Want to Develop Courage? Improve Your Relational Trust
New Book Giveaway!!
20 free copies of The Courage Way: Leading and Living with Integrity.
Leave a comment on this guest post by Shelly L. Francis to become eligible to win one of TWENTY complimentary copies of The Courage Way: Leading and Living with Integrity.
(Deadline: 2/11/2018)
*International winners will receive electronic versions.
Developing courage as a leader boils down to trust: trusting yourself, trusting other people, and developing an ability to trust in the balance of life overall.
Relational trust, a key aspect of courage, comes from our inner perceptions. We often interpret the behavior of others through costly snap judgments. By being aware of the four components of relational trust below, named by education researchers Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider, we can recognize what we’re missing and repair our relational trust.
Respect
Respect involves honoring the vital role each person plays in the workplace, and the mutual dependencies among team members. It means making sure all feel their opinions are valued and will be considered. It helps to have meaningful conversations where people get to know each other beyond their job functions.
Personal Regard
In work roles where power dynamics can’t help but exist, people in subordinate positions often feel vulnerable. When the more “powerful” person makes a conscious commitment to relieve uncertainty, the “vulnerable” gain a sense of being cared about. This commitment entails leaders expressing concern about one’s personal life, creating professional development opportunities, or extending themselves beyond what their role requires.
Competence
Leaders often make daily, informal observations—positive and negative—about their team members’ capabilities. Rather than an objective process, we often judge others without knowing the whole story. Sometimes we feel blame or shame, and project our own darkness onto others.
Integrity
In business, integrity is not solely the opposite of immoral and unethical behavior. It requires a shared understanding of your organization’s purpose and values and being committed to living them. It requires reflecting on how you prioritize decisions for the Four Bottom Lines—people, planet, profit, and purpose.
With the four components of this trust-building framework, you can see where you can take responsibility for ensuring improvement in your own relational trust, and that of your organization.
What relationship do you see between courage and trust?
How might leaders build relational trust?
About Shelly L. Francis
The common thread throughout the career of Shelly L. Francis has been bringing to light best-kept secrets, while bringing people together to facilitate positive impact. She does that in the book, The Courage Way: Leading and Living with Integrity, which she wrote on behalf of the Center for Courage & Renewal. She has worked as the Center’s marketing and communications director since 2012.
This is really interesting that it refers to these four areas – just wondering if there is a correlation to the balance between them. I like the reference to trusting yourself but also the responsibility of having power and putting people at ease. I’ve also often hear people refer to others about business integrity – but it’s nice to see that its one of the four components – i think it’s often over-looked/ under-valued but yet it’s something that I normally pick up on but can’t put my finger on.
Hi EJ. Thanks for the comment. Regarding the balance of these four ingredients, a severe deficiency in any one can undermine trust. When trust goes missing, we’re often unaware of more than a gut feeling, so hopefully this list helps you think into it further. One think I really like about Bryk & Schneider’s meaning of “integrity” is this: For relational trust to develop and be sustained leaders and followers must be able to make sense of their work together in terms of what they understand as the primary collective purpose: Why are we really here? To what higher purpose do we answer besides the obvious bottom lines?
I would be delighted to read and review Shelly’s book. My interest follows many years of studying and developing insights on courage and explicating various levels and dimensions of courage. About 10 years ago I was coaching an individual who’s phD examined courage and multi-cultural concepts of courage and how that applies from the battlefield to showing up in living authentic lives, and lives founded in integrity.
I would be interested to read The Courage Way: Leading and Living with Integrity.
Hi Tom. There are so many more types of courage than we normally think about — the physical and moral courage, for example. I pay more attention now to the social, creative and collective courage that we don’t normally recognize. One of my favorite phrases from a researcher is that “Courage exists in the spaces between us.”
Intrigued by the summary of this book. Where and when will the book be available to purchase if we are not fortunate enough to win the free books?
Hi Sharon, Thanks for asking about the book. It’s available now on Amazon.
These are great reminders to look well beyond the last interaction. What is the whole picture? What else might I not know about this situation that could affect my judgment and my response. One big challenge occurs when there is a gap in competence or character, especially if demonstrated repeatedly over time. There comes a point when decisive action must be taken. Knowing exactly when tobtake that action is a struggle for me. Seeing the big picture helps.
