People want an empathetic leader. Many managers strive to be one. But ask someone to define the term, and you’re likely to be met with silence.

Let’s start with the definition. According to Merriam-Webster, empathy means “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.”

The logical question is: why is being empathetic an important quality of a leader? It seems to have nothing in common with achieving tasks or succeeding in the workplace.

The importance of being an empathetic leader starts with the simple truth that leadership is about people. If you’re going to lead effectively, you must be attuned to your people’s thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. This translates into creating real partnerships rather than exerting power. It means walking alongside your team members and guiding them in the direction you need them to go.

Why Empathetic Leaders Are Needed Now

The topic of empathetic leadership has been getting a lot of press lately, mostly due to the adverse effects of the pandemic. COVID has bruised people in many ways: losing a loved one, losing a job, pay cuts, health problems, and on and on.

People are reevaluating their relationship with work in the wake of the pandemic. Some are deciding life’s too short to leave their spirit at the door and endure long workdays just to bring home a paycheck. They want an environment that nourishes them in a profound way.

The Empathy Deficit

Forbes says empathy is the most important leadership skill, but only 40% of people rate their leaders as being empathetic. It’s tricky to single out one skill as being the most important—anyone can argue that other skills deserve top billing. That qualifier aside, this statistic reveals a huge disconnect between what people want and what their leaders are providing.

But leading with empathy isn’t easy. If empathetic leadership were part of a college curriculum, it would be a 200-level class. It presumes that people have all the basics down—and many leaders don’t.

Leaders are often promoted to their roles based on their success as an individual contributor. But being a first-time manager requires a whole new set of skills—for example, emotional intelligence—that are more important than technical expertise. Many managers either haven’t had the opportunity to develop these skills, are resistant to doing so, or don’t have an interest in them.

When you add up all these reasons, it’s easy to see why we have an empathy deficit among leaders and their people.

Know Thyself

Becoming an empathetic leader starts with having excellent self-awareness. This requires doing inner work on understanding your motivators, your temperament, and your personality style. It also includes knowing your communication style, your reaction to feedback, and how your values shape your behavior.

The first step in your journey is investing in your own development. Once you are more self-aware, you can begin to adjust your leadership style to the needs of your people.

Senior executives play a pivotal role in this. They must put organizational resources behind self-awareness initiatives to show they are serious about developing empathetic leaders. Investing in training is an example. Just as important, they need to model the behaviors they want the organization’s leaders to demonstrate. They also should have caring conversations with managers who don’t appear to be growing into empathetic leaders.

Understand Others

The second part of empathetic leadership is striving for a good understanding of your team members. This includes improving your communication skills, such as being curious in conversations instead of being defensive or aggressive. It also includes learning how to eliminate fear in your interactions with your people—trust cannot survive if there is fear in a relationship.

Building trust with your people is essential if you’re to be an empathetic leader. They must know you are on their side and you mean them no harm. You must show them your role as a leader is to help them succeed. The better you understand your people, the better you’ll be able to serve them in a meaningful way.

Be Helpful

Finding practical ways to serve others is a concrete example of empathetic leadership. Our Self Leadership course teaches five points of power you can use to help your people succeed:

• Position Power: Having the title or authority to make certain decisions
• Task Power: Having control over a task or particular job
• Personal Power: Having interpersonal and leadership skills, passion, inspiration, or a personal vision of the future
• Relationship Power: Being connected or friendly with other people who have power
• Knowledge Power: Having relevant experience, expertise, or credentials

Empathetic leaders use these points of power to build up their people, help them feel safe and secure, and increase their confidence. When leaders do this, their people know they care about them. This opens many doors of possibility.

Be Compassionate

Empathetic leaders are compassionate and extend grace to others. They know how to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. But remember: organizations have goals that must be accomplished. Leaders must balance compassion with clear expectations that are understood by every team member.

Leaders who are empathetic place great importance on creating psychological safety—an environment where a person feels free to speak their mind, take risks, and admit mistakes without fear of being punished or reprimanded.

Empathetic leaders also balance great relationships with great results. Ken Blanchard and I share how to navigate this tricky intersection in our new book, Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust. 

Simple Truth #1 in our book is “Servant leadership is the best way to achieve both great results and great relationships.” Many people have an either/or mindset when it comes to leadership—they focus on either achieving results or developing relationships. You can get both if you set a clear vision and direction for your people, then work side by side serving them in ways that help them accomplish their goals.

Set Boundaries

Empathetic leaders know how to set clear boundaries that benefit everyone, such as letting people know how many hours a day they’re supposed to work or that sending late-night emails is inappropriate.

When everyone has clarity on work boundaries—including rules and expectations—there is tremendous safety and freedom. Boundaries create a guardrail so people don’t unduly sacrifice themselves to accomplish something. Boundaries also promote autonomy. They let people know what they can and can’t do. 

An Empathetic Leader in Action

Seeing an empathetic leader in action turns philosophy into concrete reality. Try to imagine yourself as an empathetic leader who practices the following behaviors on a daily basis.

An empathetic leader:

• Asks rather than tells
• Listens rather than speaks
• Serves rather than commands
• Cares about people’s concerns
• Is receptive to feedback
• Doesn’t overact to people’s questions or concerns
• Doesn’t interpret concerns as resistance

When you demonstrate these behaviors, your people will be loyal to you. They’ll be engaged. They’ll give their best effort. They’ll be more innovative. And they’ll speak highly about your organization to their friends and colleagues.

Call to Action

At its core, empathetic leadership is about being an others-focused leader. It’s about leaders being in tune with the needs of their people and responding in tangible ways that demonstrate their care and concern. And how do people respond when their leaders act this way? They pledge their loyalty, trust, and commitment to that leader, which results in greater productivity, innovation, and creativity. Who wouldn’t want that?

There’s been a flood of articles lately about psychological safety—and for good reason. It is essential if people are to be engaged and productive. It is the foundation for a dynamic, vibrant workplace. And it is woefully missing at most companies.

Psychological safety happens in a workplace when people feel free to speak their mind, take a risk, or admit to mistakes without fear of being punished. The pandemic has made it a hot topic. Many people have felt psychologically battered and bruised over the last couple of years. They’re raw and they need a work environment where they feel safe.

The Great Trust Experiment

The pandemic has been a great trust experiment. Literally overnight, organizations were forced to extend massive amounts of trust to their people by letting them work from home.

We all know what happened. By and large, remote work has been a great success. Many employees have proven more productive than they had been in the workplace. This has shined a spotlight on how relatively unproductive things had been prior to the March 2020 shutdown.

Post-Pandemic Psychological Safety

Sometimes you don’t realize you’re missing something until right after you get a taste of it. In the last two years, many people have developed a taste for freedom and autonomy. Companies trusted them to work from home—without supervision—and to bring their brains to work. Now that offices are slowly reopening, these people, understandably, don’t want to return. They don’t want to go back to the way things were.

What’s the lesson here? People experienced a world where the boss was no longer a few steps down the hall, checking in to make sure they’re doing their work—and they liked it. The Great Trust Experiment showed people the importance of psychological safety.

The thought of returning to a psychologically unsafe environment has many people on edge. Considering that about three out of four people don’t feel psychologically safe at work, every leader should be asking “How do I create a psychologically safe environment?”

Seven Keys to a Psychologically Safe Workplace

Ken Blanchard and I share ways to create a psychologically safe environment in our new book, Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust.  Here are a few choice strategies you can use to create the culture you want in your workplace.

Eliminate fear: Fear is the enemy of trust. Lack of trust destroys psychological safety. People flourish in a safe and trusting environment.

People must know there won’t be repercussions if they share ideas or their perceptions of the truth or if they make a mistake. Your job as a leader is to live this truth.

Praise often: Unfortunately, we are hardwired to focus on the negative—so much so that it takes five praisings to counteract one criticism. For example, our natural inclination is to interpret emails in the worst possible light. The takeaway for leaders is to praise your people often and keep your communications positive.

Share yourself: People tend to form one-dimensional caricatures of their leaders from short interactions. “So-and-so was short with me, which means they are uncaring in every situation.” You can overcome this mental kink by helping your people understand that you are a multifaceted person, just like they are.

I’m not suggesting you share deeply personal information. It is, however, completely appropriate to talk about your values, what’s important to you, what motivates you, etc. Doing this builds trust with your people, which is essential for psychological safety.

Create clear boundaries: Everyone in the workplace must know what is and isn’t acceptable. Everyone must agree to abide by the same rules. No one should get a free pass because of position or seniority. Everyone must treat each other with respect and decency.

Keep a level playing field: People sometimes think a leader will rush to their defense in a moment of conflict. But if that happens, all the other team members will be fearful of making a mistake or stepping out of line. In a psychologically safe workplace, there are no favorites and there are no scapegoats.

Allow curiosity: At your workplace, do people feel secure enough to try new things, to explore unusual ideas, to express alternate views? Or do they hold back, afraid of possible negative consequences? When people feel fearful, their engagement plummets. But when you give them permission to be curious, you’re providing an open, safe space for them to experiment without fear of repercussion. When they make a mistake, reframe it as a learning opportunity.

Think about this from an employee’s perspective. Instead of bracing yourself for a tongue-lashing, you receive honest, encouraging feedback. How would that make you feel about your workplace?

Be clear about your expectations: Research shows that many people don’t know what’s expected of them. This is a recipe for mistakes and misunderstandings, which undermine psychological safety. You can circumvent all this with a simple activity: Have your people write down what they think their responsibilities are and you do the same. Then compare. Chances are you’ll be quite surprised by the differences between the two lists.

You can also use this tactic for aligning your people’s priorities with yours: Have them write down what they consider their most important tasks, and you do the same. Then compare notes and discuss. A little exercise like this can clear up lots of confusion.

There’s no magic bullet for creating an environment of psychological safety. It takes lots of intentional effort on the part of leaders and it takes time to build the bonds of trust. But the rewards are great.

Unleash the potential of your people. Help them feel comfortable returning to work. Turn the Great Resignation into the Great Renewal!

About the Author

Randy Conley is Vice President of Professional Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His award-winning blog, Leading with Trust, has influenced over 4 million viewers since its inception in 2012. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. You can follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley or connect with him on Linked-In.

Trust is the foundation of success, and the pandemic is putting enormous pressure on it.

COVID has created a historic amount of stress and anxiety, which is testing the bonds of trust we have with each other. Making things more difficult is how seldom leaders and team members meet face to face these days, combined with how often the nature of technology causes us to misinterpret each other’s intentions. All this makes us liable to arrive at incorrect conclusions about trustworthiness.

Trusted leaders who have quality relationships with their team members are thriving. But leaders who have a trust deficit with their people are having a rough ride—and any chinks in their armor are being magnified.

Trust Comes from Behaviors

The challenge with trust is that most of us don’t think about it until it’s been broken. Trust is based on experiences—our interactions with individuals and leaders in an organization. It’s personal and fluid. We have to pay attention to it.

As a leader, consider whether you could be inspiring trust or eroding it. Now, take into account how the pandemic has made trust even more essential—and more fragile.

Four Ways to Build and Restore Trust

How can leaders diagnose their relationships and improve them? We teach the four elements of trust: Able, Believable, Connected, and Dependable (ABCD).

• Able: Can you do what you say you can do? Do you demonstrate competence? Do you have the skills, knowledge, and expertise to be good at what you do? Do you have a track record of success? Does your performance inspire trust in others?

• Believable: Do you act with integrity? Do you walk your talk? Do your behaviors align with your values? Do your values mirror your organization’s values?

• Connected: Do you really care about your people? How much care do you demonstrate in your relationships? Do you have your people’s best interests in mind? Or do you have a hidden agenda? One of the simple truths of leadership Ken Blanchard and I discuss in our new book, Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust, speaks to the importance of connection in building trust: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Our level of interpersonal connection with others is what fans the flames of trust in those relationships.

• Dependable: Do you honor your commitments? Are you reliable? Will you do what you say you’re going to do?

Leaders who study these four elements are able to build and restore trust. It’s common sense, but not common practice.

Here’s what I tell leaders when I give talks and run workshops: Keep it simple. Start with the basics. Demonstrate behaviors that align with the ABCDs. You’ll build trust and be viewed as trustworthy. It’s not complicated.

Trust, Psychological Safety, and the Extraordinary

Trust and psychological safety go hand in hand. Psychological safety is feeling safe enough to speak up, take a risk, or share ideas without fear of the consequences. And psychological safety translates into improved employee engagement, increased productivity, more collaboration, and behaviors that are required for corporate success.

The ABCDs of trust create an environment where people feel comfortable being vulnerable. That’s essentially what psychological safety is. Do you feel safe enough to be vulnerable in expressing ideas, sharing information, and speaking your truth without fear of punishment?

When people feel trusted and safe, the extraordinary can happen.

Look at it this way. There’s no need for trust if there’s no risk involved. We’re certain the sun’s going to come up tomorrow. That’s a sure thing; a guarantee. Trust isn’t required. 

But what if I’m in a group meeting with my boss, who says something that I know is wrong? It might be risky for me to speak up and tell the boss that they’re incorrect. Do I trust my boss to hear the feedback dispassionately? Are contrary opinions welcome? Or even encouraged?

Trust and psychological safety create a virtuous cycle. They foster safe environments, which allow people to flourish and accomplish the remarkable.

The ABCDs: Guideposts for a Tumultuous Time

The pandemic is a great trust experiment. It is forcing organizations and leaders to extend massive amounts of trust in new and different ways.

Just think back to March 2020, when organizations were rushing to get their people set up to work remotely and were scrambling to keep the lights on. Literally overnight, organizations extended massive amounts of trust to their employees to do whatever it took to keep the business afloat. In 2021 we started to settle into a weird new normal of hybrid work as some organizations started bringing people back to the office. The new COVID variants in 2022 are the latest gut-punch to trust between leaders and their people. But no matter what the pandemic throws at us, we have to continue building and restoring trust.

The pandemic is running its chaotic course and the great trust experiment continues. But there is good news in the midst of the tumult. The ABCDs of trust are lampposts that light the way to a brighter tomorrow. Use them and you’ll be better prepared to meet any challenges in your path.

Editor’s Note: Interested in learning more? Join Randy Conley and Ken Blanchard for a free webinar on January 26. Randy and Ken will be sharing key concepts from their new book, Simple Truths of Leadership. Use this link to register!

I posed that question to over 100 participants in a series of workshops I recently conducted for a client. As you might suspect, about half the people thought relationships was the most important word. Their rationale essentially boiled down to people are the ones who do the work in the organization, and if you want them to produce good results, you need to nurture good relationships.

The other half of the group advocated that results was the most important word. Their argument was that without good results, positive relationships don’t matter. If you aren’t winning—however that is defined for your organization—then nothing else counts.

What is your answer to that question? If you said and, then bravo, you’re correct! (Did the title of the article give it away?!)

Organizational leaders often have an either/or attitude toward results and people. Those who focus too heavily on results may have trouble creating and sustaining great relationships with their people, and leaders who mainly focus on relationships may have trouble getting the desired results.

Placing too much emphasis on relationships to the detriment of results is perhaps the biggest misconception of servant leadership. That couldn’t be further from the truth! You can get both great results and great relationships if you understand the two parts of servant leadership:

• The leadership aspect focuses on vision, direction, and results—where you as a leader hope to take your people. Leaders should involve others in setting direction and determining desired results, but if people don’t know where they’re headed or what they’re meant to accomplish, the fault lies with the leader.
• The servant aspect focuses on working side by side in relationship with your people. Once the vision and direction are clear, the leader’s role shifts to service—helping people accomplish agreed-upon goals. Serving your people in this way builds high-trust relationships and results in highly engaged team members.

The simple truth is servant leadership is the best way to achieve both great results and great relationships. It’s common sense, but not always common practice.

I invite you to join me and Ken Blanchard for a live virtual talk on January 26, 2022, where we’ll discuss this and other simple truths of leadership and trust from our new book, Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust. The event is free, but registration is required.

Randy Conley is Vice President of Professional Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His award-winning blog, Leading with Trust, has influenced over 4 million viewers since its inception in 2012. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. You can follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley or connect with him on Linked-In.

By their very nature, unionized workplaces and industries often promote a culture of distrust between stakeholders. Each party is suspicious of the other and is afraid of being taken advantage of, so they hold their cards close to their vest and try to cut the best deal possible for their stakeholders. It’s us on one side of the table versus them on the other.

Must it be that way? I don’t think so. I think both sides can build trust by sitting on the same side of the table.

First, let’s talk about why we don’t trust each other. We refrain from trusting because it involves risk. If there’s no risk involved, then there’s no need to trust. But if you are vulnerable to the actions of another, then trust is required. You have two choices when presented with relationship risk: you can withhold trust to protect yourself, or you can extend trust in the hopes it will be reciprocated and both parties will benefit.

Reciprocation is a key factor in the development of trust. There is a social dynamic in relationships known as the Law of Reciprocity. Essentially it means that when someone does something nice to us—give us gifts, show love, extend trust, give grace, grant forgiveness—we have a natural human instinct to respond in kind. Unfortunately, the opposite is true as well. When someone acts cruelly or hostile toward us, we often respond in even more cruel and hostile ways.

In the public square these days, negative reciprocity is the norm. Warring factions have developed a singular membership criterion: you’re either with me or against me. We have demonized those whom we believe to be against us. They are no longer honorable, well-meaning people with different ideas. They are mortal enemies who cannot be trusted at any cost. The result is one group treats the other with contempt and hostility, the other group responds in kind and even turns it up a notch for good measure. Around and round we go in a negative, downward spiral, zero trust loop.

Trust cannot begin to grow until one party extends it to the other. Trust must be given before it can be received. It really is that simple.

Once you understand someone must make the first move to extend trust, how do you get both parties on the same side of the table? I think it involves have a common mindset and skillset about trust.

The trust mindset is understanding the fates of each party are intertwined. All successful relationships are built on a foundation of trust. It doesn’t matter the type of relationship–husband/wife, parent/child, boss/employee, or union/labor–trust is what binds us together. Operating from this mindset eliminates the fear of being disadvantaged by the other party and allows you to work toward solutions that provide mutual benefit. In a relationship of trust, both parties are searching for win-win solutions, not win-lose or win-break even.

The skillset of trust involves behaving in a trustworthy manner. Sometimes this is challenging because people have different perceptions of what constitutes trustworthy behavior. That’s why it’s helpful to have a common definition of trust.

Research shows there are four key elements of trust. Since every language has an alphabet, we’ve created the ABCD Trust Model to define the language of trust. You build trust with others when you are:

Able—You demonstrate competence by having the knowledge, skills, and expertise for your role or profession. You achieve goals consistently and develop a track record of success. You show good planning and problem-solving skills and make sound, informed decisions. People trust your competence.

Believable—Acting with integrity. You tell the truth, keep confidences, and admit your mistakes. You walk the talk by acting in ways congruent with your personal values and those of the organization. You treat people equitably and ethically and ensure that rules are applied fairly.

Connected—You care about others. Connected people are kind, compassionate, and concerned with others’ well-being. They readily share information about themselves and the organization. Being a good listener, seeking feedback, and incorporating the ideas of others into decisions are behaviors of a connected individual who cares about people.

Dependable—People trust others who honor their commitments. DWYSYWD—doing what you say you will do–is a hallmark of dependable people. They do this by establishing clear priorities, keeping promises and holding themselves and others accountable. Dependable people are punctual, adhere to organizational policies and procedures, and are responsive to others.

