Trust is foundation for every successful leader’s accomplishments. When people don’t trust leader, they won’t follow very far.

How do you, leader, address issue of trust?

Entire books have been written about trust, but, for purpose of this newsletter, I’ll stick with two quick tips.

The first comes from book, The Leadership Challenge. In their survey of leadership behaviors, James Kouzes and Barry Posner asked question, “What do you look for in a credible (i.e. – trustworthy) person?” The number one response – “They do what they say they are going to do.” So, trust building tip number one – do what you say you’re going to do.

The second idea comes from world of social psychology. Social science researchers have identified a key behavioral principle that affects development of trust. This principle is known as Principle of Reciprocity. The Principle of Reciprocity states that we tend to feel obligated to repay in kind what someone else has given to us. In a nutshell, it says that if you want trust, you must first give trust. Trust building tip number two – show people you trust them if you want them to trust you.

Trust issues almost always come back to leader. It’s possible that you can have isolated trust issues with just a few people. In this case, it may be just their personal problem. If you find yourself or if you hear someone else asking questions at top of this page - look out. You may have a systemic trust problem. If that’s case, your team is either in trouble or it’s about to be in trouble. Carefully evaluate what might have happened or might be happening to damage trust and immediately start applying two tips above to begin repair.

You may use this article for electronic distribution if you will include all contact information with live links back to author. Notification of use is not required, but I would appreciate it. Please contact author prior to use in printed media.

Copyright 2005, Guy Harris

Guy Harris helps entrepreneurs, business managers, and other organizational leaders improve team performance by applying the principles of human behavior.

Law 3. Emotion drives motivation. The words "emotion" and "motivation" come from same Latin root meaning to move. When you want to move people to take action, you must engage their emotions. I'm not talking about getting people emotional. I'm talking about having people make strong emotional commitments to what you're challenging them to achieve.

The best way to make that emotional connection is with Leadership Talks.

My experience working with thousands of leaders world wide for past two decades teaches me that most leaders are screwing up their careers. On a daily basis, these leaders are getting wrong results or right results in wrong ways.

Interestingly, they themselves are choosing to fail. They're actively sabotaging their own careers.

Leaders commit this sabotage for a simple reason: They make fatal mistake of choosing to communicate with presentations and speeches -- not leadership talks.

In terms of boosting one's career, difference between two methods of leadership communication is difference between lightning and lightning bug.

Speeches/presentations primarily communicate information. Leadership talks, on other hand, not only communicate information, they do more: They establish a deep, human emotional connection with audience. For more on Leadership Talk, click on my website in resource box.

Law 4. Face-to-face speech is generally best way to motivate people (i.e., have those people choose to be motivated.) A middle-manager told me, "Where is our new CEO? We call him‘Elvis'. We seldom see him in person. There're only purported sightings of him. Maybe I'll see a blurry photo of him in one of those supermarket check-out tabloids."

In another company, a secretary said, "Our division chief stays in his office most of time. But on rare occasions that he's out and about, only evidence of his existence is odor of his pipe smoke."

Isolation may be good for monks but it's an affliction with leaders. When you want to motivate people, relationship is name of game; and you can't have a relationship, at least a productive one, as an absentee leader.

Get out and about. This is more than MBWA, (Management By Walking Around). The key is what you do when walking around. Don't be about simply sharing information but also creating environment for motivation. People hunger to be motivated. Even more: people are ALWAYS motivated. And if they won't be motivated for your cause, they will be motivated for their cause – a cause that may be at cross purposes with yours.

Make no mistake: Motivation isn't about bands playing, people cheering, hugging, and singing kombaya. Those are only surface features of motivation. True motivation happens in profound quiet of human relationships.

So, in your interactions, strengthen those relationships by keeping laws of motivation in mind. When interacting with people, challenge them to take physical action, understand that motivation is their free choice, their HEARTFELT free choice, give Leadership Talks to develop deep, human, emotional relationships; and take opportunities to speak with them face-to-face.

2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.