Influential leaders recognize the benefits of trust.
Productivity increases when employees trust management. Sales and repeat business flourish when customers trust your business. Trust grows when you do what you say you will do. It’s called integrity.
Creating confidence requires ongoing attention and diligence. Too often, our “Trust Barometer” is neglected. Sales are not where we need them to be, deadlines are unmet, marketing efforts are failing, etc.
It’s understandable why we can easily misplace or ignore our “Trust Barometer.”
But failure to monitor the trust level regularly and intentionally in our business, ministry, or corporation places us in real danger.
Ask any meteorologist, and they will tell you that paying attention to a barometer is critical. You can quickly tell if the air pressure is rising or falling. The information alerts you to whether a storm is coming. Access to this information can save lives.
When we incorporate consistent processes to gauge the trust level of our employees, customers, or congregation, we reconnect with WHY we are here in the first place.
Contrary to those who believe success at any cost justifies the means, the “servant leader” recognizes that compromising integrity erodes trust. And that’s a storm risk too dangerous for any leader to take.
Michael Useem, director of the Center for Leadership and Change at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, describes trust as “the accumulated product of saying what you’re going to do, and doing it, and getting results” (Quoted in Michael Barrier, “Leadership Skills Employees Respect,” Nation’s Business [January 1999], 28, 30).”
Trust is a fruit of integrity. When we keep promises to our employees, customers, and stakeholders, the result is loyalty. Loyal employees and customers are active, supportive, devoted, and inspired.
When violated, trust is hard to regain! Wisdom reminds us:
“The integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them.” - Proverbs 11:3.
“Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool.” - Proverbs 19:1
What’s your “Trust Barometer” telling you?
Thanks for your leadership.
Richard
P.S. Are you looking to develop more trust in your business? Read this blog post from my website for some trust-building self-assessment questions.