So who can you trust … I mean truly trust in leadership?
You’ve trusted people you thought you could trust, only to be disappointed or get burned (sometimes badly).
You’ve decided not to trust someone, only to realize you were wrong and he or she was completely trustworthy, and you missed a great opportunity to grow your team.
Trusting people in leadership can be a disheartening and confusing proposition.
But the stakes are high.
Put an untrustworthy person in a position of influence, and they can do a lot of damage fast.
Misjudge trust, and you will never have the team you need to lead you into a better future.
So … is it possible to tell in advance whom you can trust?
Can you ever build a team that you can stop worrying about, and just, well, trust?
I believe you can.
Here’s how.
A Better Definition of Trust in Leadership
First, let’s define trust.
I realize it may seem trite to define trust, but I think trust functions differently in leadership than in life.
Trust isn’t about whether you like someone, have a good feeling about them or think they have potential.
At its heart, trust is confidence. It’s belief in someone’s reliability.
Trust in marriage is believing that even when you are apart you are faithful to one another.
Financial trust is believing that someone will use your money to your benefit, not theirs.
Trusting someone with your favorite keepsake is believing they will care for it as well as you would.
But leadership is more complex.
Just because you would personally trust someone with your wallet doesn’t mean you should trust them in leadership.
And that’s where many of us go wrong.
Many of us think if a person is trustworthy in life they’ll be trustworthy in leadership.
Not necessarily.
Having great character is a prerequisite to leadership; it’s a devastating mistake to invite people into leadership who lie, cheat, steal and do other untrustworthy things. That’s a given.
But you need a different standard, a more nuanced understanding of trust if your team and organization are going to become all they can be.
Three Ways to Tell Who You Can Truly Trust in Leadership
So how exactly do you assess trustworthiness in leadership, then?
Well, if you’re going to have a team that functions amazingly well that you can fully trust (whether that’s a staff team or a volunteer team), you need to address these three issues.