Building trust is not a one and done proposition. Trust is not a destination you reach, but rather a journey that never ends. Extending trust, embodying a mindset of trust, and using the skillset of trust will transform distrustful relationships into trust-filled partnerships that promote the growth and well-being of both parties.

Randy Conley, Vice President of Professional Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies, is the co-author of Simple Truths of Leadership—52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust and writes the Leading with Trust blog. You can follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley or connect with him on Linked-In.

Many organizations are embracing hybrid teams (a mixture of onsite and remote employees) as a model of working in the post-COVID19 world. Hybrid teams are not new, but this model of working is new to many organizations and leaders.

I’ve been leading hybrid teams for over 15 years, so I have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn’t. I’ve learned a lot over this time, mostly through trial and error. I thought I’d offer some straight-up, real talk about what it’s like to lead a hybrid team, so that you can learn from my experience and possibly avoid some of the mistakes I made.

Work From Home (WFH) and In-Office Schedules

Years ago, when I decided to allow team members to work from home a few days a week, I worked with my managers to create an elaborate schedule of the days team members would WFH and be in the office. We wanted to maintain at least 60% of our team in the office on any given day and we also wanted to limit people working from home on Monday or Friday (because, you know, those untrustworthy workers would use their Friday/Monday WFH day to make it a long weekend). To limit time out of the office, we had a policy that team members were to schedule personal appointments on their WFH days.

Life doesn’t happen according to our neat little plan. Legitimate circumstances would arise that caused a team member to shift their schedule – a sick child, a broken water pipe at home, or an impromptu meeting at the office that required the employee to come in on their normal WFH day. We quickly found ourselves spending more time and energy managing our team member’s whereabouts than the important work we needed to accomplish. I eventually decided to leave it to the employee’s discretion of when to WFH and when to be in the office. They came into the office when they needed to be there for meetings or to collaborate with others.

Team Meetings

The first few years of leading a hybrid team, I had less than a handful of team members who worked remotely (full-time), while everyone else was in the office. Our team meetings would consist of everyone gathered around a conference table with a polycom in the middle, and the remote people joined in via conference call. Of course, the experience for the remote people was horrendous.

As my hybrid team grew and more people worked remotely, we started using Zoom for our team meetings. We were doing Zoom calls years before anyone had ever heard of Zoom (weren’t we progressive!). However, we still gathered everyone in the conference room, hooked a laptop to the LCD projector, and showed the remote people on screen. Of course, they were still connected via the horrendous polycom conference phone, so really the experience didn’t improve much for the remote folks. They were still second-class citizens when it came to team meetings.

We finally got smart and started holding our team meetings all-virtual. Everyone, including the entire team in the office, got on Zoom from their individual offices. Compared to our previous meeting formats, the experience was night and day better for everyone! All-virtual meetings level the playing field for everyone because each team member has equal opportunity to participate.

Clear Expectations

Make the implicit, explicit. That’s what I learned, and that’s what my colleague, John Hester, calls out as one of the key skills to leading a hybrid team. Document expectations so there isn’t any room for confusion. Everything from working hours, response times, technologies to be leveraged, backup plans, and communication norms should be clear, regularly communicated, and most of all, followed.

Most importantly, trust is the foundation for leading a hybrid team.

Randy Conley, Trust Practice Leader, The Ken Blanchard Companies

Foster a Connected Community

My friend, Michael Stallard, is an expert in this area. He emphasizes that a culture of connection meets the seven universal human needs at work for respect, recognition, belonging, autonomy, personal growth, meaning, and progress. I’ve found this to be true in leading hybrid teams. My managers and I found we had to work differently, and more intentionally, to foster relationships with team members. Team members themselves must be more intentional about being seen and heard when they aren’t in the office. Many leaders fall into the trap of proximity bias, which is giving preferential treatment to those in their immediate vicinity. Leaders need to be conscious of that bias, work to eliminate it, and employees need to know that it’s a factor that may impact their personal situation.

Hybrid Teams Are Different from Co-located Teams

In the early days of leading a hybrid team, I thought something was wrong because it didn’t feel the same as when everyone was in the office. I learned that nothing was wrong, it was just different. Hybrid teams “feel” different, both from the leader and team member perspective, than teams that have everyone physically located together. As mentioned previously, everyone needs to be more intentional to foster connected relationships in a hybrid team. Hybrid teams miss out on those chance hallway encounters, the lingering conversation after a meeting ends, or the chit-chat in the office lunch kitchen. You have to make up for those times by planning them into your online team meetings and specific events to build team camaraderie.

In-Person Meetings

Face-to-face meetings are critically important for building relationships. I learned the importance of scheduling periodic meetings to bring the team together, usually for non-work, social activities. I would organize regular team lunches in the office and invite everyone to come in (free food always attracts a crowd!) or plan a cook-out at a team member’s house and then let them take the rest of the day off work. I leveraged yearly all-company meetings to bring the entire global team together, and the agenda for those meetings would be roughly 1/3^rd work-focused and 2/3^rd team-building focused.

Performance Management

There will be some team members who turn out to be ill-suited to work remotely. Some people have challenges staying focused and productive when working from home or don’t have the technical chops to effectively self-manage the technology required to be productive. I learned you have two choices: either require them to be in the office full-time (which often creates resentment because they feel they are being treated unfairly), or share them with your competition. Whichever route you choose, deal with it promptly. Don’t let it linger because it will eventually need to be dealt with, and it’s much easier for everyone involved if you act quickly.

Trust is the coin of the realm

Most importantly, trust is the foundation for leading a successful hybrid team. If you can’t trust an employee to do a good job when they WFH, then they probably shouldn’t be on your team. As a leader, you must take the risk of extending trust to your team, which is exactly what you did last year when you sent your team to WFH during the pandemic. Why would you want to pull back on that trust now by trying to run your hybrid team with an iron fist? Don’t do it.

I love leading and working in a hybrid team because it provides people the autonomy they need to do their jobs in the best possible way. I think most organizations have learned during the pandemic that there are tremendous upsides to remote work. Are there challenges? You bet. Are they manageable? Yes, they are.

Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water by returning to the old ways of work just because it’s familiar and comfortable. Hybrid teams work. Make them work for you.

Randy Conley, Vice President of Professional Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies, is the author of the Leading with Trust blog. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. You can follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley or connect with him on Linked-In.

Trust is often one of those things we don’t think about until we don’t have it. Much like oxygen, we take it for granted, but once it’s gone…YIKES! We suddenly realize how critically important it is and we’ll do just about anything to get it back.

The good news about broken trust, if there is any, is that it can be rebuilt in most circumstances. Trust is incredibly resilient when it’s been properly nurtured in healthy relationships. With the exception of the most willful, intentional acts of betrayal, trust can usually be rebuilt if both parties are willing to put in the effort. However, in order to rebuild it, you must address three important areas.

The first area you need to deal with to restore trust is the past. As the 12-step recovery process has taught us, the first step in fixing a problem is to acknowledge you have one. When violations of trust occur, it is tempting to sweep the fallout under the rug and pretend it didn’t happen. Breaches of trust need to be met head-on and burying your head in the sand and pretending it doesn’t exist only makes the wound fester and become infected. It’s helpful to assess which of the four elements of trust has been eroded and then admit your mistakes. There are few trust-building behaviors more powerful than admitting and owning your mistakes. After your admission, let others express their feelings. Listen with empathy and understanding; don’t debate and argue.

The second area to address in restoring trust is the present. You can reconcile the past with the present when you apologize. The apology is a make it or break it moment in the process of rebuilding trust. If you apologize well, you set the course for healing and higher levels of trust in the future. If you botch the apology, you can dig yourself into an even deeper hole of hurt and dysfunction. Effective apologies have three basic components: admitting your fault, expressing remorse for the harm caused, and committing to repairing the damage. Check out The Most Successful Apologies Have These 8 Elements for more tips on apologizing.

The third area to address when restoring trust is the future and you do this by determining how you’re going to act moving forward. This is where the rubber hits the road in rebuilding trust. You can articulate the most awesome apology in the world, but the relationship will suffer permanent harm if you don’t change your behavior. The key success factor is to have a plan of action that is agreed upon with the person you offended. Outline how each of you will move forward in the relationship, what accountability looks like, and how you’ll know when the breach of trust has been repaired. The time it takes to repair trust is usually proportional to the severity of the offense. Rebuilding trust in relationships requires us to be vulnerable and courageous. We must deal with the past and acknowledge we did something wrong, address the present and apologize for our behavior, and move into the future and act in ways that repair the damage we caused. However, the net result can be even stronger levels of trust. Relationships that have experienced the crucible of broken trust can come out stronger on the other side if both parties are willing to engage in this hard work to get to a place of healing and restoration.

Randy Conley, Vice President of Professional Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies, is the author of the Leading with Trust blog. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. You can follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley or connect with him on Linked-In.

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced organizations to have their employees work remotely, it launched what I have come to call The Great Trust Experiment. Literally overnight, organizations extended massive amounts of trust to their employees to do whatever it took to keep their businesses afloat.

By most business metrics, The Great Trust Experiment has been a success. Productivity has risen, people have found new and effective ways to collaborate, and employees have experienced a more harmonious integration of their work and personal lives.

But what about the impact on trust itself? Has The Great Trust Experiment caused employees to have more trust in their leaders and organizations?

Last week I had the opportunity to speak with over 300 HR/L&D professionals in a webinar I conducted about Accelerating Trust During Times of Change. I asked participants to respond to the following question:

To what degree has trust in your organization’s leadership increased or decreased because of the way they’ve handled the COVID-19 pandemic?

Not surprisingly, 64.3% of respondents said trust in their organization’s leadership increased to a large/some degree. Only 20.7% said trust had decreased to a large/some degree, while 14.9% said there had been no impact on their level of trust in leadership.

So, not only has The Great Trust Experiment resulted in organizations achieving their business metrics, but it has also produced higher levels of trust with their employees. Why? Because organizations made the first move of extending trust to employees.

That’s the way trust works. One party must first take the risk of extending trust, thereby allowing the other party to reciprocate by proving themselves trustworthy. As Ernest Hemingway famously said, “The way to make people trustworthy is to trust them.”

As organizations flesh out their post-pandemic, return-to-office strategies, how can they capitalize on the gains in trust they’ve achieved over the last 18 months?

I’m glad you asked. I posed that very question to my webinar participants and here’s what they said:

Much to their consternation, participants could only choose one response. Most people commented in the chat that they wanted to select all the choices. However, as any savvy survey savant knows, allowing just one selection forces people to make tradeoffs in their choices. That’s why I find it interesting that increased employee involvement in planning and greater transparency in decision-making criteria were the top two choices (a combined 61.9%).

Why did I find that interesting? Well, my perception is that many organizations are overly focused on the end, not the means, of their post-pandemic work strategy. The raging debate is where employees should work: in the office, remotely, or some sort of hybrid model. That’s the end. How we decide where it’s best for employees to work is where our focus should be. That’s the means.

Leaders will build more trust with employees by involving them in the planning of their organizations’ post-pandemic work strategy. Openly, honestly, and transparently sharing information about workplace metrics on productivity, collaboration, and innovation are paramount to creating trust in the organization’s decisions. Stubbornly clinging to the tired and worn argument that the office is the best place for collaboration and innovation, without backing up that position with hard data and solid rationale, will only erode trust with employees.

Trust has been thriving during The Great Trust Experiment, but the big question is “will it continue?” I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know one thing: Organizations that lead with trust and involve employees in crafting their post-pandemic work strategies have a much greater chance for success over the long haul.

Randy Conley, Vice President of Professional Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies, is the author of the Leading with Trust blog. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. You can follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley or connect with him on Linked-In.

In several parts of the world, particularly the United States, restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic are beginning to ease. Some organizations have already announced plans to return employees back to the office full-time. Many have hesitantly announced their intent to move to a hybrid arrangement, while most are still trying to gain clarity on their post-pandemic plans.

Regardless of where your organization falls on that spectrum, one thing is certain – This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for organizational leaders to build trust in significant and profound ways. The opposite is also true. If you handle this poorly, the erosion of trust you cause will haunt you for years to come.

Here are six strategies to help you develop, communicate, and implement a plan that results in building higher levels of trust with your employees:

1. Challenge your assumptions – We’ve already seen leaders boldly proclaim their disdain for remote work and declare that people will be required to come back to the office as soon as possible. Those leaders are stuck in old ways of thinking. They still view work as a place you go rather than a thing you do. The transition to remote work during the pandemic has busted many of the myths that kept people tethered to the office. Over the last year of remote work we’ve seen productivity remain stable or even rise, people enjoy better work-life balance, and even an increase in collaboration by leveraging technology. Now is the time to challenge your assumptions about how work gets done in your organization.
2. Base decisions on data. As much as possible, gather data to support your decision. Resist the urge to revert back to “that’s the way we’ve always done it” mentality. If you’re going to require people to return to the office, have empirical data that supports that strategy. It’s not enough to simply claim that productivity, creativity, innovation, or team culture is better when people work in the office. Find ways to measure the impact. As W. Edwards Deming famously said, “We trust in God. All others bring data.”
3. Involve employees in creating the plan. One of my favorite sayings is “People who plan the battle rarely battle the plan.” It speaks to the idea of a high involvement change strategy. Get your team members involved in developing the plan. Seek their input and incorporate their feedback into the decision-making process. Their trust and faith in the plan will increase because they had a voice in shaping it.
4. Address stages of concern. Our research shows people experience predictable and sequential stages of concern when faced with a change. Leaders improve the chance of success if they proactively address those concerns, rather than finding themselves on their heels having to react to resistant employees. The first stage is information concerns. Your people need to know what the change is and why it’s needed. The second stage is personal concerns. Team members want to know how the change will impact them individually. What’s in it for me? The third stage is implementation concerns. What do I do first? Second? Will the organization provide the necessary resources. It’s critical for leaders to address these stages of concerns to alleviate fear and anxiety so their team can embrace the change.
5. Communicate openly and frequently. A recent report from McKinsey & Company states that 68% of employees say they’ve yet to hear about any vision from their organization about post-pandemic work plans, and if they have, what they’ve heard remains vague. In the lack of honest, open, and frequent communication, people make up their own version of the truth, a version which is often more negative than reality. Opening up communication will result in people feeling more included, less anxious, and more open to change.
6. Go slow. No one wants to hear this piece of advice, but I’ll give it anyway. Go slow. Don’t be in a rush. Remember, we are just emerging from a major, life-altering, global pandemic. You likely have employees who experienced severe illness, lost a family member or colleague, or experienced some other form of trauma because of the pandemic. You literally transformed your business overnight by shifting to remote work. Is it going to hurt to gradually phase-in a return to the office plan? Probably not.

You may never have another opportunity of this magnitude to build trust with your employees. This is your chance to infuse your culture with empathy, compassion, and care. Think of the amount of trust and loyalty you can bank with your employees by handling this in a way that respects their mental and emotional states, involves them in the planning process, and by taking things slowly and sensitively. This is your chance. Please don’t blow it.

Randy Conley, Vice President of Professional Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies, is the author of the Leading with Trust blog. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. You can follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley or connect with him on Linked-In.

If you’ve seen the movie Meet the Parents, you probably remember “the circle of trust.” Robert De Niro’s character, Jack, a former CIA agent and overly protective father, is obsessed with making sure his future son-in-law Greg is a trustworthy and honorable husband for Pam, his only daughter. From his point of view, a person is either in or out of his circle of trust; there’s nothing in between.

Effective leaders have learned to have multiple circles, each with varying degrees of trust, depending on the people, context of the relationship, and the circumstances involved. Consider these three circles of trust: The outer most circle is the Community and is the group of individuals that you would consider your acquaintances. Perhaps you’ve met them a few times, may know their names, and occasionally interact with them such as the clerk you regularly see at the grocery store, your plumber, or the teachers at your child’s school. This circle is characterized by the lowest degree of trust which tends to be based on the norms of the context of your relationship. There tend to be rules, policies, procedures, or contracts in place to prevent one party from taking advantage of the other. There isn’t anything wrong with this level of trust. It’s appropriate for the transactional nature of your relationships in this circle.

The Crowd circle contains those relationships that have a deeper level of trust characterized by personal knowledge of each party. A relationship moves from the Community circle into the Crowd by demonstration of trustworthy behavior over time to where the parties involved can reliably predict each other’s behavior. This is the circle where you would typically find relationships with your team members, co-workers, or social organization associates.

The innermost circle is the Core. This is the circle of trust reserved for the closest relationships in your life such as your spouse, family, and best friends. This level of trust is characterized by the parties knowing the hopes, dreams, fears, and insecurities of each other. These relationships have the highest levels of trust because they also have the highest levels of vulnerability. Over the course of time these relationships have experienced increased amounts of personal disclosure and the parties have developed a history of respecting and protecting the vulnerabilities of each other.

Contrary to what’s portrayed in Meet the Parents, there isn’t just one circle of trust. Our relationships are too varied and complex to fit into a one-size-fits-all approach and successful leaders have learned to extend and cultivate the right amount of trust depending on the given circle of the relationship.

Randy Conley, Vice President of Professional Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies, is the author of the Leading with Trust blog. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. You can follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley or connect with him on Linked-In.

Virtually every organization I work with wants their leaders to be good coaches.

Gone are the days where self-oriented, command and control leaders rule the roost. The most effective leaders today understand that their success, and that of the organization, is inextricably tied to the success of their people. Leadership is an others-oriented approach, where leaders come alongside their team members and provide them the coaching they need to achieve their goals.

My colleague Madeleine Blanchard, a founding member of the International Coach Federation and co-author of our Coaching Essentials learning solution, often talks about leaders needing the trust of their team members in order to earn the right to coach them. She’s right. All great coaches have one thing in common: trust.

Building trust with your followers and being an effective coach is a symbiotic process. Our research has shown that coaching and trust have a large positive correlation, meaning that individuals who perceive their managers as exhibiting coaching behaviors are more likely to trust their leaders. For the research stat-geeks in the crowd, the correlation coefficient in this relationship is .854. Anything over .260 is considered large, so this correlation is not just strong, it’s a Mr. Universe kind of STRONG!

Good coaching builds trust with team members, but good coaches also start their relationships with team members by focusing on trust. In November 2011, Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski became the winningest coach in Division I college basketball history when his team notched his 903rd victory. In a post-game interview Coach K was asked the following question: “What’s the single most important characteristic for a coach to have to achieve the things you’ve achieved?”

Mike Krzyzewski’s answer was simple, yet profound, and is one that leaders everywhere should take to heart if they want to be a great coach. Here’s what he said:

“I think you have to be trustworthy. You have to take the time to develop a relationship that’s so strong with each individual player, and hopefully with the team, that they will trust you. They let you in, and if they let you in, you can teach. If they don’t let you in, you’re never going to get there.”

When Coach K referenced his players “letting him in,” he pointed to his heart. It wasn’t just a casual, conversational gesture. He was making a specific point about tapping into his players’ heart—the emotional core of who they are as a person. Coach K intentionally focuses on developing a trusting relationship with each of his players because he knows without that absolute level of trust, he won’t be able to teach them how to transform their potential into performance.

The same principle applies to leaders in any organization. In order to achieve success, you have to take the time to establish meaningful, trust-based relationships with your team members. If your people don’t trust you, they won’t be receptive to your coaching on ways they can improve their performance. If your team can’t trust that you’ll have their back when they fail, they won’t take the necessary risks needed to move your business forward.

