Skip to main content

How To Be A Trusted Executive


Perhaps now more than ever it's time for the book by John Blakey called, The Trusted Executive: Nine Leadership Habits That Inspire Results, Relationships, and Reputation.

The book is divided into three parts:
  • Part One: Blakey explores how trust in executive leadership has been lost so that we can understand the scale and depth of the problem.
  • Part Two: Here, Blakey shifts from exploring the theory of trustworthiness to studying its practice. Specifically, you'll learn a three pillar approach to building trustworthiness: Habits of Ability; Habits of Integrity; Habits of Benevolence.
  • Part Three: Finally, Blakey reviews the impact of the three pillars and discusses governance, remuneration, corporate social responsibility, reporting, scale, regulation and structure.
By the time you finish the book, you will also have learned about the nine habits that inspire trust. Choosing to:
  1. Deliver
  2. Coach
  3. Be Consistent
  4. Be Honest
  5. Be Open
  6. Be Humble
  7. Evangelize
  8. Be Brave
  9. Be Kind

Awhile back, Blakey kindly answered the following questions about what I read in the book:


Question: Of the three pillars – ability, integrity, and benevolence – to becoming a trusted executive, which one do you think is most important to develop?

Blakey: Some would say that the pillar of ability is most important, since if you don’t deliver results as a business leader then you don’t get a pass to the next stage of the game. Others might say that the pillar of integrity is fundamental because if you are not open and honest then how can you develop long term relationships with any of your stakeholders? 

There is evidence to back up this perspective from the Institute of Leadership and Management who surveyed over 6,000 leaders in the UK and found that "openness" was, by far, the most important driver of trust ahead of "effective communication" and "ability to make decisions." However, my personal opinion is that the pillar of benevolence is the most important in today’s business world because it is the pillar most likely to be neglected by business leaders

In my experience working as an executive coach with over 120 CEO's across 22 different countries, the benevolent skills of care, kindness and moral bravery are the most under-developed in the typical corporate leader. And this then becomes their Achilles heel. Because if you are delivering fantastic results and you are as honest as the day is long but you still drop out witty, cruel one-liners to your team members on a casual, daily basis then you will find you are still not trusted.


Question: Let’s talk about being humble and how it relates to great leadership. It’s easy to mistake arrogance for confidence. How do the best leaders balance their confidence with humility and how does it lead to better teams and businesses?

Blakey: The author, C.S. Lewis, famously said, "True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less."

I think this captures the difference between confidence and humility. Humble leaders can be fantastically confident and yet they still do not put themselves at the center of their own world, or anyone else’s world for that matter. 


Jim Collins captured this difference when he talked about level 5 leaders in his book, Good to Great. Collins said that level 5 leaders have a paradoxical combination of "intense professional will and extreme personal humility." It is their professional will that drives them to confidently pursue ambitious organizational goals and it is their extreme personal humility which then allows them to let others take credit for these achievements. 

You could argue that this behavior reveals a true, inner confidence based on a genuine self-esteem rather than the more fragile self-esteem that needs to be topped up on a daily basis by bragging and putting others down. You can imagine that working in a team with a level five leader allows everyone to give off their best, receive due recognition for their successes and be protected from random acts of blame when things go wrong. An organization full of such teams will outperform an organization populated by teams who are wasting energy covering their backs and playing political games.  


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Three Essential Parts Of A Mission Statement

A lot of companies struggle when creating their mission statement. Author  Peter F. Drucker  provides the following good advice in one of my favorite book's of his,  The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization : Every mission statement has to reflect three things : Opportunities Competence Commitment In other words, he explains: What is our purpose? Why do we do what we do? What, in the end, do we want to be remembered for? How well does your mission statement meet Drucker's recommended three requirements?

Effective Listening: Do's And Don'ts

Here are some great tips from Michelle Tillis Lederman's book, The 11 Laws of Likability .  They are all about: what to do and what not to do to be a leader who's an effective listener : Do : Maintain eye contact Limit your talking Focus on the speaker Ask questions Manage your emotions Listen with your eyes and ears Listen for ideas and opportunities Remain open to the conversation Confirm understanding, paraphrase Give nonverbal messages that you are listening (nod, smile) Ignore distractions Don't : Interrupt Show signs of impatience Judge or argue mentally Multitask during a conversation Project your ideas Think about what to say next Have expectations or preconceived ideas Become defensive or assume you are being attacked Use condescending, aggressive, or closed body language Listen with biases or closed to new ideas Jump to conclusions or finish someone's sentences

6 Ways To Seek Feedback To Improve Your Performance In The Workplace

Getting feedback is an important way to improve performance at work. But sometimes, it can be hard to seek out, and even harder to hear.  “Feedback is all around you. Your job is to find it, both through asking directly and observing it,” says David L. Van Rooy, author of the new book,  Trajectory: 7 Career Strategies to Take You From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be . As today's guest post, Van Rooy offers these  six tips for how to get the feedback you need to improve performance at work . Guest Post By David L. Van Rooy 1.       Don’t forget to as k :  One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming things are going perfectly (until they make a catastrophic mistake). By not asking, you’re missing out on opportunities for deep feedback: the difficult, critical feedback that gives you constructive ways to improve. 2.       Make sure you listen :  Remember, getting feedback is about improving your performance, not turning it into a “you versus the