Hi Joel. One practice for knowing when to take action is to ask open, honest questions of the other person — to find out more than first meets the eye. And listening. And then asking more questions. AND having a trusted person ask you open, honest questions so that you can access your own inner wisdom about the situation. If you’re questioning someone’s competence, a leader might also ask “have I provided the right training, or am I an obstacle in some way to their learning what they need to know.” There is no quick answer, though – it all depends on the details of the situation!
I have very little “courage”; reading this book to learn looks fascinating!
And the part about “knowing the whole story” when judging others? This actually was mentioned in just this past Sunday sermon so it really jumped off the page at me. Will be interesting to see how the two (this book’s concepts and this sermon series at my church) relate!
The excerpts used are intriguing. I look forward to reading the entire book.
Trust is innately subjective, as you have alluded to above. To a greater or less extent, trust is about belief/acceptance without evidence. I wonder if some of the issues arise because we are expected to be evidence (fact) driven in most of the aspects of leadership/management, and that trust/belief/faith are “not reliable markers”!
It takes courage to be in management today! Thanks for the information!
Hi Mitch. We are so ingrained to lead from the head, or we act from our gut (which is often in fight or flight mode). Courage is about leading from strength of heart — by integrating what we know in our head and intuit from the gut, but responding through wholehearted, compassionate wisdom. It takes practice!
good one
Courage to show kindness, to believe that people are doing the best they can with the skills they’ve got at that particular moment, these are attributes I want to prioritise as a leader.
Hi Sarah. I was talking to a friend the other day about it taking courage to be kind because you may risk appearing “too nice” or even weak. But kindness is about empathy and compassion and being wholehearted, and helping others to do the same. Wise. Kind. Real. That’s what I aspire to be as a leader, too.
you are less likely to have courage if you do not have trust between your co-workers. This will lead to not being able to think out-of-the-box and decrease creativity. Can’t wait to read the book!
Intriguing summary of the Courage framework. The fact that this is also tied into Parker Palmer’s work makes me excited to read this book.
Thanks for the thoughts on trust. I chose that as my division’s One Word for 2018!
Very interesting topic, often not discussed enough. Great that someone has analyse it, certainly it helps to understand the underlying factors and how we can leverage them. Thank you!
Trust is built and earned over time and can be easily destroyed. When you first develop your team, it takes time to determine a person’s integrity and competence. Once these core elements are determined we are able to build respect and personal regard. Great article!
Trust is the fundamental, the glue for teams and organizations, and where trust hasn’t been established or is threatened in where you see teams and organizations under perform. The book sounds terrific and I look forward to reading it. Optimism is another good fundamental. ;>)
Four essential elements that can easily be destroyed with a leader that enters with uncertain limits, but yet only picks what benefits the situation. All are needed to ensure a strong team.
Trust builds the culture. Like a conductor, every tiny move a leader makes is scrutinized by the team. Thanks for the reminder.
Seeking courage to lead is a recurring theme in my personal journey! As a minority woman, I want to set an example for those who follow but continue to struggle with developing an effective, confident, and sustainable personal leadership style. Leading a book study of this text for my colleagues would be a step in the right direction!
Hi Michelle. I love that you’re thinking of reading this book with colleagues. Two key ingredients of the Courage Way practice is the idea of community and reflection — the idea that we learn better when we gather with other people who are committed to supporting each other’s growth.
I am very curious to read this book. I have seen many leadership training programs who look at Personal Regard as a skill set rather than a mental attitude without discussing the negative impact of the lack of Integrity that employees and other followers are aware of when on performs Personal Regard rather than actually having positive and personal regard for the people involved. I hope to see that this book makes that connection.
A great follow up book: The Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey. He said “getting better”is also key in building trust. Stagnation reduces trust.
Enjoyed reading the article related to the four areas. My belief is if we always remember and live up to what our “values” are, there is success in all areas of life. This assumes that our mindset and beliefs / values include integrity, trust, respect. Great post! Interested to see if this book emphasizes those points.