Conversely, trust enables your team to confront the brutal facts of their performance and find ways to get better. Trust allows individuals to set aside their personal ego for the betterment of the team and commit wholeheartedly to pursuing a common goal. Trust is what allows leaders to tap into the hearts and souls of their team members and achieve greater levels of success together than they could ever reach individually.

Trust—all great coaches know that’s the starting the point for earning the right to coach their team members.

Randy Conley, Vice President of Professional Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies, is the author of the Leading with Trust blog. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. You can follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley or connect with him on Linked-In.

While recently teaching a class on Building Trust, I found myself giving the participants this admonishment: “Just like anything in life, you’re going to get out of this what you put into it.”

I’m not quite sure where that came from, but I suspect it was the words of advice given to me over the years from my mother, teachers, coaches, and bosses. I imagine you’ve probably received, or given, that same advice before. It’s good advice because it’s true.

When it comes to trust, it’s especially true. You see, trust can’t begin to grow until someone first extends trust. That’s because there’s risk involved. Risk and trust go hand in hand. If there’s no risk involved, then there’s no need to trust. But if you are vulnerable to the actions of another, then trust is required. You have two choices when presented with relationship risk: you can withhold trust in order to protect yourself, or you can extend trust in the hopes it will be reciprocated and both parties will benefit.

Reciprocation is a key factor in the development of trust. There is a social dynamic in relationships known as the Law of Reciprocity. Essentially it means that when someone does something nice to us—give us gifts, show love, extend trust, give grace, grant forgiveness—we have a natural human instinct to respond in kind. Unfortunately, the opposite is true as well. When someone acts cruelly or hostile toward us, we often respond in even more cruel and hostile ways.

In the public square these days, negative reciprocity is the norm. Warring factions have developed a singular membership criterion: you’re either with me or against me. We have demonized those whom we believe to be against us. They are no longer honorable, well-meaning people with different ideas. They are mortal enemies who cannot be trusted at any cost. The result is one group treats the other with contempt and hostility, the other group responds in kind, and even turns it up a notch for good measure. Around and round we go in a negative, downward spiral, zero trust loop.

I’m not being Pollyannaish and suggesting you always need to blindly trust everyone; that’s foolishness. You need to assess an individual’s trustworthiness before you extend trust. However, if you find yourself never or rarely willing to extend trust, it’s likely you’re being negatively influenced by some common problems that cause people to withhold trust.

Leaders in all realms of society need to get back to leading with trust. We need to smartly, yet courageously, extend trust to our stakeholders with the positive expectation they will reward our trust by responding in kind. Trust begets trust. The Law of Reciprocity.

You’ve got to give it to get it. That’s the way it works with trust.

Randy Conley, Vice President of Professional Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies, is the author of the Leading with Trust blog. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. You can follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley or connect with him on Linked-In.

If you’re like millions of other people, you’ve been working remotely either part or full-time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Literally overnight, teams were challenged with finding new ways to communicate and collaborate, and the bonds of trust those teams had established were put to the test.

High performing teams thrive on trust and research has shown that trust in one’s team leader is one of the two primary factors that drive employee engagement. There are four elements of trust that characterize trusting relationships among team members.

Trusting teams are able. They possess the skills, knowledge, and expertise to perform their work. They achieve their goals and demonstrate the ability to make smart decisions and solve problems. Trusting teams are also believable. Team members are honest in their dealings with each other, act in alignment with team and organizational values, and treat each other fairly. A third characteristic of trusting teams is being connected. Team members look out for each other, have each other’s best interests in mind, share information readily, and find common ground with each other. Finally, trusting teams are dependable. They keep their commitments, are accountable to each other, and are responsive to the needs of the team and organization.

Whether your team has performed with flying colors during this pandemic, or if they are clearly in need of help, there is no better time than now to do a trust tune-up. Remember the old management saying, “What gets measured gets managed?” Well, it applies to trust, too. The only way to know if your team has high trust is if you measure it. If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

To help you in this effort, I’ve included in this post a survey you can use to gauge the level of trust in your team. Have each team member download and complete the survey below. Tally up the scores, identify the lowest scoring element of trust, and then involve your team in creating action plans to strengthen that particular element of trust. Keep your team’s level of trust tuned-up so they continue to perform their best.

Randy Conley, Vice President and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies, is the author of the Leading with Trust blog. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. You can follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley or connect with him on Linked-In.

Photo by Kelly Lacy on Pexels.com

On the afternoon of January 15, 2009, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger was piloting US Airways Flight 1549. The flight was scheduled to fly from LaGuardia Airport in New York City to Charlotte Douglas and then on to Seattle-Tacoma. Shortly after takeoff, the plane struck a flock of Canadian Geese that resulted in the aircraft losing all engine power. Captain Sullenberger and First Officer Jeff Skiles successfully executed an emergency water landing on the Hudson River in New York City and all 155 people aboard were rescued safely.

You’re probably familiar with this experience that became known as the “Miracle on the Hudson.” Perhaps you remember seeing news reports of the incident when it occurred, read the book, or saw the movie about this remarkable story. In this video, Captain Sullenberger shares a fascinating minute-by-minute description of how he and the rest of the flight crew handled this extreme crisis. I gleaned five key principles from Captain Sullenberger’s experience that we can all apply when leading in a crisis:

1. Prioritize ruthlessly—Sully knew that without engine power the plane would remain airborne for just minutes. He instantly recognized that he only had time to focus on the few most critical actions that would have the greatest influence on the outcome of their situation. He switched on the engine ignitions, so that if they were operable they would restart, and then he turned on the APU, auxiliary power unit, to provide power to the plane’s electrical systems.

One of my favorite scenes from the movie Sully emphasizes the critical importance of keeping sight of the most important priority. At the completion of one of his lessons, the instructor tells the teenaged Sully, “Never forget, no matter what’s happening, to fly the airplane.” When crisis struck US Airways Flight 1549, Sully knew that his top priority needed to be flying the airplane. In a crisis, leaders are inundated with priorities and it’s impossible to handle them all simultaneously. What are the one or two most critical needs facing your organization? Focus on those issues, and once they’re taken care of, then you can move on to other priorities.

Never forget, no matter what’s happening, to fly the airplane.

2. Determine and Decide—Once Sully addressed the top priorities, he quickly determined the options available: return to LaGuardia airport, divert to Teterboro airport in New Jersey, or attempt a water landing in the Hudson River. As we know, he decided on a course of action—land on the Hudson River.

Leading in a crisis often requires you to make quick decisions with partial information. When time is of the essence, default to action, not analysis. Even if your course of action isn’t the preferred option, at least you’re taking steps to shape your destiny rather than letting the circumstances dictate what happens to you. I’m sure Sully would have much preferred to make a controlled landing on a runway, but he quickly determined that wasn’t a viable option. He decided to land on the Hudson River and then did what he could to make it work.

3. Collaborate—Sully gives ample credit to his First Officer, Jeff Skiles, for his role in the Miracle on the Hudson. Those who know the story well know that this was the first time Sullenberger and Skiles had flown together. It was also Skiles’ first time flying the Airbus A320 after being qualified on the aircraft (although he had over 20,000 career flight hours on other craft). Despite these circumstances, they were able to collaborate and work together as one because of their rigorous training and clear roles and responsibilities.

Crises call for collaboration. There are too many issues at hand for one person to handle, and if the leader tries to play the hero and doing everything themselves, it will only lead to failure. “No one of us is as smart as all of us” is a statement I love because it speaks to the power of teamwork. Who do you need to collaborate with? Who has expertise you lack that is critical to managing the issues at hand? Teams succeed in crises, not individuals.

No one of us is as smart as all of us.

4. Communicate Carefully—Sully carefully chose the words he used during this crisis. The situation called for clear, concise, and precise language. He didn’t have time to provide explanations, encourage debate, or beat around the bush. If you listen to or read the transcript of the cockpit communications, you’ll notice one- or two-word responses between Sully and the air traffic controller. Driven partly by the stress of the situation, but also by the need to be crystal clear and efficient, Sully communicated the essentials of what was needed. When he gave the crew and passengers the command to “brace for impact,” he did so intentionally because the word “brace” held a specific meaning for the flight attendants that prompted them to enact their own emergency landing procedures. Sully also intentionally communicated in a calm and rational way, because as he put it, “courage can be contagious.”

How are you communicating during this time of crisis? Are you choosing your words carefully and intentionally, using them in a way that fosters courage and hope with your team? Now is not the time for flowery, eloquent, diplomatically worded communications. Give your people the straight truth in a candid yet caring way. They will respect your honesty and transparency.

Courage can be contagious.

5. Finish the Job—Landing the plane was just the first part of the job for the crew of US Airways 1549. Once the plane was safely at rest in the water, all the passengers needed to be evacuated and rescued. Sully and the rest of the flight crew immediately took action to move the passengers to safety. They didn’t stop to celebrate the safe landing. The took the next immediate action that was required. Sully’s job wasn’t over until hours later when he received confirmation that all 155 passengers and crew were safe and accounted for.

The immediate urgency of a crisis sparks an adrenaline-fueled response by leaders. We start out strong, but as time goes by and the sense of urgency fades, we often lose steam and stop leading in the proactive and visible ways our teams need. Conditions may have stabilized a bit and we may have temporarily adjusted to a “new normal,” but that doesn’t mean we’re through the crisis. The job isn’t finished yet, so keep being the leader your people need right now.

Whenever I’ve heard Sully Sullenberger speak, he’s always been quick to highlight the contributions of all the people who played a role in the Miracle on the Hudson. The rest of the flight crew, the air traffic controllers, the ferry boat crews who rescued passengers, the Harbor Police, the medical personnel, and many others contributed to this successful outcome. Sully and the flight crew could only influence a few variables in this whole situation; much was out of their control.

Much of what we face as organizational leaders during the coronavirus pandemic is out of our control. Yet we can prioritize the key issues we need to tackle, decide which options are the best course of action, collaborate with each other effectively, communicate with clarity and purpose to our teams, and the see the job through to completion. That’s what it looks like to lead effectively in a crisis.

Organizations around the world are reporting their leaders are turning into zombies at an alarming rate. Formerly healthy, productive, and capable leaders are falling victim to the Zombie Plague, a deadly disease that is spreading uncontrollably across the globe.

Leadership development experts recommend everyone be on alert for the symptoms listed below. If your boss demonstrates any of these behaviors, please consult a professional immediately.

1. She is running on autopilot – Zombie’s are empty vessels with no willpower or mind of their own. They wander about aimlessly with no clear purpose other than to satisfy their basic needs for survival (mainly terrorizing and eating humans!). Zombie leaders have become complacent and stopped investing in their own growth and learning. They do the minimum amount of work required to keep the ship afloat and they’ve stopped pushing the boundaries to innovate and adapt to new realities in the marketplace. If your boss is content with doing the same ‘ol, same ‘ol, she might be infected.

2. She is a doomsdayist – Healthy leaders are purveyors of hope and positive energy. They cast a compelling vision of the future that inspires their followers to commit to the goal, team, or organization. Zombie leaders tend to have a sense of doom and failure. They waste their energy focusing on all the reasons why something can’t be done rather than working to find new solutions. They’re often heard saying “Why change? That’s the way we’ve always done things around here.”

3. Her relationships are strained and difficult – Zombie leaders tend to have a low EQ (emotional quotient) that makes them ill-prepared to develop strong interpersonal relationships. They fail to build rapport with their followers, don’t collaborate well with colleagues, and have a low self-awareness about how they “show up” with other people. In fact, zombie leaders reading this right now probably fail to identify with any of these qualities and instead are muttering to themselves “I wish my boss was reading this article.”

4. She’s in a “trust-deficit” – Leaders infected with the zombie virus are notorious for breaking trust with their followers. Failing to follow through on commitments, taking credit for other people’s work, not “walking the talk,” and withholding recognition and praise from others are all ways that zombies erode trust. The low-trust relationships that zombie leaders have with their followers results in reduced productivity, gossiping, questioning of decisions, and low levels of employee morale and engagement.

Various remedies are available to prevent leaders from contracting the Zombie Plague or to treat those already infected. The therapy plan extends over the course of a leader’s lifetime and requires constant diligence to ensure the disease stays in remission. Treatments include ongoing learning and self-improvement, building trust in relationships, and adopting a servant-leader philosophy.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Fast-paced, agile work environments require teams to operate virtually around the globe. The demand is for collaboration and teamwork in all parts of the organization. Success today comes from using the collective knowledge and richness of diverse perspectives. The team is the only unit that has the flexibility and resources to respond quickly to changes that have become commonplace in today’s world.

Despite this critical dependence on teams, many organizations don’t invest in the upfront training and tools to equip their teams for success. In 2017, The Ken Blanchard Companies, in partnership with Training Magazine, surveyed 1,300 people about teams and team leadership. We learned that…

• People spend more than half their work time in teams
• On average, people are on five or six teams with each team composed of 10 or 11 people
• Only 27 percent of the respondents felt that their teams were high performing
• Only one of four people felt their organization does a good job of team leader training

The top obstacles for teams identified in our research included disorganization, lack of clear roles and decision rights, poor leadership, and poor or no planning. Teams are clearly the vehicle for organizations to seize new opportunities and tackle persistent problems, but our experience working in teams leaves a lot to be desired. Clearly, something is not working.

Our research and experience has shown that high performance teams exhibit a mindset that sets them apart from low performing teams. A mindset is a set of beliefs or a way of thinking about something. High performance teams are defined by four key mindsets:

1. Teams Need Clarity Above All Else—The biggest truth that our research uncovered is that clarity and alignment are critical factors for team success. Without a shared or common purpose and clear goals, the team will not get very far. Clarity on why and how the team is working together sets the foundation for progressing on their goals.
2. Teams Embrace Conflict in Order to Grow—Conflict is inevitable. For teams to be resilient and innovative, they must be willing to roll up their sleeves and tussle, and keep everyone engaged in active debate on the tough subjects in order to find the best creative solutions.
3. Teams Thrive on Trust—The ability to trust one another and trust in the power of the team is as important to the success of the team as clarity is. Good teams know what they are doing—clarity—and believe in each other enough to do it—trust. As I wrote about recently, a worker is 12x more likely to be fully engaged if he or she trusts the team leader.
4. High Performance Teams Lead Themselves—As the team grows in their ability to work collaboratively as a strong unit, team members will share leadership with the team leader and other team members. This belief doesn’t mean there is no leader. It means members are less reliant on the direction of the team leader.

Being able to lead productive, effective teams is critical to leveraging the strengths of team members, addressing cross-functional challenges, and getting work done in any organization. But it doesn’t happen by accident. Team leaders and members need training to learn the stages of team development, how to build trust, how to channel conflict into productive problem-solving, and how to sustain their high performance over time.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Photo by Wilson Vitorino on Pexels.com

Power. The word itself evokes a reaction. What thoughts or feelings do you have when you think of power? Perhaps you picture an organizational chart where the boxes at the top are imbued with more power than those below. Maybe you imagine an iron fist, representative of a person who rules over others with absolute authority. Or perhaps the word power conjures up feelings of nervousness, anxiety, or fear, based on negative experiences you’ve had in the past. On the flip side, maybe the word power emboldens you with excitement, energy, or drive to exert your influence on people and circumstances in your life.

Power is a dynamic present in all of our relationships and it’s one we need to properly manage to help our relationships develop to their fullest potential. In and of itself, power is amoral; it’s neither good or bad. The way we use power is what determines its value.

But what is power? How do we get it? And once we have it, how do we keep it?

In his book, The Power Paradox: How we gain and lose influence, author and U.C. Berkeley professor of psychology Dacher Keltner, shares twenty “power principles” that range from how we earn power, how to retain it, why power can be a good thing, when we’re likely to abuse it, and the dangerous consequences of powerlessness.

Keltner defines power as the capacity to make a difference in the world, particularly by stirring others in our social networks. Focusing on the needs and desires of others is key, and four specific social practices—empathizing, giving, expressing gratitude, and telling stories—are ways we develop power and sustain it over time.

Enduring Power Comes from a Focus on Others

1. Enduring power comes from empathy—We express empathy when we focus on what other people are feeling. We attune ourselves to their mannerisms, language, expressions, and tone of voice to gain a sense of their emotions. This promotes a sense of connection and trust with others that allows them to be vulnerable and authentic in their behavior. We can promote empathy in several practical ways: asking open-ended questions, listening actively, asking others what they would do in a given situation before offering advice, and soliciting the opinions of those in less powerful positions.

2. Enduring power comes from giving—Giving, without the expectation of receiving something in return, is a tremendous trust builder and leads to people being willing to grant you power in relationships. Keltner focuses on a particular form of giving: touch. Whether it’s politicians shaking hands, athletes high-fiving each other, or a boss giving an affirmative pat on the back, there is tremendous power in the human touch. A reassuring touch on the shoulder or warm embrace causes the release of oxytocin in the brain, a neurochemical that promotes trust, cooperation, and sharing, and also lowers blood pressure and fights the negative effects of the stress-inducing hormone cortisol. The overarching principle of giving is that it’s a way of providing reward and recognition to others that promotes goodwill.

The key to enduring power is simple: Stay focused on other people. Prioritize others’ interests as much as your own. Bring the good in others to completion, and do not bring the bad in others to completion. Take delight in the delights of others, as they make a difference in the world. — Dacher Keltner

3. Enduring power comes from expressing gratitude—Gratitude is the feeling of appreciation we have for things that are given us, whether it’s an experience, a person, an opportunity, or a thing. Importantly, it’s something that has been given to us, not something we’ve attained on our own. Expressing gratitude is a way to confer esteem on others and we can do that in a number of ways: acknowledging people in public, notes or emails of affirmation, and spending time with others. Expression of gratitude spreads goodwill within a team and causes social bonding.

4. Enduring power comes from telling stories that unite—Abraham Lincoln is an excellent example of a leader who used the power of storytelling to communicate important truths and unite people in working toward a common goal. Families, sports teams, businesses, and organizations of all kinds have a history that is communicated through story. Members of these groups establish their identities and understand their role in the group based on those stories. Stories enhance the interests of others and reduces the stress of working in a group. They also help us interpret the events going on around us and shape the way we deal with the challenges we encounter. Stories bring us together and foster the sharing of power that is necessary in organizational life.

Power is often perceived in a negative light. The natural reaction of many is to associate power with Machiavellian attempts at preserving self-interest and exerting dominance over others. It doesn’t have to be that way. The best use of power is in service to others, and the four principles Keltner advocates are an excellent way to develop and sustain power in a way that allows you to influence others to make a positive difference in the world.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Let’s imagine for a moment that you are a scientist running a grand experiment on leadership. Your laboratory is an organization with hundreds of leaders at varying levels, and with technology, you can watch and listen to them 24-hours a day over an extend period of time. Sort of like the TV show Big Brother, except corporate style (and minus all the drama-filled antics). Essentially you get to observe the species Homo Sapiens Laederes in their native environment.

Your quest is to learn the behaviors that make servant leaders stand out from the crowd. In a noisy world where a few celebrity leaders grab the headlines, and everyone tries to copy-cat their way to becoming an overnight leadership success, servant leadership has withstood the test of time as a tried and true approach to effectively leading people and organizations. You would observe at least five key ways servant leaders are different from their counterparts.

