Why Many Trusted Managers Never Become Leaders

Throughout this book, I have said that "leadership" is getting results in a way that inspires trust. Many trusted managers-credible people who have high character and technical competence-never become "leaders" because they don't know how to extend Smart Trust. They essentially operate in Zone 4, the zone of suspicion. They may delegate, or assign tasks to others with parameters for their accomplishment. They may extend fake trust-in other words, give "lip service" to extending trust, but micromanage the activities. But they don't fully entrust. They don't give to others the stewardships (responsibilities with a trust) that engage genuine ownership and accountability, bring out people's greatest resourcefulness, and create the environment that generates hightrust dividends.

While delegation is intellectual, entrusting is visceral-it's something you feel. When people don't learn to extend trust, they don't become "leaders" in the full sense of the word-either at work or at home. At the end of one program, a man who was retiring as general counsel of a company came up to me and said, "My legal training and experience have given me a propensity to not trust. At times, this has served me well, but much of the time it has created huge problems. It's gotten me bogged down in expensive and time-consuming legal relationships, and it has hurt me enormously in personal relationships as I have extended my professional mind-set into my personal life. Now I'm beginning a new career, and I'm inspired by this idea of starting with a propensity to trust. I don't know what the results will be, but I am convinced that this is the front edge. It's a better place to start."

I certainly agree-it is a better place to start.

The number one job of any leader is to inspire trust. It's to release the creativity and capacity of individuals to give their best and to create a high-trust environment in which they can effectively work with others. And this is true both at work and at home.

The first thing for any leader is to inspire trust.
-DOUG CONANT, CEO, CAMPBELL SOUP COMPANY

So how do you inspire trust? By doing the things we've been talking about throughout this book. First, you inspire trust by starting with yourself and your own credibility. Second, you inspire trust by consistently behaving in trust-building ways with other people, including purposefully and wisely extending trust to others (Smart Trust). As you do those things, you will get results in a way that inspires confidence and trust.

Some leaders have detail-oriented styles that-while they're not really micromanagement-may nevertheless be seen as not trusting. Considering the taxes of low trust, it's wise for all leaders to think about the way their style is perceived, and for those who are more detail-oriented to make an extra effort to communicate and practice a fundamental propensity to trust.

Once again, I affirm that especially in our "flat world" economy, the ability to establish, grow, extend, and restore trust is the key professional and personal competency of our time. And the ability to exercise Smart Trust is a vital part of that competency. It will enable you to create a powerful balance and synergy between analysis and the propensity to trust, which, in turn, will produce the judgment that enables you to effectively leverage yourself and to inspire the talent, creativity, synergy, and highest contribution of others.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An excerpt from my book, The Speed of Trust. Copyright (C) 2006 by CoveyLink, LLC.  Reprinted by permission of Free Press, a divison of Simon and Schuster, Inc.  To read my previous post, "The Ninth Best Dad In The World," please click here.

To join the conversation on trust and business at the Speed of Trust group on Gather, click on the button below.