How to Coach Yourself and Others Influencing, Inter Personal and Leadership Skills | Page 75

4. Building and Rebuilding Trust
What Is Trust?
Trust is a relationship based on mutual confidence that we will both:
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Do what we say.
Communicate honestly.
Respect one another’s knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Maintain confidentiality.
Keep our interactions unguarded.

Trust is a state of mind. Notice that all of these things are actions. It’s not our words
that generate trust, but what we do. The real message is in our actions.
Trust is a combination of trusting others and being trustworthy.
What’s So Important About Trust?
Trust is a fundamental building block of human relationships. In simple terms, it’s just
how people treat each other.
Trust is also the very core of leadership. Willing followers must trust their leaders.
(Without trust, no one will follow.) But trust cannot be mandated; it must be earned.
People working out of the Leader paradigm get their credibility and power “from
behavioral integrity: ‘walking the talk and talking the walk.’ Leaders’ power comes from
their consistent, principle-centered behavior and actions that demonstrate honesty,
integrity, trust, dignity, and respect for all people.” This is why people choose to follow
them.
Benefits of a High-Trust Environment
A high-trust environment creates commitment and loyalty to the organization. When
people get the idea, “We’re all in this boat together,” the organization is invariably better
for it.
In a high-trust environment, leadership tells the truth, and people are enlightened about
the organization’s position and what actions they need to take to help achieve its goals.
In a high-trust environment, people are more willing to accept change and to work
toward successfully integrating the effects of change.
Every manager in business, industry, and government has an important leadership role
in building a high-trust environment with his or her employees. As a leader you have a
more complex role of building trust at multiple levels. Trust is a necessary element of:
 Leading your subordinates to work energetically toward meeting the organization’s
goals.
 Developing trusting relationships with various levels of the government hierarchy
 Working with other companies and or departments or agencies.
 Developing constructive relationships with the media
 Building positive relationships with the public.