Trust also means developing a listening ear to really listen and not just respond. Patti
Reminding leaders that trust is developed, not given, is important. As is looking at the whole picture. Leaders who snap to decisions without taking in feedback from others likely won’t succeed for long. One tactic that has helped me is to make sure that “junior” people in a meeting are given the opportunity to respond first to ideas/questions. This serves two purposes. 1) If the leader responds first with something counter to what others might suggest, the chance of other ideas is nearly zero. 2) It gives the leader other insights to weigh and amend his/her initial reactions. Leaders – wait for others to weigh in, it helps build trust that their ideas are valuable and may just give you knowledge you didn’t know you lacked.
It’s funny, the more my supervisor trust me the more trust I have in him. “Give trust to get trust”???? Maybe so…. An important post, thanks.
Absence of trust is Lencioni’s first dysfunction of a team. I am curious to see how building courage would lead to better trust building. It takes courage to not be afraid to fail, but you need the trust of your team to make that happen. Which comes first, the trust of the team, or the courage not to fail?
With integrity, the others tend to naturally fall in line. Would be interested to read how the author weaves these together.
I love the idea of the “four bottom lines – people, planet, profit, and purpose.” Thanks for sharing.
The international dimension in building relationships matters and requires courage. Globalization is multi-dimensional and is founded on effective leadership across borders.
“Relational trust, a key aspect of courage, comes from our inner perceptions. We often interpret the behavior of others through costly snap judgments.”
The fun part of all of this is that not only are we doing it to others, they are doing it to us. We may have the best intentions as we do or say things, but the other party’s interpretation of our intent is what matters.
I believe that our perceptions are our realities. We make real decisions, we get stressed (sometimes sick) from (at the base level) our perceptions of events. If real outcomes are produced by what is in our mind, then what is in our mind must be real.
Respect, Personal Regard, Competence, and Integrity seem to fit in how I judge others (and most likely how they judge me.) I tried to think of other ways I may judge others to include in this comment, but I can’t seem to come up with any that are not covered by these 4.
Those 4 areas give me a good base to reflect on how others may be judging me, and how am in acting in ways that may be proving their judgments? Even I think I’m acting differently. At the least, it gives me 4 topics for conversation with someone if I feel my intent and their judgment are different.
Thank you for this excellent post and for introducing me to Shelly’s work. Of these four concepts, competence stands out to me for a couple of reasons. First, the baseless judging of others or judging others based on rumors should always be avoided. We do not know what the other person is experiencing. Best to ask direct questions, show compassion and concern, and obtain the facts before jumping to conclusions. This fosters trust and builds the relationship. It also mitigates the spread of falsehoods. Secondly, tying together competence with the issue of shame brings to mind imposter syndrome. We feel phony when we feel we think we are undeserving, not “good enough”. It seems like leaders suffer from this quite often. I know I do! But I try not to let that feeling overwhelm me and I use it to keep me grounded and humble. Props to a Rene Brown and Sheryl Sandberg (and now Shelly) for writing openly and honestly about these issues.
What a great post. I totally agree. Everyone is entitled and has a right to be treated with Respect!
Trust is key to any relationship. It must be developed and nurtured to be sustained. It’s not about being right all of the time but respecting others and the process, owning mistakes, listening, walking your talk, and acting with integrity. I never really thought about courage in this regard, but to act in ways that align with one’s values/standards and beliefs, often does require courage since it may mean that you take a position or path that is not necessarily popular or easy, but the right thing to do for people or the institution.
This is a really timely article for me. I have struggled as a new to managing people leader for several years alongside a failing marriage. There was little trust in either camp and the emotionally abusive situation at home affected my self-esteem (personal regard/competence) as well as ability to trust anyone in any aspect of my life. I’m learning to find my footing and confidence again as well as self-compassion. I learned recently through Sheryl Sandberg’s Option B that when you have trauma in one area of your life, it affects your self-confidence in other areas, especially work. I have found that to be extremely true in my case. I’m hopeful that I am coming out of the worst of it and am starting to find my footing and confidence. Looking forward to the insight’s Shelly’s book has to offer!
Sounds like this would help me learn as we as give me language and tools to model for and train our team.
One key to building relational trust is to try to get to know your coworkers well enough to understand their motivations and needs. Work toward understanding their connection to other coworkers. People usually don’t behave unpredictably. If you understand the inputs you can understand the outputs that helps you to build trust.