Servant leaders…

1. Listen more than they talk—A servant leader is much more interested in hearing the viewpoints of others than having their voice be the loudest in the room. Make no mistake, servant leaders clearly articulate their point of view and cast a vision for the organization, but they do so after they’ve spent plenty of time hearing from others, incorporating their ideas, and enlisting others in their cause. As Larry Spears observed in the book Servant Leadership in Action, listening is one of ten key characteristics of a servant leader. Listening involves paying attention to what is said and not said, identifying the will of the group, listening to the leader’s own inner voice, and coalescing that input into a clear plan of action.
2. Say we more than me—When servant leaders do talk, they focus the attention on their team by speaking in the collective we, rather than the personal me. Servant leaders know that leadership isn’t about them; it’s about others. Robert K. Greenleaf, the father of the modern servant leader movement, said the motive of a servant leader is to serve first, and out of that desire to serve rises a conscious decision to lead. Servant leaders are driven to improve the welfare, contribution, and autonomy of others, not to garner fame, attention, or status for themselves. Their focus is on we, not me.
3. Flex their leadership style to meet the needs of their followers—Since servant leadership is about doing what’s best for others and helping them to realize their full potential, servant leaders adapt their leadership style to provide the right amount of direction and support their followers need. There is no one best leadership style. If someone is new to a task, the leader provides higher levels of direction to teach the how, what, where, when, and why. If the follower has a moderate level of competence but is unsure of himself, the servant leader uses a supportive style to build the follower’s confidence and help him problem solve. Servant leaders understand their followers have varying levels of competence and commitment on their tasks or goals so they adjust their leadership style to the situation.
4. Look for opportunities to shine the light on others—As you observe leaders in this mythical experiment, you’d notice that servant leaders make an intentional effort to give people the chance to be in the spotlight and to praise them for their accomplishments. Servant leaders don’t care who gets the credit; they care about helping people and the organization succeed. Ken Blanchard likes to say that “people who feel good about themselves produce good results, and people who produce good results feel good about themselves.” It’s a virtuous process that servant leaders look to perpetuate.
5. Treat failures as learning moments—Failure is inevitable; learning is optional (click to tweet). Servant leaders view failure as an invaluable teaching tool, and rather than punish or demean people for making a mistake, they turn it into a positive and make it a learning moment. This is possible because servant leaders have a high level of trust with their followers. When people are trusted, they aren’t afraid to take risks and try something new. They know that if they fail, their leader will partner with them to use the opportunity to grow, learn, and do better next time. My friend and fellow servant leader, Garry Ridge, CEO of WD-40, embodies this philosophy. He believes that creating a culture of learning has been one of the pillars of WD-40’s success, an organization with 93% employee engagement.

Although it would be cool to take part in this kind of mad scientist experiment, it really isn’t necessary. Research about the effectiveness of servant leadership is plentiful and the traits of a servant leader are common sense, albeit not common practice. If you look around and see people engaging in these five behaviors and others like them, chances are they’re servant leaders who are bringing out the best in their people and organizations.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Some of the prison cell doors are open so you can walk inside and get a sense for what it must have felt like to be confined in such a small space. The cells are five feet wide, seven feet tall, and nine feet long. I could reach my arms out to the side and place my palms on the walls of the cell. The concrete walls hold the frigid chill of the San Francisco Bay and the steel doors are hard and unforgiving. It’s difficult to imagine what it must have felt like to be confined in such a small space for hours on end, day after day, year after year.

Prison cells aren’t just concrete rooms with steel doors; they can be rooms of our own making. (click to tweet) All of us, in various areas of our lives, have constructed cells that imprison us and constrain our ability to experience true freedom and joy.

In the realm of leadership, some of us are career criminals doing hard time and the only life we know is within the four walls of our prison cell. These leaders are guilty of crimes like wielding power as a weapon, hoarding information, sucking up to the hierarchy, micromanaging, breaking trust, playing politics, and over-reliance on command and control styles of leadership. Most of us leaders aren’t hardened criminals serving a life sentence, but we dabble in our share of petty theft that puts us behind bars from time to time.

There are ways you can escape from the prison of ineffective leadership practices, but it takes planning, patience, and perseverance. You didn’t build those walls overnight and it’s going to take time to tunnel your way out. Here are four steps to break out of your leadership prison cell:

Discover Your Leadership Purpose

Why do you lead? Answer that question and you’ve discovered your leadership purpose. Discovering your leadership purpose is an introspective process that takes time and effort, but the result is an internal clarity and drive that inspires and fuels your work as a leader.

The process for discovering your leadership purpose begins with reflecting on your own leadership role models. How did those people influence you? What about the way they led others inspired you? What did you learn from them and how do you display that in your own leadership style? Second, how does your leadership connect with your larger life purpose? Do you see your role as a leader integrated with your overall life purpose? Are you clear on your greatest strengths and how you can use them to positively impact the world around you? Third, what is the legacy you want to leave? How do you want to be remembered for the way you influenced those you lead?

As you wrestle with these tough questions, you’ll eventually gain insight into your leadership purpose. Writing a simple purpose statement will help crystallize your thoughts and provide a reminder of why you do what you do as a leader. Do an internet search for “writing a personal mission statement” and you’ll find dozens of excellent resources and templates. As an example, my purpose statement is To use my gifts and abilities to be a servant leader and a model of God’s grace and truth. 

Define Your Leadership Values

Leadership is an influence process. As a leader you are trying to influence others to believe in certain things and act in specific ways. How can you do that if you aren’t clear on your own values? What drives your own behaviors? You have to be clear on that before you can expect to influence others…at least in a positive way.

In the absence of clearly defined values, I believe people tend to default to the more base, self-centered values we all possess: self-preservation, survival, ego, power, position. As an example, my core values are trust, authenticity, and respect. I look to those values to guide my interactions with others. Just as river banks channel and direct the flow of rushing water, so values direct our behaviors. What is a river without banks? A large puddle. Our leadership effectiveness is diffused without values to guide its efforts.

Declare Your Leadership Brand

Your brand image is not only how people perceive you (your reputation), but also what differentiates you from everyone else in your company. When your colleagues and team members think of you, what is it that comes to their minds?

Tom Peters, the guru of personal branding, says, “If you are going to be a brand, you’ve got to become relentlessly focused on what you do that adds value, what you’re proud of, and most important, what you can shamelessly take credit for.” Now, I’m not into shamelessly bragging about personal accomplishments, but I do think it’s important, and possible, to tactfully and appropriately share your successes.

Forget your job title. What is it about your performance as a leader that makes you memorable, distinct, or unique? What’s the “buzz” on you? Forget about your job description too. What accomplishments are you most proud of? How have you gone above, beyond, or outside the scope of your job description to add value to your organization? Those are the elements that make up your brand.

Deliver on Your Leadership Promise

If you’ve ever removed the cardboard sleeve on a Starbucks coffee cup, you may have noticed this statement printed on the side of the cup:

Our Barista Promise

Love your beverage or let us know. We’ll always make it right.

My experience with Starbucks is they live that promise. Whenever I’ve not been satisfied with my drink, they’ve always made it right.

Your leadership promise is the combination of your purpose, values, and brand. It’s who your people expect you to be as a leader and it’s how they expect you to behave. Whether you’ve articulated your leadership purpose, values, and brand to your people or not (which I strongly advocate you do), they have ascribed a leadership promise to you based on your past behavior. You are setting yourself up to break trust with your followers if their perception of your leadership promise doesn’t align with your own.

Escape from Alcatraz

It was simple for me to leave the island when my time was done on Alcatraz; I boarded the ferry and rode across the bay to San Francisco. It wasn’t nearly as easy for the prisoners who once called Alcatraz home. Likewise, it won’t be easy for you to escape your self-constructed prison cell of dysfunctional leadership practices, but it is doable with intentional focus and effort. Discovering your leadership purpose will direct your energies, clarifying your values will guide your activities, declaring your brand will let others know what you stand for, and delivering on your leadership promise will hold you accountable to being the leader you aspire to be and the leader your people need and deserve.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

It must be possible in some sort of cosmic, twilight zone kind of way. Organizations frequently ask us to help them address low trust, yet when we work with the individual managers, none of them consider themselves untrustworthy. Huh?

If managers in low trust organizations don’t think they’re the ones with trust problems, how do you explain that 45% of employees say a lack of trust with their boss is the biggest issue impacting their work performance? Or that 82% of people say they don’t trust their boss to tell the truth? Or that research has shown people are more likely to trust a stranger than their boss?

The fact is, your managers may not be as trusted as you think they are. If you are a manager, you may not be as trustworthy as you think you are.

But, don’t worry, you can learn how to build trust.  Like any leadership skill, the ability to build trust can be learned and developed. It’s arguably the most important skill required for leadership effectiveness and it’s needed in our organizations now more than ever.

A fundamental truth about trust is that it’s based on perceptions. People form perceptions of our trustworthiness based on the behaviors we use, and if you use behaviors that engender trust, then you will be perceived as trustworthy.

That’s why we take a behavioral approach to training the skills of building trust. Our Building Trust training program combines the latest research findings on trust with our 40 years of expertise in leadership development. Leveraging the easy to learn, easy to remember, and easy to implement Elements of Trust model, it teaches participants how to increase their own trustworthiness, rebuild trust that has been damaged, and how to have conversations with others about low-trust situations.

Participants learn to use trustworthy behaviors that help them demonstrate greater competence in their roles, act with higher degrees of integrity, build stronger relationships with colleagues, and be more dependable in honoring their commitments. For relationships where trust has been eroded, participants learn and practice the skills and behaviors of delivering effective apologies which leads to the rebuilding of trust.

Most people are afraid to talk about issues of trust in the workplace, and for good reason. Confronting an issue of low trust can be an emotional firestorm that causes fear, anger, and defensiveness. After all, as our experience has shown, most people don’t think of themselves as being untrustworthy. The value of having a common definition of trust, which the Elements of Trust Model provides, is it allows people to have an objective view of what trust is and isn’t and talk about trust in a neutral and non-defensive way.

If you aren’t sure if your organization is experiencing low trust, I encourage you to download our free e-book, 7 Signs Distrust is Harming Your Organization. You may find that your managers may not be as trusted as you think they are.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

If you’ve ever wondered why so many negative and critical leaders seem to rise to power, recent research sheds a little light on the cause. It turns out that even though we say we want compassionate and empathetic leaders, we perceive naysayers as being more powerful than their non-critical colleagues.

In one of a series of studies, 518 participants were shown four pairs of statements made by former U.S. presidential candidates during nationally televised debates. They were not told the candidates’ names or when the debate took place. The pair of statements included one that was positive and supportive of America’s future, while the other was negative and critical. Participants were asked to rate how powerful each candidate appeared to be, how effective they thought the person would be in office, and whether or not they would vote for the person.

Compared to the presidential candidates who made positive statements, participants rated the negative candidates as more powerful, more likely to be effective in office, and likely to earn their vote. In additional studies across different contexts such as art reviews and opinions on social issues, participants consistently rated the naysayer as more powerful, albeit less likable, than their neutral or positive counterpart.

Why is this the case? Researcher Eileen Y. Chou theorizes the cause is human psychology. We perceive naysayers as being more independent, willing to speak their mind, and willing to “tell it like it is.” This fuels a perception of the naysayer being powerful enough to not be bound by normal constraints or resources. This perception of power was strongest among those who felt the most disadvantaged. The disadvantaged perceive the naysayer as being willing to speak truth to power and disrupt the status quo.

So, should you incorporate more negativity into your leadership style in order to become more powerful? Let’s see…how can I put this in a sensitive, thoughtful, diplomatic way?

NO!

There is certainly a time and place for candid realism in a leader’s communications. Leader’s who sugarcoat the truth and try to get their people to believe everything is rainbows and unicorns are perceived as out of touch, fake, and incompetent. Leaders have an obligation to “keep it real” with their followers, but also need to inspire people with hope for a better future. Constant negativity and criticism causes people to view the leader as a malcontent and they eventually remove their support.

The more fundamental issue for me beyond the role of being a naysayer is a leader’s relationship with power. Power accompanies leadership and it can be used in healthy and unhealthy ways. The greatest use of power is in service to others and there are noble and altruistic ways of developing and sustaining power that benefits others.

One only needs to listen to the political rhetoric these days to see the harmful effects of naysaying leadership. Constant criticism, negativity, and fault-finding appeals to the most base instincts of humanity. The most successful and enduring leaders call to the “better angels of our nature,” as Abraham Lincoln said, and unite people through a shared vision of a more promising tomorrow.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Why? What causes some people to fully commit to the team and give their max effort while others don’t?

It’s trust.

In research conducted by The Ken Blanchard Companies and Training Magazine, over 60% of respondents say the most important factor influencing the effort they give to a team is how much they trust their fellow teammates.

Having high trust in your teammates frees you up to focus on your own contributions without worrying about others following through on their commitments. Trusting your team gives you freedom to take risks, knowing your teammates have your back and will support you. Team trust allows you to have open and honest dialogue and healthy debate that leads to better decision-making, and conflict gets resolved productively instead of people sandbagging issues or sabotaging the efforts of others.

But developing trust in your teammates doesn’t happen by accident; it takes an intentional effort to proactively build trust. There are three major areas to consider in fostering team trust:

Team Leadership Behaviors—The team leader needs to focus on behaviors that provide the right blend of direction and support for individual team members as well as the team as a whole. It’s a delicate balance between the two, because too much focus on directive behavior can lead to micromanaging and the squashing of team member initiative and morale. Leaning too much on supportive behaviors can result in a lax culture where accountability is absent and team productivity is diminished. When team members receive balanced leadership, clear expectations, praise and recognition for achievements, and seeing their leader act in ways that show he/she has the team’s best interests in mind, they are willing to pledge their trust to that leader and their teammates.

Team Culture & Norms—High-trust teams have clear operating norms and a distinctive culture that fosters the development of trust. Decision-making processes are a particularly important aspect of a team’s culture. Processes that allow for open sharing of information, encouraging divergent point of views, and fostering healthy debate among team members are all trustworthy actions a team can build into their day-to-day operations.

Personal Trustworthiness—Trust starts with you. If we expect others to grant us trust, then we have to prove ourselves worthy of trust. There are four primary ways we show we our trustworthy. The first is through our ability. Demonstrating competence in our work gives others confidence that we are skilled and knowledgeable and will be able to pull our weight on the team. The second way we demonstrate trustworthiness is by showing we are believable. When we give our word, people can believe it. They know we are honest, act with integrity, and behave in alignment with our values. The third way to show we are worthy of trust is to care about others. People want to know they matter and that their team members care about them as individuals, not just anonymous co-workers. Developing rapport, putting the needs of others ahead of our own, and giving praise and recognition are ways to show our care for others. Finally, the fourth way to demonstrate trustworthiness is being dependable. Dependability means you behave consistently, follow through on commitments, are accountable, and will be there in the clutch when your team needs you.

I think Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski sums it up best in his book, Leading with the Heart, the power that trust brings to teams and organizations:

“In leadership, there are no words more important than trust. In any organization, trust must be developed among every member of the team if success is going to be achieved.” ~ Mike Krzyzewski

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

My wife is a big fan of TV cooking shows. You name it, she likes to watch it: IronChef, TopChef, Great American Food Truck, and MasterChef, just to name a few. Since she owns the TV remote control in our house, I’m pretty much forced to watch all these shows with her (I know, I should turn in my man card now!). Might it be I secretly like watching them as well? The answer is ‘yes.’

While recently watching an episode of MasterChef Junior, the show featuring young children displaying their culinary talents in competition with each other, I was struck by how the show illustrates the three fundamentals of effective performance management: goal setting, coaching, and evaluation.

Goal Setting

The young chefs are presented with various challenges that test their culinary expertise. The challenges are all unique. One may require the contestants to create an exact replica of a dish made by an adult chef, or another may be to create a dessert using a few specific ingredients, or yet another may be to create their own signature dish that follows a certain theme. Regardless of the unique challenge, the goal is clear. All good performance starts with clear goals. When goals are fuzzy or non-existent, energy is diffused and productivity suffers. But when goals are clearly defined, people’s focus is sharp, effort is purposefully directed, and productivity accelerates.

Gordon Ramsay Setting a Clear Goal on How to Cook Filet Mignon

Coaching

Once clear goals have been established, the second fundamental of effective performance management is day to day coaching. People need direction, support, and feedback in real-time to help them address competency gaps, make course corrections, or consider alternative approaches. In MasterChef Junior, this is illustrated when the judges connect with each of the chefs during the preparation of their dishes. They ask questions that get the youngsters thinking about the vision and strategy of their meal, or the judges will give advice if they notice something is not up to par, or they’ll offer warnings of things to pay attention to or avoid. The goal of coaching is to help the individual produce the best outcome possible.

MasterChef Judges Coaching a Contestant

Evaluation

Dumping the once a year formal performance evaluation is all the rage right now. What gets lost sometimes in this popular trend is the need remains to do some sort of performance evaluation with your employees. The timing, frequency, and format of the evaluation may change, but evaluation is still a critical component of the performance management process. It allows both the leader and employee to assess the effectiveness of the employee’s efforts, what worked well, and what could be done better. In MasterChef Junior, the judges offer each contestant a critique of their dish. I’m surprised, yet pleased to see, the candid nature of the judges’ comments. Rather than falling into the trap of over-praising effort to the neglect of constructive criticism, the judges deliver feedback in a factual, straightforward manner. The young chefs know clearly what they did well, where they came up short, and how they can get better in the future. Isn’t that how it should be in our workplaces?

Example of MasterChef Junior Performance Evaluation

Life at work doesn’t fall into the neat, 1-hour, edited format of a TV show, but the principles of effective performance management we see in MasterChef Junior are still valid. Good performance starts with clear goals that enable individuals to understand what they’re trying to achieve. Good leaders provide real-time coaching on an as-need basis to help employees stay on course, get back on course if they’ve strayed, or to consider ways to improve their performance along the way. And finally, once the goal or project has been completed, the leader and employee review the performance and celebrate things done well, and if needed, discuss how to improve performance in the future.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

When I conduct workshops on building trust, participants often ask me for advice about how they can tell someone they don’t trust them. That’s because trust is not a topic most people are comfortable talking about, and few are equipped to handle a trust conversation in an objective, productive, and respectful way that strengthens the relationship rather than tearing it apart.

The key to addressing a lack of trust in a relationship is to not focus on trust itself, but on the behaviors causing low trust. In fact, as a general practice, I recommend trying to avoid using the “t” word completely during the trust conversation. By focusing on behaviors, you and the other person can zero in on what you can control; how you treat each other.

But how do you do that? How do you convey to someone you don’t trust them by only talking about behaviors? There are three basic steps:

1. Diagnose which element of trust is low. Before you can even begin to discuss specific behaviors causing low trust, you have to diagnose which element of trust is being eroded. That’s because trust isn’t a one-dimensional concept. Research shows that trust is made up of four elements: competence, integrity, care, and dependability. Depending upon the context and nature of the relationship, some elements may be emphasized more than others, but all are still important and needed to some extent. For example, competence, integrity, and dependability may be more relevant in the relationship with your auto mechanic, while demonstrating care may be less so. You want to make sure the mechanic is knowledgeable about fixing your car, charges you a fair price, and completes the work on time. Although care is less important in this context, if the mechanic is rude and treats you disrespectfully, it may cause you to wonder if he/she truly has your best interests in mind and therefore erode your trust in him/her.