10 Quotes From The 5 Levels Of Leadership -- John C. Maxwell

Soon I'll post my full review of John C. Maxwell's latest book, The 5 Levels of Leadership .  In the meantime, here are some of my favorites quotes from the book that I believe should become a must-read book by any workplace/organizational leader: Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself.  It's about advancing your team. Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. Leadership is action, not position. When people feel liked, cared for, included, valued, and trusted, they begin to work together with their leader and each other. If you have integrity with people, you develop trust.  The more trust you develop, the stronger the relationship becomes.  In times of difficulty, relationships are a shelter.  In times of opportunity, they are a launching pad. Good leaders must embrace both care and candor. People buy into the leader, then the vision. Bringing out the best in a person is often a catalyst for

5 Tips For Generating Ideas From Employees

Your employees have lots of ideas.  So, be sure you provide the forums and mechanisms for your employees to share their ideas with you.  Hold at least a few brainstorming sessions each year, as well. And, when you are brainstorming with your employees, try these five tips: Encourage ALL ideas.  Don't evaluate or criticize ideas when they are first suggested. Ask for wild ideas.  Often, the craziest ideas end up being the most useful. Shoot for quantity not quality during brainstorming. Encourage everyone to offer new combinations and improvements of old ideas.

3 Things Your Mission Statement Must Have

A lot of companies struggle when creating their mission statement. Author Peter F. Drucker provides the following good advice in one of my favorite book's of his, The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization :" Every mission statement has to reflect three things : Opportunities Competence Commitment In other words, he explains: What is our purpose? Why do we do what we do? What, in the end, do we want to be remembered for? How well does your mission statement meet Drucker's recommended three requirements?

How To Survive And Then Reset To Ultimately Thrive

“Uncertainty is here to stay. Rather than seeing it as an obstacle to overcome, integrate it into your strategic approach to invigorate your high-growth potential and outperform competition under any market condition,” explains Rebecca Homkes , author of the new book, Survive, Reset, Thrive .   “Most books aren’t honest enough about how hard it is to reset ,” adds Homkes. Yet, resetting and leaning into change is essential. “If you are ready to embrace change as a central element of your growth strategy, this book is for you.” Homkes’ book is a timely, comprehensive, and essential read for business leaders looking to take the next step toward ensuring high growth for their companies. The book brings together more than 15 years of Homkes working directly with high-growth companies of all sizes and across a wide variety of industries.   Survive, Reset, Thrive (SRT) is a practical and innovative interconnected three-mode approach :   Survive : Stabilizing your business when

Use A Board Of Advisors

David Burkus often provides valuable comments to my various Blog postings, and he's a person who effectively uses a board of advisors, instead of mentors, to help him achieve success. "I've found that in my life, it was easier and more effective to set up a board of advisors," said Burkus, the editor of LeaderLab . "This is a group of people, three to five, that have rotated into my life at various times and that speak into it and help me grow. I benefit from the variety of experience these people have." LeaderLab is an online community of resources dedicated to promoting the practice of leadership theory. Its contributors include consultants and professors who present leadership theory in a practitioner-friendly format that provides easy-to-follow explanations on how to apply the best of leadership theory. Community users can download a variety of research reports and presentations about leadership and leadership versus management. For example, a pr

3 Coaching And Mentoring Tips

Here are three great tips from the book, The Everything Coaching and Mentoring Book : Coaches do not motivate their employees; they inspire them to motivate themselves.  This is best accomplished by allowing employees to see clearly where they stand in the organization versus where they want to be in their careers.  That is, what are their self-interests versus what the company can offer them. A mentor always exercises the power of suggestion. That is, wise mentors offer up plenty of suggestions to their mentees. They pose alternatives.  But they refrain, as much as possible, from telling their mentees what to do. Mentoring is all about sharing experiences.  It is about mentors imparting the multiple lessons that they've learned to their mentees and helping them better navigate through their own careers.  By absorbing these lessons--of mentors' mistakes and successes--mentees are better prepared to move forward with knowledge and confidence.

How To Avoid 8 Common Performance Evaluation Pitfalls

As the year comes to a close it's likely time for many business leaders to tackle the annual performance appraisal process. So, here is a good reminder from author Sharon Armstrong about how to avoid eight performance evaluation pitfalls .  These are in what I consider is the best chapter of the book The Essential HR Handbook , that she co-authored with Barbara Mitchell. 1.  Clustering everyone in the middle performance-rating categories 2.  Overlooking flaws or exaggerating the achievements of favored employees 3.  Excusing substandard performance or behavior because it is widespread 4.  Letting one characteristic - positive or negative - affect your overall assessment 5.  Rating someone based on the company he or she keeps 6.  Rating someone based on a grudge you are holding 7.  Rating someone based on a short time period instead of the entire evaluation period 8.  Rating everyone high, to make you look good There's other great information in this 250-page book th