Integrity, trust and respect are vital in any relationship whether Capitol Hill, in the workplace, or in a marriage. If lacking, something is seriously wrong – if lost, hard if not impossible to recover.
Great post, thanks for sharing!
Water fire and trust are walking through the forest. They say to one another let’s make a plan if we get separated so we can find one another. Water says it will be easy to find me: just look for the lush green and the plants. Fire says yes it will also be easy to find me look for the smoke and the flames. Trust says it will be impossible to find me: once you lose me it is very difficult to get me back. Trust in your relationships is of the utmost importance. Authenticity and being real with your family , Work colleagues, and friends is so important. Great post Dan & Shelly
Love the fable!
Thank you for this visual imagery, Andrew!
Interesting, was just having a conversation with a friend yesterday. We were talking about how when we started out in the ministry we were told to avoid the types of relationships mentioned in the post at all costs.
The conventional wisdom was that you can’t risk getting too close to those you lead because they might see your flaws.
I think that is why so many leaders, especially pastors, are alone and isolated.
Interesting Perception on the origin of courage! ‘ Most of mine came from watching other people behave in ways I perceive as courageous!
Wonderful post! Our organization’s motto is Do the Right Thing. These four components tie in with what I am learning and hoping to imbibe as a new senior leader. Thank you for always having the perfect words to encourage me along my journey.
Loved it! Not only does our courage quotient lack without trust, but we also can’t effectively enCOURAGE those we serve with either. Establishing trust is vital.
This sounds like an amazing book. Thank you for your daily posts and the generous giveaways you routinely offer.
Sounds like a great book. I always feel re-energized to see these new books and shared posts that are based on relationships and building trust and confidence, not only with ourselves but in others. I think it is so important, and sometimes I feel that I am the “odd” one in believing so. I feel as if the world around us is moving so quickly and everyone is so involved in making a great sale and moving onto the next item on our “list” that most just skim the surface of these four components. Great reminder!
Trusting the talents of others and seeing the balance of life in leadership is often the hardest practice to acquire for organizational leadership. Interested in reading this book!
I think all good leaders struggle with this! Knowing more about the people who do your company’s work, gives insight to their occasional struggles. Being empathetic to those struggles strengthens your relationship!
The emphasis on trust is crucial. I agree with Patrick Lencioni that is the foundation for all of the other skills and behaviors that build high-performing teams. Beyond the excellent suggestions already for building trust, I would add “getting out of the way” as a leader. This means becoming clear about vision and purpose (what) and trusting the team to figure out “how” according to their gifts. Also true authenticity modeled by the leader goes a long way in developing trust.
Very interesting summary of the book and look forward to reading it.
I work in a BOCES with 12 different school districts. This means 12 different views, opinions and perceptions. Currently, I am facing some very disrespectful interactions with various superintendents, so this books totally interests me. I want to be a person who can influence change via the 4 components described in this article. Mutual respect and integrity need to drive the change we need on our rural school districts because our kids are what should matter most.
I can connect to the idea of personal regard. In my experience, I have found my favorite leaders to be ones that are organized, plan ahead and communicate well. This relieves uncertainty among staff as everyone knows exactly what is coming up and what is expected. I feel as though this is an act of kindness. When people know what is coming up and it is communicated, that allows them to do what they need to do. It is a respectful act of a leader to have personal regard toward their staff.
I have found that the more trust I place in Jesus the more trust and confidence I have in my self and others. As always:
Jesus I Trust In You
Great reminder on how to focus on building relationships, rather than treating people like a transaction. Thank you for your thoughts!
I would love a copy!!
This is a great summary of four key components of trust which any organisation would be well advised to pay attention to. Unfortunately, and often due to a lack of integrity, what starts as key values (incorporating trust, good relationships etc) that the company or its leaders want staff to follow, often ends up with staff questioning the relationship between what is said and what is done. Consistency of words, actions and beliefs is key. Building good relational trust with members of the team and other organisational stakeholders and getting to know something of “their story” will pay dividends, even if it might appear to make the leader more vulnerable. This requires confidence, self-awareness, openness and courage – the very elements that Shelley’s book seems to cover.
