A New Era of Leadership: It's All About Trust

The greatest challenge to leaders today is establishing and maintaining trust.

I once gave a presentation to a management team on how to scale a high-growth business. It was a final interview for an executive role with the company. I was in the flow and was confident that I was demonstrating the depth and breadth of leadership experience they were seeking. To illustrate a point, I made reference to one of my favorite movies, Moneyball, as a metaphor for sustainable performance. I prefaced my point by saying that I am a baseball fan and this is a baseball reference. I said, “it’s not about swinging for the fences but instead getting men on base.” At that moment, a member of the team interrupted and asked me why I used that phrase. Confused, I asked, “what phrase?” “Men on base,” this person responded.

In that moment it became clear to me that an expression I had used many times in the past to create trust could also be a trigger. At least one person in the meeting saw the reference as sexist. I later broached the awkwardness with the CEO, and he shared with me that the company was doing its best to fully embrace diversity, equity and inclusion.

The company eventually made me an offer, and I chalked up the uncomfortable exchange to an innocent misunderstanding. In hindsight, I failed to see this for what it was: an indicator that my leadership style was not a culture fit.

Over the next several months, the ground shifted and leadership qualities that had always been a strength for me were being questioned. As someone who prides himself on connecting with others, being highly adaptable, and not afraid to challenge the status quo, I felt I had somehow missed the mark.

This experience was a major wake-up call. My willingness to be vulnerable, visible, and direct was intended to build trust but instead had the opposite effect. Was my style out of touch in an egalitarian and fully virtual workplace? How could I build meaningful trust in the absence of proximity? Was it possible for me to express empathy or vulnerability in this environment without the risk of it being weaponized?

One question resonated the most for me. How do we establish trust as leaders, at any level, in a highly charged and quick to convict atmosphere if we are so easily judged by our words even more so than our actions?

As I pondered this question for myself and posed it to others, five qualities of trusted leadership quickly rose to the top: competence, accountability, integrity, empathy, and selflessness.

Competence

Nothing instills trust in leaders more than knowing they are great at what they do. In his book, In Extremis Leadership, Thomas Kolditz writes that competence, trust, and loyalty are “inextricably intertwined”.

“Leaders need to take the time and effort to show followers what they’re good at and why followers should be confident in the leader’s ability. Use care, however, never to upstage or embarrass someone else as you demonstrate competence. In the end, leadership is about the success of your people, not about you.”

In today’s world, this requires continuous learning and a commitment to developing others. Staying fresh, relevant and capable gives others confidence that you’ll be able to work together to achieve strong outcomes.

This does not mean a leader needs to be good at everything. Quite the opposite. A competent leader knows their strengths and weaknesses and is very aware that they can’t do it on their own. They are always looking to build their village and surround themselves with talent and expertise that complements their own.

Accountability

In an era of blame shifting and misinformation, how can we trust our leaders if they won’t be held to account? Authority in the absence of accountability can be one of the single biggest impediments to trusted leadership.

In a recent Forbes’ article, Paloma Cantero-Gomez laid out five basic rules of accountability for any leader.

1. Leaders take full responsibility for decisions
2. Leaders take responsibility for communication
3. Leaders always think and say, “We” instead of “I.”
4. Leaders run effective meetings
5. Leaders transform problems into constructive feedback

People are desperate for trusted leadership. Instilling a culture of accountability is critical to ensuring teams are highly motivated, cohesive, and performing at their best.

Integrity

Nothing breeds distrust more than a leader who operates by the “do as I say, not as I do” school of thought. This requires a strong moral compass and consistency. Karl Klaussen describes integrity as being the guiding force between leaders’ values and their actions.

“Leaders who demonstrate integrity garner trust among their colleagues. They aren’t afraid of the truth, and they stand up for what they believe in. This, in turn, leads to loyal customers, increased profits, and a better world for all.”

Leaders with integrity can be counted on to do what they say and say what they do. They are consistently willing to make the tough choices because it’s the right thing to do as opposed to the expedient thing to do.

Empathy

Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes to better understand their experience, perspective and feelings. It is a skill that enables leaders to cut through the noise and manage outcomes. Empathy enables you to know if the people you’re trying to reach are actually reached.

Showing empathy does not mean you are a people pleaser but instead provides better clarity of the environment you are working in and how different people will react to different stimuli. This situational awareness gives leaders an important tool to make better predictions, craft better tactics, inspire loyalty, and communicate clearly.

Selflessness

Selflessness is the foundation of servant leadership. People in an organization perceive selflessness when a leader concerns him or herself with their safety; performs valuable service for them, and makes personal sacrifice for their benefit.

1. Safety: As Adam Grant says, “without psychological safety, people hide mistakes and withhold ideas. They aim to prove themselves and protect their image. With psychological safety, people admit errors and voice suggestions. They strive to improve themselves and protect their team.” Creating safety requires vulnerability and an understanding that to earn trust you must first be willing to give it.

2. Service: As leaders, we are taught to operate with a performance mindset. We place tremendous emphasis on what it takes to win and we drive our teams toward a defined set of performance metrics. It is all too easy to become myopic about data-driven results and making sure our teams are doing what we want them to do. 

   A service mindset flips the corporate pyramid upside down. This inverted pyramid becomes customer-centric with leadership directed at supporting all of the functions that ultimately drive value for the customer, whether internal or external. Many organizations employ Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to align leadership at all levels with this service mindset.

3. Sacrifice: It’s been said that leaders eat last. Nothing engenders trust more than a leader who is willing to make personal sacrifices for the benefit of their colleagues, their employees and their community. This is a leader whose first instinct is to take care of others before taking care of themselves.

   In November 2015, on Black Friday, REI did something every major retailer considers tantamount to commercial suicide. The company closed up shop for the day, foregoing millions of dollars in holiday sales. According to President and CEO, Jerry Stritzke, “we are choosing to invest in helping people get outside with loved ones this holiday season, over spending it in the aisles.” The result, more than 1.4 million people and 175 organizations joined REI’s #OptOutside movement. Instead of taking a financial hit, the company recorded record revenues, growing 10% over the prior year. By having the audacity to make this sacrifice, the company has engendered the respect and loyalty of its employees and customers in the long term.

“We trust people who put our interests ahead of their own.”

Trusted leaders project their leadership outward not inward. They are selfless in that they see leadership as a vehicle for supporting others and not one for maximizing their own personal gain or as a zero-sum game. They build for the long term which requires making people feel safe, operating with a service mindset, and making personal sacrifices along the way. Building trust often requires hardship. What does trusted leadership mean to you?

Not the path of least resistance

We live in a time of great change and even greater uncertainty. To compensate, we have become more inwardly focused, more risk averse, and less tolerant of those who think and act differently. We make blanket generalizations about people and institutions without knowing them or what they are about.

It’s a time in which leadership is needed the most and yet we trust our leaders the least.

There are more books and articles on what it takes to be a strong and effective leader than almost any other topic. Yet, thinking around trusted leadership is not nearly as prodigious. Isn’t an effective leader a trusted leader?

Trust is hard to establish and easy to lose. It requires a long-term perspective in a time of instant gratification. It’s much easier to focus on short-term results and transactional benefits than it is to build something that lasts or solves hard problems. Building and maintaining trust requires patience, strength of character, and a people-centric focus.

Would you say that most leaders possess these qualities?

How have you changed your approach to leadership?