done with a group of theology students who had to listen to a lecture on charity, and then had to move, one by one, to a nearby building. On the way, they met an accomplice of the experimenters. This person was down on the floor, pretending to have fallen and hurt himself. Most of the students helped him. But when they were pressed for time and had to hurry from one building to the next, the Good Samaritans among them drastically lessened. One of the students, in a hurry, even stepped over the unfortunate crying actor and headed straight for his destination. We are kinder when we have more time. And without kindness, how can we possibly influence others?

How hurried are you in your life? How is the current pace of our world affecting your leadership presence? Have you ever felt “hurried” even when you weren’t in a hurry? How does your sense of continual “hurriedness” affect your kindness, your connections, and your ability to influence others? What are you doing to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n and make a connection?

We Don’t Stay in Organizations; We Stay With Bosses

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There’s a familiar phrase, “We don’t leave organizations; We leave bosses.” I believe that is true, and I also believe the converse is true. Bosses make a difference – in organizations and with people. Never underestimate the impact you have. I recently spoke with a plant manager in a Western Canadian company who told me how years ago he was frustrated with his organization and ready to leave. He called his boss, the Western Canadian manager in Edmonton, with the intention to quit.

His bosses response: “Get on a plane. Let’s sit down and talk.”

They took a day together to examine  his concerns, negotiated to create a different kind of work culture, and openly discussed ways that he could get more support from his boss in terms of increased resources and time.

That was ten years ago. Both individuals still work for the company and this person still reports to the same boss. That was a turning point in his company and in his life.

Being a boss doesn’t make you a leader. But, great bosses are also great leaders. Don’t ever diminish the importance of the responsibility that comes with a title.

What are you doing as a boss to make a difference in the lives of those you serve?

Succeeding At Succession: The Ultimate Test Of Organizational Success

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Successful succession is the ultimate test of organizational success. At its core, succession is about culture and values. What you are ultimately building and sustaining into the next generation, is your culture. Don’t leave succession planning to chance. If you are committed to sustaining your culture into the next generation and beyond, you have to be intentional about it.

Succession planning is not an event; it is a generational process, integrated deeply into your leadership culture. It is not transactional; it is transformational. To do it well, succession can take upwards of twenty years to come to fruition. It takes painstaking learning and patience.

Ten Steps To Successful Succession Planning

  1. Appoint a Succession Planning Champion – A person who is ultimately accountable for the succession success of the organization:
    • A leader with a vision and passion for culture (a “monomaniac with a mission”)
    • Someone who has earned respect and credibility throughout the organization
    • A person with the positional power to make the required decisions
  2. Define your cultural vision and values. Clarify the vision and the kind of culture and leadership you are committed to build and sustain into the next generation. How do you currently hold people accountable for living the values?
  3. Build a vision for future leaders. Based on your vision and core values, assess the kind of leaders you will need to take your organization to the next level in the coming generation – well before beginning a search.
    • What kind of leader do you want?
    • Where are the core areas that need immediate attention?
    • What are the key essential positions?
      Note: As you assess your leadership needs, be sure to remain open to the kind of culture you are committed to create, rather than simply “settling” for what you currently have.
  4. Honestly identify the strengths and gaps of your organization. Take the time to rethink what kind of organizational structure you will need in the future.
  5. Have open and honest conversations at every level with every employee:
    • Every employee needs to have a say in their own aspirations and have organizational support to align their passions, unique talents, and goals with the needs of the organization (Authentic Alignment). Remember: horizontal growth can be just as valuable to an organization as vertical growth. The vital questions are: 1) Is it authentic to the employee and to the organization? and 2) Do your systems support this?
    • Every employee should have an understanding of how they are perceived by the organization – so there are no surprises in the succession process.
    • Every employee needs to know what the organization expects from them, as well as what they can expect in return.
    • Every employee needs to take accountability for their own Authentic Alignment (ensuring that the expectations and needs of the organization are met and are aligned with their authentic self).
  6. Provide a fair and realistic assessment. Using your cultural values and the corresponding behavioral definitions, measure and assess people’s fit for potential successful leadership.
  7. Build your talent pool. Make your intentions clear with your positional leaders. To avoid destructive personality conflicts and “replacement planning” mentality, use an Acceleration Pool System that develops candidates for leadership positions, rather than targeting one or two hand-picked individual for each leadership role. “Pool” members are offered opportunities for learning, visibility, and accelerated individual development. Candidates are supported to find a mentor, and are offered coaching and training. After a careful assessment of the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, you develop a tailor-made plan for their capability development together.
    • You may find it valuable to categorize the potential leaders as: i) Ready immediately; ii) 1-3 years away; and iii) 3-5 years away.
    • Those doing the assessing will need a clear, justifiable rationale for why these individuals were chosen for the talent pool (based on organizational values), and be prepared to openly share their reasons for choosing them.
    • Obviously, the potential leaders must have a choice about whether they accept being included in the talent pool.
    • You need to be very explicit right from the beginning, that being chosen for the talent pool does not guarantee promotion to a new leadership position in the succession, but only a commitment to an accelerated leadership development track.
  8. Make selections for various senior positions from the talent pool as needed.
  9. Current leaders must develop a plan for letting go. This is about making room for new growth to emerge. Just as potential leaders must plan their development to be ready to meet the challenges of a new leadership position, the current leaders must plan:
    • What they are willing to give up/let go of.
    • How they will let go.
    • How to make room for new leadership to emerge. Often coaching and mentoring can be useful to support leaders with the letting go, a “making room” process.
  10. Monitor your progress.

Activate Your Energy With A Renewed Purpose For Living

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I recently came across a fascinating story that illustrates how having a higher purpose – beyond self-interest – can activate your passion, your zest for life. Not only does this story have application for your personal life; it also has a strong and relevant business imperative as we attempt to build cultures that awaken the human spirit, engage people, and ignite their passion. Every employee needs a purpose where he or she feels their energies and focus are taking them somewhere. An authentic leader’s work is to find a way to active this – with yourself and others.
A news report a few years ago from Biloxi, Mississippi, powerfully illustrates how important a reason for living – beyond your own self-interest – is to activate your energy (see Og Mandino’s University of Success, p. 8).

A  twenty-four year old dancer jumped from a wharf in an attempt to commit suicide. As she later put it, she was “tired of living.” A young man saw her jump and, forgetting that he didn’t know how to swim, stripped off his coat and leaped in after her in a blind attempt to save a fellow human being. He began to thrash about in the water and was in serious danger of drowning when the young dancer, her own despair momentarily forgotten, paddled over to him, grabbed hold of him and pulled him safely ashore. Instead of ending her own life she saved the life of another.

In that crucial moment when she saw the young man struggling for life, her own life suddenly gained something it had lacked before: a purpose. What ended up drowning beneath the wharf that day was not this woman’s spirit, but her despair. She had known in a dramatic flash the difference between having nothing to live for and something to live for, and having pulled the young man to safety, she was herself taken to the hospital, treated for exposure, and released with a new lease on life.

Why do you get out of bed in the morning? What gets you up early? What keeps you up late? Where are you going? What are you doing to foster a sense of purpose – both in yourself and in those you serve as a leader? When’s the last time you had conversations that focused on these questions?

photo credit: Charged (license)