This book is a must-read! The tenets cited align with what I learned in a graduate course on leadership and communication strategy. Luckily, my supervisor embraces trust and lets us know how she trusts us. I think we’d both love to read this book; I’ll lend her my copy if selected. If not, I’ll need to purchase two copies for us! Mr. Bassile, I applaud your comment and agree with you.
Thank you for bringing this to the forefront. I like the elements of relational trust but I would add a few: listening first to understand rather than speaking first to be understood; transparency, especially related to information sharing (information is power); caring more about a good decision being made rather than who made it; encouraging dialogue to generate ideas from everyone rather than trying to get people to “buy in”, which is nothing more than trying to get people to see it your way; seeking feedback first (including the good, the bad and the ugly).
Great post!!! Hoping to read the book. Love this quote from the post: “Respect involves honoring the vital role each person plays in the workplace, and the mutual dependencies among team members. It means making sure all feel their opinions are valued and will be considered.” My Question: WHY WOULDN’T ANY ORGANIZATION, ANY LEADERS NOT VALUE ALL OPINIONS – made because of a supportive culture???
Yes. I thought the observation about respect was very practical and actionable.
I really like the comments regarding integrity and that it not just about morals or ethics, but rather the desire to live the purpose and values of the organization.
From the perspective of staff that leaders supervise:
Perceiving that you are valued by your leader, engenders trust and encourages you to do your best – be your best.
Reading the summary of this book EXCITES me! Sounds awesome and definitely on my read list!! LOVE LOVE the statement: “Courage is not only in you–it is you. In your moments of courage, that’s when you meet your true self.” Yes!
I’m very interested to read the book. I also am thinking that these ideas are not only applicable to leaders, but also apply to team members trusting and collaborating with each other.
As a leadership coach, building relational trust has been a challenge for a young principal I am working with. I really look forward to reading this book and sharing it with this principal!
Hi Colleen. I love that you mentioned a school principal. These ideas on relational trust come from educational researchers and were tested in schools. Research shows that the degree of relational trust among the adults in a school is a key variable in the success of school reform initiatives and their ability to raise student achievement. Read more here: http://www.couragerenewal.org/leadingtogether/
We always pray for courage… this book seems to be a road map to get there. It should be an interesting read. I never thought of the variables that it takes to get courage, have courage, or be courageous. I would look forward to reading this book.
This is an issue I struggle with. I would love to read this book.
Without trust – we have nothing – Trust is the foundation to which all things are built upon. Without trust we cannot begin developing relationships, we have no way to learn from others, we lack the ability to take constructive criticism, learn from it and move forward. We are at a low point in public education where trust needs to become the focal point so that relationships and faith in our leaders can be rebuilt.
A lack of trust has existed in the organization I’ve recently joined. Lack of training, direction and empathy has made it a difficult place to work for years. My role is to turn the situation around, bring people together and help them learn to trust one another and learn how to work together as a team, rather than against one another. As a young leader (early 30s) I greatly benefit from reading all the material I can as I am still developing myself at the same time as trying to develop others.
Leaders can build relational trust by ‘walking the walk … talking the talk’. So often I’ve seen in organizations where servant leadership style isn’t predominant, there are two ways to do things … the regular workers must espouse the company mantra/values while exempt/executive workers are carte blanche to how they act within business/government/educational institution (yes I have worked in all 3 fields). Nothing is more frustrating for being punished for following values the company espouses on their web site but behind close doors some leaders fail to follow. The result in some cases is that TRUST melts faster than a snowflake in hell.
One tip I love for building personal regard is to simply ask someone where they see themselves in five years. That one question can open up a whole conversation, and the chance for a leader to support the person in their goals.
So often, our own perceptions or emotional reactions become “facts” inside our minds and inevitably cloud the decisions we make. It is SO important to avoid making judgments with incomplete or non-fact-based information.
Everyone has a story, and getting to know their story can help build the trust needed to grow.
I would be interested to read this book to validate my earlier believe that integrity and courage are interrelated. I think that integrity brings courage,confidence, respect,and trust to oneself. When people see and appreciate these virtues in one,it will often impact positively on one’s job,and deliverables.
