intimacy

In a class on leadership I was facilitating last week, we ended up talking a lot about trust.  A worthwhile endeavor for sure.  I recall years ago when I read Stephen Covey’s book, The Speed of Trust, which highlighted how building an effective foundation of trust enables work to happen much more quickly, efficiently and effortlessly than it ever would if trust was lacking. A low trust environment can lead to burnout When we think about the relationships in our life – personal or professional, we often evaluate them based on whether we think we can trust the person.  “I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.”  This is especially important if you’ve ever worked for a leader you didn’t think you could trust.  My virtual office is often full of career and leadership coaching clients experiencing burn out due to prolonged exposure to an untrustworthy leader or team environment.  And it takes me back to times in my career where I felt like I was walking on pins and needles all the time, lest I upset the apple cart.  It takes a toll.  Especially on our bodies, as we often find ourselves in a state of hyper alert all of the time.  The fight or flight response is constantly triggered, stress hormones like cortisol are constantly pulsing through our bodies, and at some point we finally crash and burn. A simple equation for building trust Folks often pontificate about the importance of building trust, but few get into the nitty gritty of how you do it.  And it’s more than just being knowledgeable in a certain skill or topic area.  Competency and credibility are important, but it isn’t the whole equation.  And there is an equation for trust by the way.  I ran across this simple trust equation years ago, and here it is: C + R + I _______ S.O. The trust equation explained C stands for Credibility.  Or in other words, “I can trust what she says about x…”. Do you know your stuff?  Have you built the technical skills and competencies for the task at hand?  Do you have the necessary leadership skills and competencies to guide your team, things like giving feedback?  Setting a vision?  Delegation?  Holding others accountable? R stands for Reliability.  Or in other words, “I can trust she will follow through.”  What’s your level of integrity when it comes to follow through currently?  Do you make promises you have no intention of keeping?  Or perhaps you have every intention but you find yourself saying yes to every request that crosses your path.  You overpromise and underdeliver.  Good intentions are wonderful but will ultimately snooker you if you can’t come up with the follow through. I stands for Intimacy.  Or in other words, “I can trust I can come to them with my concerns and problems.”  To what extent are you an approachable leader?  Do others seek you out for your counsel and your advice?  How effective are you at […]