Leading with Trust
When I was a Boy Scout, we had to learn the 12 rules that each Scout was expected to live by. The first was “A Scout is Trustworthy.” I’m not sure that my childhood friends and I understood was it meant to be worthy of trust, but lately I’ve been thinking about trust and what it means to be a trustworthy leader.
In an essay entitled, “You Can’t Take Trust for Granted,” which was part of the book Trust Inc.: Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset by Barbara Brooks Kimmel, James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner write: “The truth is that trust rules. Trust rules relationships. Trust rules your influence. Trust rules your team’s cohesiveness. Trust rules innovativeness. Trust rules brand image. Trust rules financial stability. Trust rules performance. Trust rules just about everything you do.”
Yet, if that’s the case, why are we having a crisis of trust in our society?
According to the latest Edelman Trust Barometer, a lack of faith in societal institutions triggered by economic anxiety, disinformation, class divisions and a failure of leadership have brought us to a point where we are deeply divided and polarized, and business is the only institution seen as competent and ethical. Globally, there is an 11-point gap between trust in business and trust in government: 62 percent trust business while only 51 percent trust government.
The daily news brings multiple examples of leaders of all stripes – elected officials, business executives, religious leaders, academics, and community leaders – behaving in untrustworthy ways and spreading misinformation, lies and hatred among their followers. Add to this the daily barrage of news about the doomsday possibilities of artificial intelligence — and evidence that even some of our news reporters deliberately spread untruths for their own gains — and the world can seem a frightening and untrustworthy place.
Which brings me back to the issue of trust and how to regain it.
In a 2020 Harvard Business Review article by Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss entitled, “Begin with Trust,” they assert that trust has three main drivers: authenticity (“I experience the real you”), logic (“I know you can do it: your reasoning and judgment are sound”) and empathy (“I believe you care about me and my success”). The authors contend that when trust breaks down, it can almost always be traced back to a breakdown in one of them. To build trust as a leader, Frei and Morris suggest that you first need to figure out which driver you “wobble” on and then decide how to overcome it.
Likewise, Edelman believes that businesses, as the most trusted institutions, should leverage their comparative advantage to inform the debate and offer solutions on global issues like climate change, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (being logical). They believe that businesses need to be advocates for the truth (being authentic) and collaborate more with governments (being empathetic) to push us towards a more just, secure and thriving society.
Whether, and to what extent, that kind of proactive institutional collaboration comes to fruition, individual leaders can focus on their own behaviors – advocating for truth and striving to be more worthy of other people’s trust. It’s a lifelong journey that begins with a simple rule.