This is a fantastic. I look forward to the book and the conversation it creates. I have found so often people think they have courage, but it based in naivety or ignorance. This provides a logical thinking pattern from someone (me) to discern between true courage and half-cocked thinking. Great work.
Appreciate this blog and this guest post – I’ve shared with just about my entire company at this point! Thank you, Dan, for highlighting what it means to be a leader. Thank you, Shelly, for shining a spotlight on the type of courage it takes to ensure trust (and thereby open the doors for greatness!).
Wow, Courtney. Thanks so much for sharing this blog post! The more conversations we’re having out there about courage and trust, the better off we’ll all be!!
Dan,
“Courage” seems to me that you either have it or you don’t, it can be developed as well over time. When we show “Courage” and others around us see our or other’s “Courage” as a team you develop Trust, so they work hand in hand.
Leadership goals surely are building individuals who you can trust which exhibit the “Courage” to Lead others, and themselves are building blocks of a fine foundation. Development of those around us help become more courageous as they can help when times are tough as we build them along the way.
Love this. I am striving to be a better leader vs. Manager and to let go and let people try and fail, because failure is where the growth happens.
I would love a digital copy of the book. I’m just starting out in management and need all the help I can get.
Courage is defind in many ways, to have someone give you direction of couage as it relates ti business saves precious time thats like gold in daily decisions.
In my experience, courage is much easier if the team around you is with you (whether or not they believe exactly as you do in any given situation). I’m interested to read this book and learn more about the four types of relational trust and how they feed leadership courage.
This issue of courage is one that I’ve struggled with for years. As an old school military man who has transitioned into pastoral ministry I’ve found it difficult to strike a balance between courage and compassion. I’m looking forward to reading your book. I’m thankful that there are people like you who are providing resources and training for people like me.
This is a thought and conversation provoking article. Especially your comments regarding “power dynamics” and the care needed in not allowing that dynamic to weaken or silence the communication of subordinates. I’ve seen the negative effects that occur when trust erodes, and have seen the frustration of superiors when trying to rebuild that trust.
Great article that I’ll be sharing.
This was really interesting. As I was scrolling through the comments, I was you discussing physical, moral, creative, social, and collective courage. I work at a church that is very intentional with development and learning so I would love to read this book and be able to apply this new knowledge to myself and share it with others. Thank you for taking the time to write this article and use your gifts and talents to generously spread this knowledge through books for others. It is very inspiring!
What do you see as the competing values and motivators that conflict or undermine living life as a trusted, courageous leader?
Great question! What do you think? Values that prioritize winning at any cost? Prioritizing individual gain over the common good?
Building trust takes time, and I think so many managers being results-oriented instead of relationship-oriented don’t value the time it takes to really engage with people. We are too short sighted looking at current results and whether someone hit a goal that there is no way to truly know an employee’s worth without knowing the person. We need to give ourselves permission to see the whole person, and build results over time.
I’m not comprehending the central premise … that “relational” trust is fundamental to [personal AND collective] courage?
It seems the inverse …
In my experience, courage is achieved via DENIAL of a “go along to get along” ethic, that is, DESPITE the conditions of relational trust [Respect, Regard, perceived Competence, apparent Integrity] …
by prioritizing
(in ACTION as well as words – true integrity)
the long-term efficacy and virtue of collective PRINCIPLE
(call it “clearly stated purpose”)
over
the short-lived value of related Principals
(call them “trusted dependencies”
or “personal loyalties”).
Herein lies the essential difference between
DOING something (say, earning trust) and
ACHIEVING something (say, integrity) …
wherein courage –
confidence in principle benefits over loyalty costs –
is preconditional to integrity,
not a result of integrity.
THIS I can trust in, whatever the personal costs;
but maybe I need to read the book. 😉
Very nice! Having “meaningful conversations where people get to know each other beyond their job functions”…I love this. This is the groundwork for developing healthy CULTURE within teams.
Trust is something that I find so incredibly difficult. After being burnt quite a few times it takes me a long time to trust and not feel vunerable within myself. In my work role I am a new manager (3 months) for a team that have worked together for many many years. Building trust with them as individuals and a an entire team is a daily goal. I hadn’t ever thought of trust in this breakdown style. I will try and include this in my current practise. Thanks ☺
Leaders build relational trust; I don’t think trust is a commodity you can work on directly, for me it’s a by-product of the manifestation of your beliefs and actions and the value that people perceive therein for themselves. I never trust anyone who I perceive is trying to directly influence my trust… charlatans and con-people come immediately to mind.
