Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Trust or Bust
The number one priority for any leader should be building trust. If you don’t, your organization will be dead in the water. Oh, there may be signs of life—people in the building; mail going out; customer phone calls. But let’s take a closer look behind the curtain.
How effective are those people? Are they truly caring for customers and conscious how their behavior affects the bottom line? Or, are folks bogged down in “busyness” and attempt to remain anonymous for fear the boss will point out a fault?
Hyler Bracey ("Building Trust: How to Get It! How to Keep It!") offers four guiding principles on what it takes to build real trust between you and team members.
(1) OPENNESS - sharing your thoughts and feelings and being receptive to the same in others.
(2) HONESTY - giving truthful and complete feedback; the positive, negative, indifferent.
(3) CREDIBILITY - making and keeping promises.
(4) RESPECT - honoring unspoken requests that you have in any relationship. This means:
* Listen non-judgmentally
* Acknowledge differences without assigning blame
* Give credit to others for their unique and special qualities
When you apply these four principles - openness, honesty, credibility, respect - your relationship with team members will be one of high trust.
Until next time...live like you mean it!
Marjorie