2. Identify the specific behaviors causing low trust. When you feel you don’t trust someone, it’s rarely a situation where you distrust everything about the individual. It’s almost always one or two key behaviors driving the erosion of trust in the relationship. Once you’ve diagnosed which element of trust is low, you can then narrow down the behaviors causing the gap in trust. For example, let’s look at dependability. People are dependable if they behave in ways that show they are reliable, responsive, and accountable. Those kinds of behaviors look like meeting deadlines, following through on commitments, being readily available or getting back to you in a reasonable amount of time, and holding themselves accountable for the results of their commitments. If you are experiencing low trust with a colleague because he/she isn’t dependable, you’ll close the trust gap quicker and easier by getting crystal clear on the behaviors causing low trust and how you can fix them.

3. Provide feedback on the behavior. Giving feedback to someone is a moment of trust in the relationship. It’s an opportunity to either build trust or erode it, so it’s important you approach the situation with a clear purpose and plan in mind. Once you’ve diagnosed which of the four elements of trust is being eroded, and narrowed down the specific behaviors causing that erosion, the next step is to provide feedback on those behaviors and develop a plan for strengthening them moving forward. Focus the conversation on the behaviors the person can control and change moving forward, not on general personality traits or characteristics. Resist the urge to over-generalize or soft-pedal the feedback. Be descriptive, specific, and describe the negative impact resulting from the behavior, but also assume best intentions on the part of the other person. Finally, keep the conversation focused on problem solving the troublesome behaviors and moving forward in a productive way. Using our previous example of addressing a trust gap caused by someone’s lack of dependability, the feedback might sound something like: “Sarah, we need to discuss the weekly project status reports. You’ve missed the Friday deadline the last three weeks, and as a result, the executive team has had an incomplete picture of the overall project status for their Monday meeting. I’m concerned because this isn’t normally like you. Can we talk about what’s been going on and figure out a plan to make sure we get this corrected?” In this example, without using the word trust, you’ve addressed the behaviors causing low trust with Sarah and have begun to put a plan in place to rebuild trust moving forward.

No one considers themselves to be untrustworthy, so to flat-out tell someone, “I don’t trust you,” will usually lead to damaging the relationship further and make the recovery of trust all that harder, if not impossible. But by diagnosing the elements of trust being eroded in a relationship, identifying the specific behaviors at the root of the issue, and discussing ways to address them moving forward, you can get trust back on track while preserving and growing the relationship.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

If you aren’t familiar with Rudolph’s story, here’s the Reader’s Digest version: Rudolph was a reindeer with a red nose. None of the other reindeer had red noses so Rudolph was frequently ridiculed and ostracized for being different. One foggy Christmas eve, Santa asked Rudolph if he could join the sleigh team and use his red nose to light the way through the fog. Rudolph took the challenge, was a big success, and became loved and admired by all the other reindeer.

Despite how it might sound when Bing Crosby croons about Rudolph’s achievement, that little red-nosed reindeer wasn’t an overnight success. He worked for years preparing himself for his opportunity, and when it came, he took advantage of it. Here’s four lessons we can learn from Rudolph:

1. Don’t let assumed constraints hold you back – Assumed constraints are the self-limiting beliefs we hold that prevent us from being our best. We tell ourselves things like, “I’m not smart enough,” “I’m not creative,” “That job will be too hard,” or, “I’m not like all the other reindeer.” Well, maybe you don’t say that, but you get what I mean. Rudolph could have chosen to limit himself by believing his red nose would prevent him from being on Santa’s team, but instead, he chose to exert self leadership and embrace his unique talents. Which leads to the second secret of Rudolph’s success…

2. Leverage your strengths – As illustrated in Marcus Buckingham’s ground-breaking work, we tend to spend most of our time and energy at work, and in life, trying to shore up our weaknesses. If we focus on building upon our strengths and minimizing the instances our weaknesses come into play, we tap into more joy, engagement, and success in our work. Rudolph had a strength no other reindeer possessed, a red nose, and found success because he discovered and leveraged that strength.

3. Prepare for your opportunity – The Roman philosopher Seneca famously said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Rudolph didn’t know if he would ever get the opportunity to be part of Santa’s sleigh team, but he prepared each day so he would be ready when his chance arose. When his opportunity came, he was ready. So much of success comes down to being in the right place at the right time, but that only helps if you’ve put in the right preparation to help you succeed.

4. Take a risk – Nothing ventured, nothing gained…at some point you have to take a risk if you want to succeed. You have to raise your hand, volunteer for the special project, offer an opinion, sign up for that class, ask the girl on a date, or any number of risky actions to move forward in your life and career. Rudolph could have offered Santa a number of excuses…”It’s too foggy,” “My nose isn’t that bright,” “It’s more comfortable here in the stable”…but he saw his chance and he took it! Preparation breeds confidence, and if you’ve put in the hard work to prepare yourself (see point #3), then you can step confidently into your future knowing you’ve done your best to set yourself up for success.

Rudolph transformed himself from a reindeer who lacked self-confidence to the leader of Santa’s sleigh team because he refused to let his assumed constraints hold him back, leveraged the unique strengths he possessed, prepared diligently, and took a risk when the opportunity presented itself. Outstanding lessons for all of us this holiday season.

About the Author

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Chances are you’d probably say your employees would choose a pay raise, right? I mean, after all, who wouldn’t want more money? Taking a few liberties with the classic song Money by Barrett Strong, your employees are probably saying “Your leadership gives me such a thrill, but your leadership don’t pay my bills, I need money!”

Getting a pay raise would be an immediately tangible reward that everyone could literally take to the bank. Besides, it’s not like you need any dramatic improvement as a boss, right? Sure, you may not be the greatest leader in the world, but there’s a whole lot of bosses plenty worse than you. Your people would definitely choose a pay raise, you say.

Well, you’d be wrong. One study showed that 65% of Americans would choose a better boss over a pay raise. How do you like them apples?

In many of our training courses we do a “best boss” exercise. We ask participants to share the characteristics of the person who was their best boss, and as you can see from the list below, many of these traits are ones you can develop and master with just a bit of effort and focus.

My best boss…

• Was trustworthy—Often mentioned as the foundation of what makes a best boss, being trustworthy is paramount to being an effective leader. Research has shown that employees who have high levels of trust in their boss are more productive, engaged, innovative, creative, and contribute more to the organization’s bottom-line. Click here to learn more about how to build trust as a leader.
• Believed in me—Best bosses believe in the capabilities and potential of their people. Through their words and actions they communicate a sincere faith in their employees that builds the confidence of their team members to go above and beyond expectations.
• Showed respect—No one likes to be talked down to or treated as “less than.” Best bosses recognize the inherent worth each person possesses and they seek to build people up, not tear them down.
• Listened to me—Being a good listener is one of the most powerful, yet underrated leadership skills. Good listeners don’t interrupt, ask clarifying questions, summarize what they’ve heard, probe for deeper understanding, and also pay attention to what’s not being said in the conversation. Check out The 5 Fundamentals of Effective Listening for more tips.
• Helped me grow—People want leaders who are invested in helping them grow in their jobs and careers. Best bosses understand that leadership is not about them; it’s about the people they serve. As such, they are committed to helping their team members grow in their careers, even if that means the employee ultimately leaves the team or organization for better opportunities.
• Had my back—Participants in our classes often say their best boss was always in their corner, or had their back. There are times in organizational life where the boss needs to step up and defend the needs or interests of his/her team. Supporting your employees doesn’t mean blindly defending them regardless of the circumstances, but it does mean you always have their best interests at heart and are committed to putting that belief into practice.
• Gave feedback in a way I could hear it—I’ve learned in my career that people really do want, and deserve, honest feedback about their performance. The trick is to deliver feedback in a way the person on the receiving end can hear it without becoming defensive, internalize it, and take positive action moving forward. Here is a way to give feedback that builds trust in a relationship.
• Cared about me as a person—It’s a cliché but it’s true: people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. You can be the most competent boss around, but if your people don’t feel you truly care about them as humans, then they will withhold their trust and commitment from you.
• Adjusted their leadership style to my needs—The best bosses know that one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to leadership. Each team member can be at different development levels in their goals and tasks, so the leader needs to adjust his/her leadership style to meet the needs of the employee. Managers need to learn to become situational leaders.
• Gave me autonomy—No one likes to be micro-managed. Helicoptering over your employees and telling them what to do, how to do it, and when to do it, creates a sense of learned helplessness. It erodes the morale and motivation of employees and leads to them developing a “quit but stay” mentality. Best bosses make sure their team members have been given the proper training and have the best resources and tools needed to do their jobs. Then the manager steps out of the way and lets their team do their thing, while providing any needed support and direction along the way.

Unfortunately, too many leaders are unwilling to admit they could use a bit of improvement, and too many organizations tolerate poor managerial performance (free whitepaper: 7 Ways Poor Managers Are Costing Your Company Money). But as you can see from this list, becoming a best boss isn’t rocket science. It’s within the grasp of any leader who is willing to put in a bit of work to improve his/her craft.

About the Author

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

In the Vietnam War, the United States won every single battle but lost the war. Why?

North Vietnam was playing the infinite game. Their goal was to outlast the enemy, not defeat them.

Finite games have winners and losers. The rules of the game are known to both sides, the boundaries of the playing field are well-defined, the scoreboard keeps track of the game’s activity, and at the end of a prescribed period of time, a winner is declared. It’s neat. It’s clean. Someone wins, someone loses.

Infinite games have no winners or losers. Rules often don’t exist, and if they do, they are fuzzy and open to interpretation. The playing field is undefined and progress is hard to measure. Opponents change frequently, as does the game itself. There are no clear winners or losers in the infinite game. Competitors drop out of the infinite game when they lose the will or resources to stop playing. The goal is to outlast your competition.

Simon Sinek introduced this concept in his keynote address at our recent Blanchard Summit. In the VUCA  (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world in which we live, the most successful leaders and organization are learning to play the infinite game, not the finite one. The “game” of leadership and business is an infinite game where the rules change frequently, competitors come and go, and there is no end point to the game. You are either ahead or behind. There is no ultimate winner or loser. The infinite game continues indefinitely until someone loses the will or resources to keep playing.

Resources are well understood. Money, intellectual property, people, technology, etc. We have to have the capital we need to run a business. But what about will? Sinek shared five must-have components of will if we are to succeed in the infinite game:

1. Just cause—More than your “why” or purpose, a just cause is what motivates you to get out of bed in the morning. It’s the passion or hunger that burns inside that compels you to do what you do. Your just cause is what powers you to outlast your competitors. It propels you forward in the face of adversity and empowers you to persevere when you feel like giving up.

2. Courageous leadership—Playing the infinite game requires leaders to prioritize the just causeabove anything else. They are willing to stand up to the pressures of the Board, Wall Street, or popular sentiment, and stay true to their cause. This struggle is often too great for a single person to tackle alone, so it requires all the leaders of the organization to band together and act in alignment.

3. Vulnerable team—Sinek says being a vulnerable team doesn’t mean it’s acceptable for everyone to walk around crying. It means you’ve invested the time and energy to build a culture in your organization where people feel safe to be themselves. They can admit they don’t know something or that they made a mistake. They can take appropriate risks without fear of retribution or retaliation. If you’re people don’t feel safe, that is your fault, not theirs.

4. Worthy adversary—In the infinite game, adversaries are acknowledged and treated with respect, but our success or failure isn’t measured against them. Ultimately we are competing against ourselves, and our success or failure should be measured against our just cause. Our adversaries may push us to improve our products, services, marketing, etc., but in the infinite game we are constantly striving to become a better version of ourselves in order to fulfill our just cause.

5. Open playbook—Too many organizations pursue a variable cause with a fixed strategy, Sinek theorizes, rather than pursuing a fixed cause with a variable strategy. Having an open playbook means leaders and organizations are willing to have flexible strategies and plans that change as needed to pursue their just cause. An open playbook also means you are transparent with your strategies, so all members of the team can literally be on the same page. Leaders resist being too transparent with information because they fear losing control. They distrust how people will use that information so they hold it close to the vest. That only results in people making sub-optimal decisions because they don’t know all the plays in the playbook.

You can win every battle but still lose the war. The goal is not to beat your competition; the goal is to outlast them.

So what does it mean to play the infinite game as a leader? It means you leave something behind that outlasts your finite presence or contributions. An infinite leader builds a culture so strong, that when the leader is no longer there, the culture lives on. Infinite leaders commit to their just cause. The work produced by striving for that just cause has the indelible fingerprints of the leader, and lasts far beyond the time of the leader’s tenure.

So ask yourself: Are you playing the finite or infinite game?

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

It doesn’t matter how rich the soil is in your garden, how much sunlight it receives, or how often you water, if you don’t sow the seeds, you won’t have any plants. In your relationships at work, it doesn’t matter how educated you are, how much money you make, or how successful you are (by whatever standard you want to apply), if you don’t sow the seeds of trust then it won’t develop in your relationships.

Trust in relationships begins by demonstrating your trustworthiness. It’s that simple. It may sound like common-sense, but I can assure you, it isn’t common practice. To get you started, listed below are 21 seeds of trust. Sow these seeds of trust and you’ll reap a harvest of high-trust relationships in the workplace.

1. Constantly learn, grow, and get better at what you do.
2. Generously share your expertise with others.
3. Develop self-awareness (emotional intelligence).
4. Focus on doing the right thing and doing things right.
5. Develop good problem-solving and decision-making skills.
6. Admit mistakes.
7. Make ethical choices.
8. Make decisions in alignment with your personal values and those of the organization.
9. Avoid gossip.
10. Don’t play favorites.
11. Tell the truth.
12. Listen with the intent of being influenced.
13. Be authentic and genuine.
14. Accept feedback as a gift.
15. Share credit with others.
16. Keep your promises.
17. Meet deadlines.
18. Be on time.
19. Respect and appreciate your co-workers.
20. Praise the good work of others.
21. Create win-win solutions.

Twenty-one simple seeds of trust. If you sow it, you can grow it!

What other seeds of trust would you recommend sowing? Feel free to share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Does your organization have a trust issue? Download this complimentary white paper to find out: Building Trust – The Critical Link to a High-Involvement, High-Energy Workplace Begins with a Common Language.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Perhaps you picture an organizational chart where the boxes at the top are imbued with more power than those below. Maybe you imagine an iron fist, representative of a person who rules over others with absolute authority. Or perhaps the word power conjures up feelings of nervousness, anxiety, or fear, based on negative experiences you’ve had in the past.

On the flip side, maybe the word power emboldens you with excitement, energy, or drive to exert your influence on people and circumstances in your life.

Power is a dynamic present in all of our relationships and it’s one we need to properly manage to help our relationships develop to their fullest potential. In and of itself, power is amoral; it’s neither good or bad. The way we use power is what determines its value.

But what is power? How do we get it? And once we have it, how do we keep it?

In his book, The Power Paradox: How we gain and lose influence, author and U.C. Berkeley professor of psychology Dacher Keltner, shares twenty “power principles” that range from how we earn power, how to retain it, why power can be a good thing, when we’re likely to abuse it, and the dangerous consequences of powerlessness.

Keltner defines power as the capacity to make a difference in the world, particularly by stirring others in our social networks. Focusing on the needs and desires of others is key, and four specific social practices—empathizing, giving, expressing gratitude, and telling stories—are ways we develop power and sustain it over time.

Enduring Power Comes from a Focus on Others

1. Enduring power comes from empathy—We express empathy when we focus on what other people are feeling. We attune ourselves to their mannerisms, language, expressions, and tone of voice to gain a sense of their emotions. This promotes a sense of connection and trust with others that allows them to be vulnerable and authentic in their behavior. We can promote empathy in several practical ways: asking open-ended questions, listening actively, asking others what they would do in a given situation before offering advice, and soliciting the opinions of those in less powerful positions.

2. Enduring power comes from giving—Giving, without the expectation of receiving something in return, is a tremendous trust builder and leads to people being willing to grant you power in relationships. Keltner focuses on a particular form of giving: touch. Whether it’s politicians shaking hands, athletes high-fiving each other, or a boss giving an affirmative pat on the back, there is tremendous power in the human touch. A reassuring touch on the shoulder or warm embrace causes the release of oxytocin in the brain, a neurochemical that promotes trust, cooperation, and sharing, and also lowers blood pressure and fights the negative effects of the stress-inducing hormone cortisol. The overarching principle of giving is that it’s a way of providing reward and recognition to others that promotes goodwill.

The key to enduring power is simple: Stay focused on other people. Prioritize others’ interests as much as your own. Bring the good in others to completion, and do not bring the bad in others to completion. Take delight in the delights of others, as they make a difference in the world. — Dacher Keltner

3. Enduring power comes from expressing gratitude—Gratitude is the feeling of appreciation we have for things that are given us, whether it’s an experience, a person, an opportunity, or a thing. Importantly, it’s something that has been given to us, not something we’ve attained on our own. Expressing gratitude is a way to confer esteem on others and we can do that in a number of ways: acknowledging people in public, notes or emails of affirmation, and spending time with others. Expression of gratitude spreads goodwill within a team and causes social bonding.

4. Enduring power comes from telling stories that unite—Abraham Lincoln is an excellent example of a leader who used the power of storytelling to communicate important truths and unite people in working toward a common goal. Families, sports teams, businesses, and organizations of all kinds have a history that is communicated through story. Members of these groups establish their identities and understand their role in the group based on those stories. Stories enhance the interests of others and reduces the stress of working in a group. They also help us interpret the events going on around us and shape the way we deal with the challenges we encounter. Stories bring us together and foster the sharing of power that is necessary in organizational life.

Power is often perceived in a negative light. The natural reaction of many is to associate power with Machiavellian attempts at preserving self-interest and exerting dominance over others. It doesn’t have to be that way. The best use of power is in service to others, and the four principles Keltner advocates are an excellent way to develop and sustain power in a way that allows you to influence others to make a positive difference in the world.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

This mental image is formed through random encounters with you such as emails, videos, speeches, meetings, and stories about you shared by others. Washburn and Galvin say employees follow four basic rules when forming a perception about their leaders:

1. They judge a book by its cover. Right, wrong, or indifferent, we all tend to do the same thing. We take whatever limited information we may have and draw a conclusion of what it means.
2. Employees look for answers to specific questions like: Does the leader care about me personally? Have high standards? Offer an appealing vision of the future? Seem human in a way I can relate to?
3. People prefer the answers to these questions in a form of a story. Stories help string together and make sense of the limited facts at their disposal.
4. Trustworthiness is the key factor employees pay attention to in the stories about their leaders and they tend to disregard the rest.

To effectively get people to follow you and rally around the goals you want them to achieve, you have to earn their trust. You also have to let them know you mean them no harm; you are behind them, supporting them, and have their best interests in mind. In order to get them to know you for who you are, you have to be REAL: reveal, engage, acknowledge, and listen.