Have the courage to know who you are, the courage to be who you want to be, at all times, and trust will follow. Working on “trust” seems like working on sincerity… and we all know you have it made if you can fake sincerity!!
Great post. Looking forward to reading this book.
Great post. I am also seeing trust issues as it relates to technology as well. Adoption issues leading to #Changefatigue are prevailing. A root cause I see if TRUST in leadership and in the purpose technology plays in our work lives. Love to read the book – hope I win a copy!
Whether we have trouble trusting or trouble being trusted – ownership of that trust and doing something to improve it is the key to being a good leader – thank you for this post
This is a timely and useful article. Thank you.
Developing trust is the most important part of helping to move an organization. Presuming positive intent in your interactions is key to that development. I believe that it takes courage to examine your own practices and know that they influence those you lead. Showing integrity and being competent help people develop trust. Walk the walk so others will too.
Your section on integrity reminded me immediately to the C. S. Lewis quote: “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one else is watching.” My wife and I have three sons, each relatively new to the workforce. Coaching them and preparing them to be good, productive members of society have been amongst our most important shared goals as parents. I have told them each that one the most important things for them to protect in their professional and personal lives is their reputation, and that to do so, they must adhere to your core values and operate with integrity in everything they do. To do so builds relationships and thereby trust. It only takes one slip-up to undo a lifetime of building your reputation. To him (her) whom much is given, much will be expected. Meet or exceed those expectations in everything you do.
This is great! I am a firm believer in building relationships, trusting your team and watching them fly!
I love the stated dependence upon integrity. This trait is residual as it carries over from every previous position one has ever had – in leadership or not!
I think all four of these traits have to be in balance between each and every member of the team. It requires that trust and breaking down down walls. I would love to read more about this in the book.
I believe there is a strong relationship between courage and trust. Courage and trust empowers an individual to make radicle and innovative decisions despite all odds or challenges. Many successful leaders have harnessed this strength to bring change and enhance the lives of others. A good example is the Late Steve Jobs the co-founder of Apple computers. His courage and trust in his ability, dream and vision and that of others around him is experienced through the success of the Apple Brand.
One way leaders can build relational trust is by building rapport with their people first through the process of communication.
this is a very interesting topic, it is worth the time and interest to consider trust and courage
As a teacher who may be stepping into a leadership role in the near future, this book will be very helpful to me as I move from being not just a colleague but an administrator as well.
Perhaps we can view the relationship between courage and trust, as a metaphorical bridge.
Organisational operations are the bridge, and the movement of shipping below the bridge, is the progress towards the organisation’s objectives.
Imagine that the bridge is one of those lifting bridges where two halves each have to lift, to allow shipping traffic to pass. One half of the bridge is called Trust. The other half is called Courage. Trust INVITES the other half of the bridge – called Courage, to meet in the middle, for mutual support.
The two halves of Trust and Courage are connected to each other – not mechanically, but relationally. It is the MANNER, in which the working relationship is offered and received, that describes the relationship between Trust, Courage and their symbiotic success.
I would be interested in your book. It is challenging to keep an open mind and to avoid judging a person based on past performance or interactions. How to juggle Trust but verify
The hardest part…learning to trust myself!
A great start would be, “The Courage Way”.
Respect, Personal Regard, Competence and Integrity. All very vital in leadership. We often boil it down to two things that staff want a leader to be…that is Trustworthy and Competent.
Your 4 open up trust some more and include competence. There is so much that inter-relates. You are always thought provoking and insightful.
Thanks very much Dan!
Timely information for me as a relationship with a team member who reports to me has been eroding because of trust and respect issues. We have been extremely short staffed and it has taken great courage to create space for mistakes and learning at a time when there is so little time. Sometimes that is the real challenge… simply making time to do the things necessary to create an atmosphere of trust. This is a good reminder of how important that is!
I would also as well be interested in reading The Courage Way Leading and Living with Integrity.