4 Leadership Practices that Enrich You and Inspire Others
Humility is a way of seeing others.
The first practice of humility is seeing others as trustworthy.
Extend trust:
If there’s no risk, it’s not trust.
Bob Chapman believes, “Trust is given, not earned.” It still freaks me out.
You begin thinking that trust is about others, but come to realize it’s about you.
Humility extends what ego withholds – trust.
Faults:
Ego feels superior by finding fault.
“There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we expected.” Henry David Thoreau
Ego-driven superiority results in distrust of those “inferior” others. You don’t trust because you’ve been burned. The courage of humility is its willingness to extend trust.
In the end, distrust is like tying a swimmer’s feet.
4 leadership practices of humility:
- Give people opportunity to rise. Stop weighing them down.
- Free yourself from micromanaging.
- Infuse the practice of accountability and follow-up with importance and meaning. Trust isn’t blindness.
- Say, “I’m counting on you.” Egotistical leaders only count on themselves.
Limits:
I’m not trusting a carpenter to fill a cavity in my tooth, even if he thinks he can do it. Confident ignorance is dangerous.
Limit trust to competence and character.
You can trust people to repeat the past. You can also trust them to grow. Trust is the ground where people grow into who they might be.
Anyone who develops others learns to trust them to rise to new challenges. You can trust people to learn and grow, if you trust them.
Stephen M.R. Covey adds “smart” to trust. Extend smart trust. If you’re a trusting person, evaluate a little more. If you’re a skeptical person, extend trust more frequently.
What connections do you see between humility and trust?
What are your thoughts about broken trust and second chances?
Added resource: Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family, Bob Chapman.
Great post, Dan! It’s true. In order to accomplish pretty much anything, trust must be given. If we always insist that we can’t extend trust until it’s earned it will restrict us from accomplishing anything meaningful. Yes, there’s always that danger of being let down by someone but the advantage of being able to extend trust far outweighs the danger. Of course, it’s like everything else. Be smart about it. Trust a mechanic to fix your car, not fly your airplane!
Thanks Michael. It feels good to read your comment. The idea that trust is earned is so ingrained in our thinking. It IS true that we learn to trust people through their track record. However, if we want people to develop a track record we extend trust to them.
For sure, we do not trust them to steer the ship when they just came on board. But it’s useful to find a way to trust people so that can find out who they really are.
The connection between humility and trust is one I’ve never considered, yet it now appears self-evident. Thanks Dan for this enlightening post.
Thanks Dixon. When I learn something, it feels like it was so obvious. It feels like I almost already knew it. 🙂
This was a great post – just when I needed it. I have a leadership team member that feels “burned” by another and now “cannot” trust him. This provides a different perspective on how trust is cultivated. Thanks as always!
Thanks Andria. Best wishes for the path forward.
Trust is earned. But forgiveness is a gift. When trust has been broken, it must be rebuilt, slowly, over time. Still, forgiveness is the step that has to happen first in order to allow people the opportunity to try and rebuild trust. If there is no forgiveness, then we won’t be willing to risk being hurt again and won’t give people an opportunity to try and build trust.
Thanks Kristi. I’m so glad you brought forgiveness to this conversation. If you can’t forgive, you can’t trust.
Just as a side light, courage and forgiveness go together as well. There is no courage where there is no forgiveness.
Agreed. Trust starts with the obverance of deeds that demonstrate competance and character. That is why it is earned. Fear and egotism interferes with trust because they only only focused on self preservation. Trust is a higher level of thinking where emotion and reason converge.when there is no threat to self.
f. Some people live their entire lives going threatened
Trust is one of the most important commodities a person can have (leader, follower … doesn’t matter). Once that trust is breached it can be a difficult path to reconciliation. There is no question that forgiveness is a virtue and second chances are important. If, however, there is another breach of trust, then it’s time to reconsider the relationship. We are only as good as our words and actions. Consistency is critical for leaders.
Thanks for the post! I like Covey’s approach to give trust appropriately. Withholding trust inappropriately hurts relationships & people. If giving trust is a problem, then try giving small trusts out as a starting point.
The first time around –you may give trust. But if things don’t go as expected, if poor/irresponsible performance occurs, them the next time around, the person has to earn the trust.
Very nice posting; What connections do you see between humility and trust? Best to know your audience in terms of being humble. Will you being humble in nature and action gather trust from your audience or will it mean they take advantage of you. Is your audience (of any sort) willing to take your humble offerings and therefore be free to deliver back? Can your audience actually deliver or as another says above, have to earn back that trust due to no deliverable action.
Great connection between trust and humility.
I’ve come to look at trust as a commodity – like coins – not a feeling or emotion. We all have a capacity to trust (varying number of coins) based on our experience. Recognizing your own capacity to trust, or invest those coins in others can help you be more intentional to do it.
Wounds and fear cause one to hoard the coins / withhold trust with a skeptical closed hand. Vulnerability opens the hand much like humility does.
Great thoughts in your post!
Thanks for the awesome post! I really love work when I can be inspired by peers and leadership. The way to inspire others is for trust to be built by observations of actions. Therefore, I’m always mindful of acting in a way that would becoming at all times.
In certain leadership and positions of authority, people tend to forget that trust is earned not given. No one knows the accolades that landed a leader in that position, and many don’t care. Like many, I care about the actions a leader does in his or her job. Leadership with humility is the best kind because the quality of humility grounds or brings him or her back to Earth or common ground of subordinates.
Humility and trust go a long way when in a leadership position. I have never had a leader that I liked that I couldn’t trust and didn’t have humility. I really can’t relate nor trust to someone who isn’t humble. It’s like a triangle in which you need them all. Humbleness allows you to connect with people you are working with, in general, even if you are on different levels in society or financial positions. Being able to relate is key to having honest conversations which are needed to move your work center or organization in a positive direction.
Now once trust is broken, it is challenging to regain it. For work sake, it’s worth trying to give a second chance because no one enjoys going to work and it’s a hostile environment. I try not to take work personal but honestly, it’s difficult because I invest in my workspace relationships and mission overall. Given that thought, I’m open to second chance one certain condition that I understand what went wrong.
What are your thoughts about broken trust and second chances? Trust is being vulnerable. It allows people to respond to broken trust to the best of their ability and where they are at that moment.
Love the post 😀
I think these kinds of issues many new leaders face because now they manage a team that they are ultimately accountable for their work statements. I believe just sticking to competence and character practically is all you need to know from an employee in terms of accountability. Micro-managing can be burdensome and doesn’t allow you to view other indications of gaps/success within a team.
“Trust is given, not earned” made me think of the classic “trust falls”. You can’t have a “practice run.” You just do it.
I have been thinking about Trust as a two way exchange, i.e., Trusting and Being Trusted. The latter brings up a set of behaviors that are controllable by the leader.
Thanks David. Interesting thought. How will I be a trustworthy person/leader? That’s a useful focus.
The irony in your definition of humility is strikingly accurate. Humility, a term usually used to describe one’s self, is a term that, perhaps, as you put it require us to see “others as trustworthy”. You sent me for a whirlwind with this one, but I think the concept is fairly simple. I think the problem lies in our ability to step back and just look at it from the angles you are portraying it in this post. Humble vs egotistical paradigm you paint is a common trend I see in literature, just not labeled as such. A concept I remember reading about recently was servant leadership, which I’m sure you have talked about at one point or another. I think those concepts fit well with the points you try to make in the post. What do you think?