• Reveal information about yourself—Leaders often withhold information about themselves because they believe they have to maintain a safe distance from their employees; they can’t be friends. I believe that principle is misguided. As research shows, people want to have authentic relationships with their leaders. They want to know the person behind the title, and sharing information about yourself is a primary way to accomplish that goal.
• Engage employees as individuals—Every employee wants to be seen and known as an individual and not just a number showing up to do a job. Knowing your employees on an individual level gets harder to accomplish the higher you move in the organization. It’s simply a matter of too many people to spend time with and not enough time to do it all. But it’s doable if you have a plan. Get out of your office and walk the hallways. Peek into cubicles and offices and ask team members how they’re doing. Inquire about how their kids are doing and what’s exciting in their lives outside of work. Be a guest attendee at department and team meetings so employees get some face-time with you and can relate to you in a small group setting. The more you can engage people on an individual level, the more they’ll understand you care about them on a personal level.
• Acknowledge employee contributions—When I conduct training classes on building trust, I’ll often ask the group to respond to this statement: “Raise your hand if you are sick and tired of all the praise you receive at work.” No one ever raises their hand. People are starving for acknowledgement of their efforts and contributions, and you would be amazed at how much trust you can build by authentically acknowledging your employees. Leadership and management guru Ken Blanchard has said that if he could choose one lasting legacy of his work, it would be the philosophy of “catching people doing something right.” Authentic praise and recognition unlocks commitment, engagement, and passion in your team’s performance.
• Listen to learn—Too often leaders think and act like they are the smartest person in the room. Thinking and acting that way leaves little room for you to learn from the people who usually know the most about what’s happening on the front lines of your business. When you have the chance to interact with employees, spend more time listening than you do talking, and look for ways to incorporate their feedback in your decisions and plans. The simple act of listening is a big trust booster in relationships because it signals to the other person that what they have to say is important, you care, and you value what’s being communicated.

Work, and life, seems to move at a frenetic pace these days. There are always urgent and important matters to deal with and it’s incredibly easy to develop tunnel-vision in regards to our projects and lose sight of our people. All of us leaders need to remember that our actions are under a microscope, and our people develop perceptions of our leadership through random bits of information that comes their way. We can’t lose sight that a fundamental element of successful team performance is developing personal and authentic relationships. A great way to do that is to show our people that we are REAL.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

I want to use power wisely and for the benefit of others, but at times I’m hesitant to fully embrace it for fear people will think I’m being egotistical or bossy. I’ve been learning I need to move beyond that self-limiting belief because neglecting to appropriately leverage power can lead to several unintended problems:

You sell yourself short – Most people don’t fully appreciate how much power they have. As we teach in our newly revised Self Leadership training program, everyone has points of power that can be leveraged:

• Knowledge – The power that comes from having a specialized knowledge base or expertise
• Task – The power derived from being able to perform a specific skill, operate equipment, or perform a certain task
• Relationship – The power you have from leveraging your personal relationships with others
• Position – The power that comes from your position or title
• Personal – The power of your personal character attributes such as strength of character, passion, interpersonal skills, and ability to communicate well with others

Failing to tap into your bases of power is like a boxer going into the ring with one hand tied behind his back. You’re limiting the value of your contributions when you fail to utilize the power at your disposal. It’s not being egotistical to humbly and sincerely bring your full skill-set to the table.

You shortchange your colleagues, team, and organization – Not only are you selling yourself short by not embracing your power, you’re short-changing everyone else of your valuable contributions. Your team and organization is relying upon you to perform at your best and that means using all the various tools in your toolbox. Being overly hesitant to walk confidently in your power means your team will likely produce a sub-par product because you didn’t offer your best.

You create a bad precedent – Our patterns of behavior dictate how people know us. We use certain behaviors on a consistent basis and people come to expect and rely upon us to always behave in that same manner. If you choose to never use your power, then people figure that’s just how you roll. The problem comes when you decide you do need to play the power card. It catches people off guard because it’s inconsistent with your past behavior and it leaves them baffled about why you’re doing a sudden about-face. It’s important to authentically own your power and make it a regular part of your behavior so people come to expect it as a natural part of you being you.

Power accompanies leadership; there’s no getting around it. There are specific principles we can follow to guide our use of power and it’s critical we find a healthy way to express it. Otherwise we fail to live up to our own potential, we hold back from delivering our best to our team, and we create expectations with others that limit our influence.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

No, I’m not talking about Christmas. I’m talking about March Madness!

I’m a big fan of college basketball and the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is like Christmas in March. There are always underdogs upsetting the established favorites and feel-good stories of players overcoming personal challenges to reach new heights in their athletic careers. One of the prominent story lines in this year’s tournament is the University of South Carolina reaching the Final Four for the first time in school history.

In a recent USA Today article, Frank Martin, the head coach for South Carolina, discussed what drives his approach to leadership:

“See I’ve got four core values I live my life by and I run my teams by and I run my family with: Honesty, loyalty, trust and love. And the only way you get to love is if you experience the other three. When you get to love, that gets strong. I don’t care what storm comes through, you’re not breaking love. But if you get to love without the other three, you let that thing go right away. So, you’ve got to go through the first three and that’s the only way you get to love. And that’s what I live by, I run my family by that, and I try to coach our guys that way. To get them to that place in life.”

In just a few poignant sentences, Martin shared what all great leaders know—Values are the foundation upon which your leadership and your life is built.

If you haven’t identified your core values, here’s a quick way to get started:

1. Think about your leadership role models. What about those people inspired you? How did they demonstrate leadership? What was their lasting impact on you? What about their leadership style do you want to emulate?
2. Identify situations that caused you to feel a sense of injustice. What was it about those situations that caused you to feel that way? Was there a particular issue, value, or belief that you felt was being dismissed? Those are likely candidates of values that you hold near and dear to your heart.
3. Consider your non-negotiables. What will you go to the mat on? What battle will you fight no matter the cost? These are the values that should rise to the top of the list.
4. Define and behavioralize your selected values. Write a concise sentence that defines what that value means to you, and then list a few behaviors that illustrate what that behavior looks like in action. For example, if the selected value is trust, a definition might be acting with integrity and keeping commitments. Behaviors of how you live out trust could be tell the truth, treat people fairly, and only make promises I can keep.

You can supercharge your values by sharing them with the people you lead. It helps them better understand what motivates you as a leader and it holds you accountable to consistently behaving in alignment with those values.

Great leaders know the power of having core values.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Frequently I will ask people to respond to this question: “Raise your hand if you are sick and tired of all the praise you receive at work.” How do you think people respond?

No one ever raises their hand.

The truth is most people are starving for more recognition for their efforts and accomplishments. For whatever reason, whether it’s not understanding the importance of praise, being uncomfortable expressing appreciation, or having a twisted perception that praising people will cause them to lose their performance edge, many leaders simply don’t use one of the most powerful tools in their leadership toolbox.

Ken Blanchard has frequently said that if he could choose one thing that defined his legacy as a leadership expert, it would be the importance of “catching people doing something right.”

Why should you care about praising team members? Research, surveys, and studies have shown that praise:

• Contributes to higher levels of engagement
• Helps reduce turnover
• Improves morale
• Builds trust
• Improves manager/employee relationships

Unless delivered effectively, praise can be perceived as hollow or meaningless and actually work against improving employee relationships and performance. To fully leverage the power of praise, remember to:

• Praise genuine achievements, not routine efforts
• Be specific; don’t generalize
• Deliver it as close to the event as possible
• Link the praise to team or company values, goals, or strategies
• Be authentic and genuine; don’t be overly concerned with making it perfect

Giving praise doesn’t cost you anything, except for a little bit of time and effort. Yet it can be one of the most effective tools managers can use to improve employee performance and engagement at work. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

1. Encourage risk taking – Leaders need to take the first step in extending trust to those they lead. Through their words and actions, leaders can send the message that appropriate and thoughtful risk taking is encouraged and rewarded. When people feel trusted and secure in their contributions to the organization, they don’t waste energy engaging in CYA (cover your “assets”) behavior and are willing to risk failure. The willingness to take risks is the genesis of creativity and innovation, without which organizations today will die on the vine. Creating a culture of risk taking will only be possible when practice #2 is in place.
2. Mistakes are viewed as learning opportunities – Imagine that you’re an average golfer (like me!) who decides to take lessons to improve your game. After spending some time on the practice range, your instructor takes you on the course for some live action and you attempt a high-risk/high-reward shot. You flub the shot and your instructor goes berserk on you. “How stupid can you be!” he shouts. “What were you thinking? That was one of the worst shots I’ve seen in my life!” Not exactly the kind of leadership that encourages you to take further risks, is it? Contrast that with a response of “So what do you think went wrong? What will you do differently next time?” Garry Ridge, CEO of WD-40, characterizes these incidents as “learning moments,” where planning and execution come together, a result is produced, and we incorporate what we learned into our future work.
3. Transparency in processes and decision-making – Leaders can create a culture of trust and openness by making sure they engage in transparent business practices. Creating systems for high involvement in change efforts, openly discussing decision-making criteria, giving and receiving feedback, and ensuring organizational policies and procedures and applied fairly and equitably are all valuable strategies to increase transparency. On an individual basis, it’s important for us leaders to remember that our people want to know our values, beliefs, and what motivates our decisions and actions. Colleen Barrett, President Emeritus of Southwest Airlines, likes to say that “People will respect you for what you know, but they’ll love you for your vulnerabilities.”
4. Information is shared openly – In the absence of information, people will make up their own version of the truth. This leads to gossip, rumors, and mis-information which results in people questioning leadership decisions and losing focus on the mission at hand. Leaders who share information about themselves and the organization build trust and credibility with their followers. When people are entrusted with all the necessary information to make intelligent business decisions, they are compelled to act responsibly and a culture of accountability can be maintained.

Applying these four practices fosters an environment of trust and openness that allows your team to not only survive, but thrive, in today’s fast-paced world. Feel free to leave a comment and share your experiences in fostering trust and openness within your team or organization.

(Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.)

Editor’s Note: Randy Conley, co-designer of Blanchard’s Building Trust training program, was recently named to Trust Across America’s 2017 list of Top Thought Leaders in Trust. To see the complete list, visit Trust Across America.

Or maybe you’re thinking about the goals you’ve set for your team or organization and you’re stressed out about how you’re going to actually achieve them. If your experience is similar to mine, you’ve set goals for the year only to look back twelve months later to realize what you accomplished bears little resemblance to what you set out to do. For most of us the challenge is not in setting goals. I mean, we’ve got a ton of projects and priorities on our plates. We’ve got goals aplenty! The difficulty lies in prioritizing goals and staying on track to get them accomplished.

There’s a better way to work toward achieving your goals and it’s called the Six by Six Plan – the six most important priorities you need to accomplish over the next six weeks. It’s a method of goal prioritization and execution I learned from Bill Hybels.

It starts with asking yourself one critically important and fundamental question: What is the greatest contribution I can make to my team/organization in the next six weeks?

In answering that question, consider the decisions, initiatives, or activities for which only you can provide the energy and direction. You will likely generate dozens of items on your list that will need to be whittled down to the six that require you to take the lead in order to deliver the most impact.

There is nothing magical in having six priorities over six weeks. What’s important is having a manageable number of goals to accomplish over a relatively short time period. It needs to be a few goals that allow you to keep your energy high and a short enough time period that creates a sense of urgency. Setting big, broad goals for the year is like running a marathon. It’s too tempting to get overwhelmed, distracted, or lose energy on goals that seem so distant. It’s much easier to run a series of sprints by focusing on just a few key priorities for a short amount of time.

I think it’s important to emphasize the 6×6 method is a helpful tool for goal prioritization and execution. It’s not a way to set goals, which is an art and science unto itself. Check out this YouTube video of Bill Hybels describing the Six by Six Plan. Hopefully you’ll find it as helpful as I did.

(Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.)

Frankenboss

With Halloween just four days away, I told my wife that I wanted to write an article about the bad, clueless behaviors that make a leader a “Frankenboss” (see definition above). Sadly enough, it only took us about 3 minutes to brainstorm the following list. If any of these describe your leadership style, you might want to take a look in the mirror and examine the face that’s peering back at you…you might have bolts growing out the sides of your neck.

You might be a Frankenboss if you…

1. Lose your temper – Some leaders think by yelling or cursing at employees they are motivating them. Baloney! Losing your temper only shows a lack of maturity and self-control. There’s no room for yelling and screaming in today’s workplace. Our society has finally awoken to the damaging effects of bullying in our school system so why should it be any different at work? No one should have to go to work and fear getting reamed out by their boss. If you have troubles controlling your temper then do something to fix it.

2. Don’t follow through on your commitments – One of the quickest ways to erode trust with your followers is to not follow through on commitments. As a leader, your people look to you to see what behavior is acceptable. If you have a habit of not following through on your commitments, it sends an unspoken message to your team that it’s OK for them to not follow through on their commitments either.

3. Don’t pay attention, multi-task, or aren’t “present” in meetings – Some studies say that body language accounts for 50-70% of communication. Multi-tasking on your phone, being preoccupied with other thoughts and priorities, or simply exhibiting an attitude of boredom or impatience in meetings, sends the message to your team that you’d rather be any place else than meeting with them. It’s rude and disrespectful to your team to act that way. If you can’t be fully engaged and devote the time and energy needed to meet with your team, then be honest with them and work to arrange your schedule so you can give them 100% of your focus. They deserve it.

4. Are driven by your Ego – The heart of leadership is about giving, not receiving. Self-serving leaders may be successful in the short-term, but they won’t be able to create a sustainable followership over time. I’m not saying it isn’t important for leaders to have a healthy self-esteem, because if you don’t, it’s going to be hard to generate the self-confidence needed to lead assertively. But there is a difference between self-confidence and egoism. Ken Blanchard likes to say that selfless leaders don’t think less of themselves, they just think about themselves less.

5. Avoid conflict – Successful leaders know how to effectively manage conflict in their teams. Conflict in and of itself is not a bad thing, but our culture tends to have a negative view of conflict and dismisses the benefits of creativity, better decision-making, and innovation that it can bring. Frankenbosses tend to either completely avoid conflict by sweeping issues under the rug, or they go to the extreme by making a mountain out of every molehill. Good leaders learn how to diagnose the situation at hand and use the appropriate conflict management style.

6. Don’t give feedback – Your people need to know how they’re performing, both good and bad. A hallmark of trusted leaders is their open communication style. They share information about themselves, the organization, and they keep their employees apprised of how they’re performing. Meeting on a quarterly basis to review the employee’s goals and their progress towards attaining those goals is a good performance management practice. It’s not fair to your employees to give them an assignment, never check on how they’re doing, and then blast them with negative feedback when they fail to deliver exactly what you wanted. It’s Leadership 101 – set clear goals, provide the direction and support the person needs, provide coaching and feedback along the way, and then celebrate with them when they achieve the goal.

7. Micromanage – Ugh…even saying the word conjures up stress and anxiety. Micromanaging bosses are like dirty diapers – full of crap and all over your a**. The source of micromanagement comes from several places. The micromanager tends to think their way is the best and only way to do the task, they have control issues, they don’t trust others, and generally are not good at training, delegating, and letting go of work. Then they spend their time re-doing the work of their subordinates until it meets their unrealistic standards and they go around complaining about how overworked and stressed-out they are! Knock it off! A sign of a good leader is what happens in the office when you’re not there. Are people fully competent in the work? Is it meeting quality standards? Are they behaving like good corporate citizens? Micromanagers have to learn to hire the right folks, train them to do the job the right way, monitor their performance, and then get out of their way and let them do their jobs.

8. Throw your team members under the bus – When great bosses experience success, they give the credit to their team. When they encounter failure, they take personal responsibility. Blaming, accusing, or making excuses is a sign of being a weak, insecure leader. Trusted leaders own up to their mistakes, don’t blame others, and work to fix the problem. If you’re prone to throwing your team members under the bus whenever you or they mess up, you’ll find that they will start to withdraw, take less risk, and engage in more CYA behavior. No one likes to be called out in front of others, especially when it’s not justified. Man up and take responsibility.

9. Always play by the book – Leadership is not always black and white. There are a lot of gray areas when it comes to being a leader and the best ones learn to use good judgment and intuition to handle each situation uniquely. There are some instances where you need to treat everyone the same when it comes to critical policies and procedures, but there are also lots of times when you need to weigh the variables involved and make tough decisions. Too many leaders rely upon the organizational policy manual so they don’t have to make tough decisions. It’s much easier to say “Sorry, that’s the policy” than it is to jump into the fray and come up with creative solutions to the problems at hand.

10. You practice “seagull” management – A seagull manager is one who periodically flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps all over everyone, and then flies away. Good leaders are engaged with their team members and have the pulse of what’s going on in the organization. That is much harder work than it is to be a seagull manager, but it also earns you much more respect and trust from your team members because they know you understand what they’re dealing with on a day-to-day basis and you have their best interests in mind.

I’m sure you’ve had your own personal experiences with a Frankenboss. What other behaviors would you add to this list? Feel free to leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Over the course of my leadership journey there have been times when I’ve found myself leading on autopilot. Using autopilot is a helpful and necessary tool for airplane pilots, but it’s deadly for leaders. Leading on autopilot is equivalent to “mailing it in” – you physically show up to do the job but your heart and mind are elsewhere.

Here are three warning signs you may be leading on autopilot:

1. Your to-do list is filled with low-impact tactical items – I’m not one to make a big difference between leadership and management, but one of the clear differentiators in my mind is that leaders initiate change and managers react to it. If you find your to-do list is filled with low-impact, tactical items that contribute more to the daily operations of the business, then you may be running on autopilot. Your to-do list should be focused on big picture, strategic items that could make significant improvements in your operations.

There is nothing wrong with having tactical items on your to-do list. Every leadership job has a certain element of administrative or operational tasks that must be handled. The key is the amount of time and energy you devote to the tactical versus strategic parts of your role. You can dedicate more time for strategic items by intentionally planning strategic thinking time on your calendar. Block out chunks of time on a regular basis to think and plan for the long-term needs of your business. Spend time talking to your customers, stakeholders, and other leaders in the organization to help you get a broad view of the landscape of your business. Do your best to take control of your calendar and don’t get trapped in firefighting all the urgent issues that cross your desk.

2. You find yourself in reactive mode all the time – Building on the previous point, leaders who run on autopilot often find themselves surprised by changing business conditions. The autopilot leader easily becomes oblivious to changes occurring around him until the nature of the situation reaches a crises point, forcing the leader to snap back to reality. This happens because the leader was content to react to change rather than initiate it. Leaders have the responsibility to survey the landscape and proactively make changes to position their teams to take advantage of changing conditions, not be waylaid by them. If you find that you are constantly reacting to issues raised by customers, other organizational leaders, or even your team members, then you’re probably being too passive as a leader and letting circumstances dictate your actions. Instead, focus on being proactive and trying to shape those situations to your advantage.

3. You get upset when your routine is disturbed – Routine has the potential to be quite good. It can create powerful habits that lead to effectiveness over a long period of time. However, routine equally has the power to be bad. Taken to extreme, routine becomes complacency. Most people prefer some sort of routine, whether minimal or quite elaborate. We’re creatures of habit and it’s a normal part of our makeup. However, we have a problem when we’re more emotionally and mentally invested in preserving our routine at the expense of adapting our leadership methods to accomplish the goals of our organization. One of the most important competencies for leaders in the 21st century is adaptability. The pace of change continues to accelerate year after year and only adaptable leaders will survive while complacent leaders will be left behind. If you find yourself getting perturbed or exasperated because your routine is being messed with, you may have been running on autopilot too long.

Running on autopilot is great if you’re a pilot, but it’s a bad idea if you’re a leader. Instead, find yourself copilots who can shoulder the burden with you. Leadership doesn’t have to be, and shouldn’t be, an individual sport. Today’s business landscape and organizations are too fast-moving and complex for one person to lead by him/herself. Surround yourself with capable leaders and team members who can fly the plane with you and you’ll find you won’t have any need for leading on autopilot.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

I’ve interviewed dozens upon dozens of job candidates over the years, and based on my experience as a hiring manager and as a subject-matter expert on trust, I can tell you there are some very simple things you can do to build trust with prospective employers. All too often job candidates rule themselves out of contention by not paying attention to these basics of interviewing. If you want to build trust in a job interview, do the following:

1. Proofread your resume — In this day and age there is no excuse for typos and obvious grammatical mistakes on a resume. Your resume reflects your level of professionalism and attention to detail. It’s often the first impression you make with a prospective employer and you want it to accurately and positively display your personal brand identity. When I see a resume chock full of errors, my first thought is to have doubts about trusting this person to do a quality job. If they aren’t doing a quality job on their own resume, why should I think they’ll do a good job on my team? In a sad twist of irony, the more prevalent technology has become in our lives, the more carelessness I’ve seen in resumes. Proofreading your resume is more than running spellcheck in a word processing program. Read it out loud, have others read your resume, and use tools like grammerly.com to make sure your resume is the best it can be.

2. Research the company — If you want to build trust with a potential employer, do your homework on their organization. Just like proofreading your resume, this tip sounds like a no-brainer, but believe me, it’s not. You would be surprised at how many people show up to an interview not having taken the time to do a quick Google search on the company or check the Linked-In profiles of the people with whom they’ll be interviewing. Devoting the time to educate yourself on the organization builds trust in your capabilities to take the initiative to learn what you need to know to accomplish your goals.

3. Be humbly confident — People want to trust in your expertise, however, coming across as a narcissistic superstar turns people off. Don’t shy away from tooting your horn about your accomplishments, but do it in a gracious, humble, and professional way. One way to do that is to use “we” language instead of “me” language. Emphasize the way you’ve collaborated with others to achieve goals and freely share the credit with those who’ve partnered with you. You don’t need to blow out another person’s candle so yours can shine brighter.

4. Be honest and transparent — You build trust with others by showing a level of vulnerability that’s appropriate for the context of the situation. Share information about yourself, including your strengths and areas where you know you need to improve. Of course you want to present your areas of growth in a positive light, but you also want to be genuine and authentic. People can sniff out a fraud, and the worst thing that can happen is selling a new employer a bill of goods by making yourself out to be something you’re not.

5. Send a thank you note — Sending a thank you note is Interviewing 101 yet it’s become a lost art in today’s world. Not only does sending a thank you note give you the opportunity to reiterate your strengths and address any areas of concern that were discussed in the interview, but it builds trust by showing your prospective employer that you truly care. Whether you send the note electronically or handwritten (I suggest both), make sure you do it promptly after the interview. In today’s fast-moving society of surface-level friendships, taking the time to express your appreciation sets you apart from the crowd.

Trust in a relationship is composed of four main elements and we build trust when we act in ways that align with those elements. The five simple suggestions listed above are trust-boosting behaviors and using them will enhance your trustworthiness during the job interview process.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Of course there isn’t a “leadership” event in the Olympics, but if there were, I think there are four essential traits, qualities, or characteristics that leaders would need to master in order to have a shot at the gold.

1. Be a trust-builder – Leadership is about relationships, and all successful relationships have one thing in common: a foundation of trust. The ability to build high-trust relationships is the most important leadership competency in the 21^st century. Our fast paced, highly networked world requires leaders to build effective relationships across time zones, countries, cultures, organizations, and stakeholders. With trust a leader has a chance. Without it they’re doomed.

2. Have a high EQ – In the old days we use to say that someone had “good people skills,” meaning they had an ability to understand people and get along well with them. Today we’ve expanded and rebranded that concept under “emotional intelligence (EQ)” which means you have a high degree of self-awareness (your motivations, beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral patterns), are able to regulate those behaviors to meet the needs of the situation, and that you are also able to perceive and understand the behavioral needs and patterns of those you lead. That’s a tall order, but it’s a critical skill for leaders if they want to be successful in managing themselves and others.

3. Be a change agent – The only constant in today’s world is change. Technology has changed the speed at which we work, and gold medal winning leaders know they have to be the ones leading organizational change. Leaders can’t afford to be caught snoozing on the sidelines when it comes to change. They need to have their finger in the air to detect changing wind conditions and then be able to respond by getting their teams on course to meet the needs of the business.

4. Be other-focused – The most successful leaders have learned that it’s not about them; it’s about the people they lead. Gold medal leaders have discovered that they succeed when their people succeed, and in order for that to happen, leaders have to recruit and hire the right folks, train them, equip them with the proper resources, and then get out of their way. That doesn’t mean there aren’t times when a command and control leadership style may be needed (you don’t form a committee to formulate recommendations on how to evacuate a burning building; you point people to the exits and tell them to get out!), but it means that people thrive on having a sense of autonomy in their work and a leader’s job is to make that happen.

If I were to equate leadership to an existing Olympic sport, I would have to say it’s like the marathon. The marathon requires stamina, endurance, dedication, and mental fortitude to finish the race, and you have to pace yourself over a great distance and time period, not just for brief intervals. Focusing on these four keys will help leaders run the marathon – go the distance – and have a good shot at winning the gold.

I’m sure you can think of many other keys that define a gold medal winner in Leadership. Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

What she was encouraging me to do was to take a helicopter ride. Speaking metaphorically, I was spending all of my time driving furiously up and down the highways and byways of our business trying to get stuff done, but it caused me to spend a lot of time in traffic jams and the progress was slow. What I needed to do was periodically rise above the daily chaos and take a helicopter ride to gain a different perspective of our work.

Taking time to work on the business…taking a helicopter ride…has several key benefits that will accelerate your productivity and passion for your job.

1. It provides perspective — A few years ago I was painting several rooms in our house and I noticed a trend. The quality of workmanship of the trim at the top of the walls was less than stellar, but I hadn’t noticed it before because I rarely look up. That tends to happen when you live life at eye level. Spending all of your time working in the business can lead to tunnel vision and you run the risk of losing sight of the end goal. We can easily get distracted with fire fighting and stop paying attention to higher level priorities and metrics that drive the success of our organization. An occasional helicopter ride snaps you out of the day-to-day routine and forces you to view your business at a macro-level.
2. It relieves stress — Each of us has a different level for stress tolerance but we all have one thing in common—we will eventually crash and burn when our tank reaches empty. The daily grind of work can be stressful and it takes its toll. Studies have shown that workplace stress is far and away the number one stressor we face in life. It’s imperative for your health to find productive ways to relieve stress and taking the metaphorical helicopter ride is an excellent way to accomplish that goal. Regardless of how you do it – devoting an hour a week to strategic planning, one day a month, or having a periodic retreat with your leadership team – the important thing is you do it. Helicopter rides allow you to clear your mind of pressing priorities and helps you re-calibrate your approach to work.
3. It sparks creativity and problem solving — Many of my best ideas come to me when I’m away from the office. Whether I’m in the shower or cycling in the back country, the ideas flow when I’m relaxed and letting my mind wander. Helicopter rides afford you the opportunity to think in a different way, unencumbered by the routines and demands of the office. Constantly working in the business keeps your mind focused on the immediate and urgent problems, whereas working on the business allows you to creatively brainstorm new approaches to your challenges.
4. It nourishes your soul — Leaders set the tempo for their teams. If you want a team that is engaged, energized, and committed to their work, then you need to model that behavior. That means you’re constantly pouring yourself out for others. If you aren’t replenishing your own energy you won’t have any left to give others. Sometimes helicopter rides mean getting away from work entirely by taking a vacation. Work can wear us down to the point where we develop an attitude of cynicism or a defeatist mentality. If you notice yourself going down that road then it’s a clear warning sign your soul needs some nourishment.

As leaders we are often motivated to always be on the go…get things done…make stuff happen. There’s a time and place for all that activity, but there is also a time and place for rising above the day-to-day and taking a helicopter ride to look at your business, and your leadership practices, in a new and fresh way.

Feel free to leave a comment about your own strategies for taking helicopter rides.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Fast forward a few years to the early-2000’s and I’m supervising team members who worked remotely full-time. The exodus continued for a few years and by the mid-2000’s nearly half my team worked virtually. Nearly 20 years after I submitted my telecommuting proposal the world has become a smaller place. My organization has offices in Canada, the U.K., Singapore, and scores of colleagues work out of home offices around the globe.

My experience mirrors the reality of many leaders today. Managing teams with virtual workers is commonplace and will likely increase as technology becomes ever more ubiquitous in our lives. Here are three specific strategies I’ve adopted over the years in leading a virtual team:

Establish the profile of a successful virtual worker – Not everyone is cut out to be a successful virtual worker. It takes discipline, maturity, good time management skills, technical proficiency (you’re often your own tech support), and a successful track record of performance in the particular role. I’ve always considered working remotely a privilege, not a right, and the privilege has to be earned. You have to have a high level of trust in your virtual workers and they should be reliable and dependable performers who honor their commitments and do good quality work.

Have explicit expectations – There needs to be a clear understanding about the expectations of working virtually. For example, my team has norms around the use of Instant Messenger, forwarding office phone extensions to home/cell lines, using webcams for meetings, frequency of updating voicemail greetings, email response time, and out-of-office protocols just to name a few. Virtual team members generally enjoy greater freedom and autonomy than their office-bound counterparts, and for anyone who has worked remotely can attest, are often more productive and work longer hours in exchange. A downside is virtual workers can suffer from “out of sight, out of mind” so it’s important they work extra hard to be visible and active within the team.

Understand and manage the unique dynamics of a virtual team – Virtual teams add a few wrinkles to your job as a leader and a specific one is communication. It’s important to ramp up the frequency of communication and leverage all the tools at your disposal: email, phone, webcam, instant messenger, and others. It’s helpful to set, and keep, regular meeting times with virtual team members.

One of the biggest challenges in managing a virtual team is fostering a sense of connection. They aren’t privy to the hallway conversations where valuable information about the organization is often shared, and they miss out on those random encounters with other team members where personal relationships are built.

Team building activities also look a little different with a virtual team. Potluck lunches work great for the office staff, but can feel exclusionary to remote workers. Don’t stop doing events for the office staff for fear of leaving out virtual team members, but look for other ways to foster team unity with remote workers. For example, when we’ve had office holiday dinners and a Christmas gift exchange, remote team members will participate in the gift exchange and we’ll send them a gift card to a restaurant of their choice.

For many jobs, work is no longer a place we go to but something we do; from any place at any time. Virtual teams aren’t necessarily better or worse than on-site teams, but they do have different dynamics that need to be accounted for and managed, expectations need to be clear, and you need to make sure the virtual worker is set up for success.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Most leaders stink at setting goals.

Why? It’s pretty simple actually: We confuse tasks with goals.

To illustrate my point, take a look at these statements and see if you can determine which are goals and which are tasks:

1. Reduce my body weight to 182 pounds or less by March 3.
2. Find two friends to exercise with by January 15.
3. Keep a food journal for the next 30 days to track my caloric intake.
4. Exercise 3-4 times a week for the next six months.

You may be wondering why it’s even important to distinguish between goals or tasks. After all, if stuff is getting done, isn’t that what matters? Well, you can be productive in accomplishing a lot of tasks, but if those tasks aren’t connected to accomplishing goals that positively impact the organization, then you’re spending your time focused on all the wrong things.

Here are a few key points on how to tell the difference between goals and tasks.

Goal Statements

A goal statement describes the desired outcomes to be accomplished by an individual within a specific time period. The outcomes set standards for quality, quantity, timeliness, cost, or percent of change required. An effective goal statement includes the elements of: Achieves…Outcome…When.

The “achieves” portion of the statement should include at least one strong action verb. The “outcome” describes the result of different, repetitive, or accumulated activities or provides a range of acceptable results. The “when” includes a specific date or timeline that allows you to know when you’ve accomplished the goal. Statements 1 and 4 above are examples of effective goals.

Task Statements

A task statement outlines steps of activities that should be completed in order to achieve a goal. Usually, these statements will contain a set of steps that must be followed. The task is how specific outcomes will be reached. An effective task statement includes the elements of: Performs Activity…How.

The “performs activity” portion of the statement describes a discrete action that can be done in a short period of time, usually doesn’t include a performance standard, and is a step that is directly related to achieving the goal. The “how” portion of the statement lists smaller, specific actions and usually contains the word “by.” The task statement is usually part of an action plan. Statements 2 and 3 above are examples of tasks.

All good performance starts with clear goals. Whether you use the SMART goal approach (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Trackable) or some other model, focusing on the elements of an effective goal—Achieves…Outcome…When—will help you focus your energy and efforts in the right direction—achieving outcomes that positively impact the performance of individuals and the organization.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Power accompanies leadership. No matter how lofty or humble your title, whether you manage 3 people or 3,000, if you lead a girl scout troop or you’re the CEO of a multi-million dollar company, you will be faced with choices on how to use your power.

You’re probably familiar with the above quote from Lord Acton. Unfortunately, there is much truth in his quote and one only has to look at the news headlines for the latest example of a leader who has misused power for his/her own personal gain.

A good friend of mine who has spent his entire career developing other leaders once shared a keen observation with me. He said that people who need to be in power probably shouldn’t be. His learning was that those people who craved power, who had an inordinate desire to be in control, were the ones most likely to use power in unhealthy ways.

Of course my friend’s statement caused me to wrestle with the concept of power. Do I need to be in power? If so, why? Is it because of ego, status, or enjoyment of the privileges it affords? Is it a bad thing to want to be in power? Would I be unhappy or unfulfilled if I wasn’t in power? One question begets the next.

As I’ve pondered this question, the following ideas have become clearer to me:

1. The best use of power is in service to others. Being a servant leader, rather than a self-serving leader, means giving away my power to help other people achieve their personal goals, the objectives of the organization, and to allow them to reach their full expression and potential as individuals. I love the servant leadership example of Jesus. When two of his disciples came to him seeking positions of power and authority, he chastised them and challenged them to remember that “Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave.” (Mt. 20:26-27) One of the paradoxes of leadership is that by placing others before ourselves, and using our power to serve, rather than dominate, actually brings us more power, respect, commitment and loyalty.

2. Followership is just as important, if not more so, than leadership. Learning to be a good follower is an essential component of being a wise leader who uses power appropriately. A person who learns to submit to the authority of others, collaborate with teammates, and sees first-hand the good and bad effects of the use of power, will have a greater appreciation for how power should be used in relationships. We can all probably think of examples of people who were bestowed leadership positions without ever being a follower, who then went on a “power trip” and showed just how ill-prepared they were to handle the power given them. Followership is the training ground for leadership.

3. The ego craves power. My leadership experiences have taught me that I need to be on guard to keep my ego in check. The ego views power as the nectar of the gods, and if leaders aren’t careful, their ego will intoxicate itself with power. In Ken Blanchard’s Servant Leadership program, he does an “Egos Anonymous” exercise that helps leaders come to grips with the power of the ego to make them self-serving leaders rather than servant leaders. Effective leadership starts on the inside and that means putting the ego in its proper place.

4. Power is held in trust. The power I have as a leader is something entrusted to me, both from my boss who put me in this position and by my followers who have consented to follow my lead. This power is not mine to keep. I’m a temporary steward of this power as long as I’m in my leadership role and it could be taken away at anytime should something drastic change in the relationship with my boss or followers. We’re all familiar with “consent of the governed,” the phrase that describes the political theory that a government’s legitimate and moral right to use state power over citizens can only be granted by the consent of the citizens themselves. The same concept applies to organizational leadership, and the minute our people no longer support our leadership, we have a serious problem.

So, do I need to be in power? I don’t think I need it to be fulfilled in my work, but it’s a question I haven’t yet fully answered. Do I like having power? Yes, I do. It allows me to help others in significant and positive ways. But if I’m being honest, I have to admit that I struggle with the shadow side of power and the temptation to use it to feed my ego.

Let me ask you the question: Do you need to be in power? Feel free to leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Being trained up, I was released into the wild to manage the team. Run free, new manager! Go lead your team!

But there was a problem, and it was a big one. My training lacked one critical component: how to actually manage people.

If you’re a manager, my experience probably rings true for you as well. Most new managers don’t receive adequate training when they move into their new roles. A study by CEB shows 60% of managers under-perform their first two years, resulting in increased performance gaps and employee turnover.

Beside wishing I had been provided training on how to manage people, I wish I had known what my #1 priority should have been as a new manager: building trust. If you have your team’s trust, you open the doors to all kinds of possibilities. Without it, you’re dead in the water.

But how do you actually go about building trust? Most people think it “just happens,” like some sort of relational osmosis. That’s not the case. It’s built through the use of specific behaviors that demonstrate your own trustworthiness as a leader. You are a trustworthy leader when you are:

Able—Being Able is about demonstrating competence. One way leaders demonstrate their competence is having the expertise needed to do their jobs. Expertise comes from possessing the right skills, education, or credentials that establish credibility with others. Leaders also demonstrate their competence through achieving results. Consistently achieving goals and having a track record of success builds trust with others and inspires confidence in your ability. Able leaders are also skilled at facilitating work getting done in the organization. They develop credible project plans, systems, and processes that help team members accomplish their goals.

Believable—A Believable leader acts with integrity. Dealing with people in an honest fashion by keeping promises, not lying or stretching the truth, and not gossiping are ways to demonstrate integrity. Believable leaders also have a clear set of values that have been articulated to their direct reports and they behave consistently with those values—they walk the talk. Finally, treating people fairly and equitably are key components to being a believable leader. Being fair doesn’t necessarily mean treating people the same in all circumstances, but it does mean that people are treated appropriately and justly based on their own unique situation.

Connected—Connected leaders show care and concern for people, which builds trust and helps to create an engaging work environment. Leaders create a sense of connectedness by openly sharing information about themselves and the organization and trusting employees to use that information responsibly. Leaders also build trust by having a “people first” mentality and building rapport with those they lead. Taking an interest in people as individuals and not just as nameless workers shows that leaders value and respect their team members. Recognition is a vital component of being a connected leader, and praising and rewarding the contributions of people and their work builds trust and goodwill.

Dependable—Being Dependable and maintaining reliability is the fourth element of trust. One of the quickest ways to erode trust is by not following through on commitments. Conversely, leaders who do what they say they’re going to do earn a reputation as being consistent and trustworthy. Maintaining reliability requires leaders to be organized in such a way that they are able to follow through on commitments, be on time for appointments and meetings, and get back to people in a timely fashion. Dependable leaders also hold themselves and others accountable for following through on commitments and taking responsibility for the outcomes of their work.

Building trust is the first priority of new managers but it isn’t the only one. Managing takes place through conversations, minute by minute as the dialogue unfolds. As a new leader I wish I had learned the critical skills a first-time manager needs to master. I wish I had known how to have conversations with purpose and direction. I wish I had known how to set goals, give praise or redirection, or wrap up conversations in a way that reinforced clarity and commitment to action (all skills, by the way, addressed in our newly released First-Time Manager training program…where was that 25 years ago when I needed it?!).

Becoming a manager for the first time is a significant career milestone. It is both exciting and nerve-wracking stepping into a role where you are now responsible for others and not just yourself. If that’s you, a new manager, remember the number one priority: building trust. That’s the foundation upon which all your other managerial skills and abilities rest.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

I don’t like the word accountability. It’s always rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. I think it’s because it assumes the worst about people. When we talk about accountability, it always seems the assumption is a person is incapable of, or unlikely to, follow through on his/her commitments. So we spend a lot of time and energy creating systems, processes, or consequences to make the sure the person is held accountable.

I prefer the word responsibility. To me, responsibility has a positive connotation. It’s starting with the mindset that a person will be responsible if he/she is given the necessary tools and training. If a person is responsible, you don’t have to worry about him/her being accountable. Responsibility breeds accountability. Whereas focusing on accountability is only treating the symptoms of a performance issue, addressing responsibility is treating the root cause.

So how can leaders help their people develop an inherent sense of responsibility? Here’s five steps to get started:

1. Create a motivating work environment – You can’t motivate anyone. (What? Did he just say I can’t motivate anyone? Isn’t that one of my primary responsibilities as a leader?) Yes, I just said that. You can’t motivate anyone. Every person is responsible for his/her own motivational outlook. What you can do is create a work environment that allows your people to maximize their sense of autonomy, increase their level of relatedness with others, and develop competence in their work. Autonomy, relatedness, and competence are the variables that allow a person to be optimally motivated and it’s our jobs as leaders to foster an environment that brings out the best in our people.

2. Let your people take the lead in goal setting as much as possible – Think about your own experience. When have you felt the greatest sense of commitment to a goal? When you created it yourself (or had a hand in it), or when a goal was assigned to you? Most likely it was when you were involved in setting the goal because you had a sense of ownership. It was your goal, not someone else’s. Your people will exhibit more responsibility for accomplishing their goals if they are involved in setting them.

3. Be clear on expectations – If people are going to be responsible, they need to clearly understand the expectations of their commitment. Many times our frustrations with people not being accountable is due to a lack of clear expectations. Make sure people know why the goal is important, what the deadlines are, and what constitutes success. If the situation requires you to follow through with negative consequences, do so. Don’t make hollow threats.

4. Use the right leadership style – Your people have different levels of competence and commitment on each of their goals. It’s your job as a leader to flex your leadership style to provide the proper amount of direction and support your people need to accomplish their goals. If you don’t set your people up to be responsible and successful in achieving their goals, that’s on you, not them. (Hold yourself accountable…errr…responsible).

5. Let go – I’ve written previously about balancing control and responsibility. It’s easy to grab control from people when you see them underachieving or shirking their responsibilities. That doesn’t help your people develop responsibility and it only adds to your stress level and workload. If you’ve properly trained and equipped your people, you need to let go and let them succeed or fail on their own.

Starting with these five steps puts the onus on your people to live up to their responsibilities. It’s up to them to hold themselves accountable…to be responsible. The leadership mindset underpinning these steps is one of trust. Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.” Trust your people to rise to the occasion, to be worthy of your trust. Odds are they will prove themselves to be responsible and you won’t have to worry about holding them accountable.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Me: Thank you, Santa, for taking the time to meet with me. You must be exhausted preparing to deliver presents tonight.

Santa: Ho, ho, ho! It’s my pleasure Randy! I’m not exhausted, I’m energized! I love the work I do and consider myself blessed to be able to bring happiness and joy to so many people.

Me: You are one of the most trusted and revered leaders in history. Why do you think that is so?

Santa: Well, I’m humbled by that compliment. I believe a large part of it has to do with my dependability. In all my years I’ve never missed a Christmas delivery. I know that millions of young boys and girls are relying on me to bring them gifts and I never want to disappoint them. If you want people to trust you, you have to be reliable and follow through on your commitments.

Me: How in the world do you manage to make all your deliveries in a single night?

Santa: I can’t reveal all my secrets, otherwise FedEx and UPS might give me a run for my money! Let’s just say that I have to be extremely organized. Any successful leader knows that you must have a clear plan of action. It’s a cliché, but it’s true: People don’t plan to fail, they just fail to plan. I maintain trust with kids and parents by being organized and methodical in my approach to work. It helps me stay on track.

Me: I’ve heard that you keep a list, you check it twice, and you know who’s been naughty or nice. Is that true? Why do you do that?

Santa: Of course it’s true! In leadership terms I consider it my way of “managing performance.” I like to stay in touch with how all the girls and boys are behaving and I think it helps them stay on their best behavior if they know there are consequences for their actions. The parents are the front-line “supervisors” in charge of their kids, so they send me regular reports about how things are going. I partner with the parents to help them set clear goals for their children so the kids know exactly what’s expected of them.It’s not fair to evaluate someone’s performance if they didn’t have defined goals in the first place.

Me: How do you keep all the elves motivated to work throughout the year?

Santa: I have the best team in the world! I’ve always tried to help the elves realize theimportance of the work they do. They aren’t robots who work on an assembly line. They are fine craftsmen who are bringing the dreams of kids to life and that’s a very meaningful job. I also look for opportunities to praise their performance and encourage them to praise each other’s performance as well. It’s creates an environment in our workshop where we cheer each other on to greater success. Finally, I put them in charge of achieving the goal. I make sure they are sufficiently trained to do their particular job and then I get out of their way. The elves have a great degree of autonomy to do their work as they see fit.

Me: Santa, I know you’ve got to make final preparations for delivering presents tonight so I’ll ask this one final question. If you could give one piece of advice to leaders reading this article, what would it be?

Santa: I would encourage leaders to remember the purpose of their position – to serve those they lead. Leaders set the vision and direction for their team, provide the necessary resources and training, and then look for ways to support their team members in achieving their goals. Successful leaders remember that the most important thing they have is their integrity and the trust they hold with their followers, and they continually look for ways to build and maintain trust with others. If they focus on that, they’ll be successful in the long run.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Whenever I conduct trust workshops with clients and discuss the role that rewards and recognition play in building trust, I will ask participants to raise their hands if they feel like they receive too much praise or recognition on the job. No one has ever raised a hand.

So on this day of giving thanks, take a few minutes to review this list and commit to using one of these methods to tell your employees “thank you.” I’ve used many of these strategies myself and can attest to their effectiveness.

1. Let them leave work early – This may not be feasible in all work environments, but if you’re able to do it, a surprise treat of allowing people to leave early does wonders for team morale and well-being. I use this technique occasionally with my team, usually when they’ve had the pedal to the metal for a long period of time, or if we have a holiday weekend coming up. Allowing folks to get a head start on the weekend or a few hours of unexpected free time shows you recognize and appreciate their hard work and that you understand there’s more to life than just work.

2. Leave a “thank you” voice mail message – Don’t tell my I.T. department, but I’ve got voice mails saved from over ten years ago that were sent to me by colleagues who took the time to leave me a special message of praise. The spoken word can have a tremendous impact on individuals, and receiving a heartfelt message from you could positively impact your employees in ways you can’t imagine.

3. Host a potluck lunch – You don’t have to take the team to a fancy restaurant or have a gourmet meal catered in the office (which is great if you can afford it!), you just need to put a little bit of your managerial skills to practice and organize a potluck lunch. Sharing a meal together allows people to bond and relax in a casual setting and it provides an excellent opportunity for you to say a few words of thanks to the team and let them know you appreciate them.

4. Give a small token of appreciation – Giving an employee a small memento provides a lasting symbol of your appreciation, and although it may cost you a few bucks, it’s well worth the investment. I’m talking about simple things like giving nice roller-ball ink pens with a note that says “You’ve got the write stuff,” or Life Savers candies with a little note saying “You’re a hole lot of fun,” or other cheesy, somewhat corny things like that (believe me, people love it!). I’ve done this with my team and I’ve had people tell me years later how much that meant to them at the time.

5. Have your boss recognize an employee – Get your boss to send an email, make a phone call, or best-case scenario, drop by in-person to tell one of your employees “thank you” for his/her work. Getting an attaboy from your boss’ boss is always a big treat. It shows your employee that you recognize his/her efforts and you’re making sure your boss knows about it too.

6. Hold an impromptu 10 minute stand up meeting – This could be no or low-cost depending on what you do, but I’ve called random 10 minute meetings in the afternoon and handed out popsicles or some other treat and taken the opportunity to tell team members “thank you” for their hard work. The surprise meeting, combined with a special treat, throws people out of their same ol’, same ol’ routine and keeps the boss/employee relationship fresh and energetic.

7. Reach out and touch someone – Yes, I’m plagiarizing the old Bell Telephone advertising jingle, but the concept is right on. Human touch holds incredible powers to communicate thankfulness and appreciation. In a team meeting one time, my manager took the time to physically walk around the table, pause behind each team member, place her hands on his/her shoulders, and say a few words about why she was thankful for that person. Nothing creepy or inappropriate, just pure love and respect. Unfortunately, most leaders shy away from appropriate physical contact in the workplace, fearful of harassment complaints or lawsuits. Whether it’s a handshake, high-five, or fist bump, find appropriate ways to communicate your thanks via personal touch.

8. Say “thank you” – This seems like a no-brainer given the topic, but you would be amazed at how many people tell me their boss doesn’t take the time to express thanks. Saying thank you is not only the polite and respectful thing to do, it signals to your people that they matter, they’re important, valuable, and most of all, you care.

9. Send a thank you note to an employee’s family – A friend of mine told me that he occasionally sends a thank you note to the spouse/significant other/family of an employee. He’ll say something to the effect of “Thank you for sharing your husband/wife/dad/mother with us and supporting the work he/she does. He/she a valuable contributor to our team and we appreciate him/her.” Wow…what a powerful way to communicate thankfulness!

10. Give a handwritten note of thanks – Some things never go out of style and handwritten thank you notes are one of them. Emails are fine, voice mails better (even made this list!), but taking the time to send a thoughtful, handwritten note says “thank you” like no other way. Sending handwritten letters or notes is a lost art in today’s electronic culture. When I want to communicate with a personal touch, I go old school with a handwritten note. It takes time, effort, and thought which is what makes it special. Your employees will hold on to those notes for a lifetime.

What other ways to say “thank you” would you add to this list? Please a share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

In his new book, The Optimistic Workplace: Creating An Environment That Energizes Everyone, Shawn Murphy, my friend and fellow advocate of human worth in the workplace, offers six straightforward strategies leaders can employ to develop a sense of community and belonging in workplaces that builds trust and collaboration.

1. Send employees to learn other parts of the business — Early in my career I worked in the funeral service business. Yes, I said funeral service, as in cemeteries and funeral homes. I worked in the corporate headquarters of the cemetery division, far removed from those on the “front lines.” In order to help everyone learn the business and build collaborative relationships with those who worked in the field, all new employees were sent to work at a cemetery or funeral home for three days. It was an experience that transformed me. I came away from it with greater understanding of the business, more appreciation for colleagues working with our customers, and an increased connection to the important service we were providing.

2. Inquire regularly into the team’s effectiveness — Peter Drucker said that nothing good ever happens in organizations by accident. It takes intentional planning and effort and that’s especially true when it comes to staying in touch with how your team members are feeling and performing. It’s easy to fall into the practice of “no news is good news.” An important way to foster trust is to have regular check-in meetings with your team members. We advocate 15-30 minute one-on-one meetings every 1-2 weeks. The agenda is driven by the team member and it can be anything on their mind: how they’re feeling, discussing how things are going at home, direction or support they need on a particular task, or just sharing an update with you about their recent accomplishments. Knowing what’s going on with your team members removes barriers that often derail collaboration.

3. Hire people with collaborative tendencies — In his book, Murphy shares an example of how Menlo Innovations tests job candidates for collaborative tendencies. Candidates are put into pairs, given a challenge to solve, and told that their goal is to make their partner look good. People with a tendency to collaborate make it to the next stage in the hiring process. Instead of asking your job candidates if they like to collaborate, devise some sort of exercise that allows them to demonstrate their skills. Murphy points out that collaboration is not merely an action, it’s also a mindset.

4. Develop routines that reinforce collaboration — You know those committees that get formed to plan holiday parties, team BBQ’s, or other group activities? They can be really frustrating, can’t they? But they serve an important purpose: they reinforce social and team norms that allow people to collaborate and bond with each other. Many of these practices seem out of date in today’s technology-enabled world. Who needs a committee when you can just create a Facebook event and invite everyone, right? Wrong. Leaders who foster high-trust and collaborative environments look for opportunities to bring people together.

5. Create spaces for random collisions — I love this recommendation! We all know that many times the most important decisions or creative breakthroughs happen in the hallway or lunch room conversations after the formal meeting. Murphy recommends we look for ways to structure our work environment that allow people to naturally and routinely “collide” with each other. When people collide in these natural ways, they feed off each others’ energy. It leads to deeper engagement between team members which results in more creative exploration of ideas and concepts. For some organizations the open work space concept works well, while for others it doesn’t fit their culture or business needs. Whatever approach you use, look for ways to help people interact in positive ways.

6. Make time for face to face meetings — Knowledge workers are increasingly isolated as we move to more people working virtually. It’s no longer necessary for everyone to congregate in the same location to get work done. Work is not a place you go; it’s something you do. In this environment it’s even more important to foster human connections. Webcams, Instant Messenger, and other technologies are good starts, but nothing replaces face to face interaction. It’s critically important to bring your team members together at regular intervals so they can deepen their relationships with one another. Trust and commitment to each other is built during these times and it’s the lubrication that keeps relationships working smoothly.

The climate of our organizations set the tone for how people “show up” on the job. Unfortunately, too many leaders are thermometers, reflecting the poor climate of their teams, rather than being thermostats, the climate controllers. Murphy’s book offers a wealth of tips on how leaders can take a proactive approach to being those “thermostats” that create more optimistic workplaces where people flourish.

This issue presents a tremendous challenge for organizational leaders. Even worse than dealing with the effects of people who leave your organization (studies show replacing employees can be 1.5 to 3 times their annual salary), you have to manage these disengaged workers who have decided to “quit and stay.” You’re still paying them to under-perform and ultimately undermine the effectiveness of your organization!

In conducting over 19,000 exit interviews of employees who voluntarily left their jobs, Leigh Branham, author of The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave, identified four basic needs that weren’t being met that started people on the path to disengagement and ultimately quitting a job.

The Need for Trust — The number one priority for any leader is to build trust with his/her team members. Trust is the foundation of any successful relationship, and in the workplace it’s a non-negotiable if leaders desire to tap into the full effort and passion of their employees. Employees won’t give you their best if they don’t believe you have their best interests in mind. They will shy away from taking risks or making themselves vulnerable if they don’t feel safe and trusted. They expect company leadership to deliver on their promises, to be honest and open in communication, to invest in them, and to treat them fairly. The ABCD Trust Model is a helpful tool for leaders to understand what it means to be trustworthy and build trust with others.

The Need to Have Hope — I’ve had the privilege of meeting football legend Rosey Grier, a member of the “Fearsome Foursome” when he played with the Los Angeles Rams, and now a Christian minister and inspirational speaker. He said something I’ve never forgotten. When speaking about his work with inner city youth in Los Angeles, Rosey said “Leaders aren’t dealers of dope, they are dealers of hope!” So true…leaders are dealers of hope. We need to instill a sense of hope in the people we lead. Our people need to believe they will be able to grow, develop their skills, and have the opportunity for advancement or career progress. It’s our job as leaders to foster that hope and support our employees in their growth.

The Need to Feel a Sense of Worth — Despite its struggles and challenges, work is an intrinsically rewarding experience for people. We derive a tremendous amount of self-worth from our work, whether it’s something we’re employed to do or whether we volunteer our time and effort. Employees have a need to feel confident that if they work hard, do their best, and demonstrate commitment and make meaningful contributions, they will be recognized and rewarded appropriately.

The Need to Feel Competent — Employees need to be matched in jobs where their talents align with the challenges of the work. If the work is too simple, then it’s easy for people to lose interest and become disengaged. If the employee is in over his/her head and the work is too challenging, it can lead to discouragement and frustration. Leaders are on a constant quest to find ways to place employees in that sweet spot where they are challenged at just the right level. But it’s not all on the shoulders of leaders to do this work. Employees need to take responsibility for their own development and learn how to manage their motivational outlooks.

Ignore these four needs at your own peril! Poor leadership results in tremendously high costs to organizations, as my colleague, David Witt, discussed in a webinar yesterday. I encourage you to view and listen to the recording. He shares a wealth of research and information that illustrates the importance of effective leadership. You’ll be exposed to several resources, including additional research from Leigh Branham, that will help you improve your own leadership practices.

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Check yourself against this list to see how many of the 10 Commandments of Communication you adhere to:

1. Thou shalt demonstrate genuine care for the other person – People can see right through a phony. If you don’t genuinely care for the other person in the relationship it will show in your words and actions. If it’s important for you to build trust with someone, then you should find ways to genuinely care about them. Examine the relationship to see what it is about the person, or the role they play in your organization, that you appreciate and value. Focus on those aspects of the relationship in an authentic and genuine way.

2. Thou shalt listen to understand, not to respond – Most of us have poor listening skills. Instead of listening to someone to understand their point of view, we spend our mental energy formulating a response. Practice active listening techniques such as asking open-ended questions/statements like “Tell me more” or “How did that make you feel?” Paraphrase key points and check for understanding throughout the conversation and listen with the intent to be influenced by the person speaking, not with the intent to argue or debate. Listening can be one of the easiest and quickest ways to establish trust with someone.

3. Thou shalt use open body language – Studies have shown that 70% or more of communication is nonverbal. Our body language often conveys much more meaning than our words so it’s important than your body language is in alignment with the intent of your words. If at all possible, eliminate physical barriers, like a desk, between you and the person you’re speaking with. Sit side by side or in front of each other, don’t cross your arms, roll your eyes, or grimace. Be sure to smile, nod in understanding, and verbally respond with phrases like “I hear you” or “I understand” to show the other person you’re tracking with the conversation.

4. Thou shalt look for commonalities with the other person – People intuitively trust people who are similar to themselves. When first establishing the relationship, emphasize things you have in common such as where you grew up, went to school, common hobbies/interests you have, or the activities/sports of your children.

5. Thou shalt express empathy/mirror emotions – You’ve probably heard the old saying, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Expressing empathy toward another person is an excellent way to show you care, particularly if you mirror their emotions. Neurological studies have shown our brains contain “mirror neurons” that have the capacity to help us feel the emotions being expressed by another individual. I’m not suggesting you mimic the emotions of others in an attempt to manipulate them into trusting you, but rather taking genuine interest in their plight and letting your natural empathetic instincts express themselves.

6. Thou shalt be transparent and show vulnerability – Establishing trust in a relationship requires one person to make the first move in extending trust. Someone has to make him/herself vulnerable to another and one way to do that is to be transparent (appropriate for the context of the situation) in sharing information. A lack of transparency or vulnerability breeds suspicion in the relationship and is usually the result of one party wanting to minimize risk and maximize control.

7. Thou shalt be positive and respectful – Right or wrong, people will judge the quality of your character by how you speak about and treat others. If you are positive and respectful in your words and actions, people will trust that you will treat them the same way. The opposite is also true. If you speak disparagingly about others or treat others as “less than” yourself, people will not trust you will act with fairness and integrity in your dealings with them.

8. Choose the right time, place, and method to communicate – Just as the secret in real estate is “location, location, location,” the secret to trust-building communication is “timing, timing, timing.” In addition to finding the right time to communicate, it’s important to choose the proper place and method. If your communication involves sensitive personal information, have a face-to-face conversation in a private location. Use email, phone, and other methods of communication that are appropriate to the specific situation.

9. Thou shalt look for opportunities to build up the other person – Your words can be used to build other people up or tear them down. Which do you think will build trust? Building them up, of course. Look for every opportunity to use your communication to help others learn, grow, and become the best version of themselves possible. Doing so will cause people to see that you have their best interests in mind, a key driver of deciding to place their trust in you.

10. Thou shalt own your words – Say what you mean, mean what you say, be forthright, honest, compassionate, caring, and responsible with your communication. If you say something that harms another, apologize sincerely and make amends. It’s really that simple.

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Irresponsible, unreliable, and undependable make for great words in a song, but if those adjectives describe your leadership style then chances are your people don’t trust you.

Now, I believe most people strive to be honorable and trustworthy in their leadership roles. There aren’t too many people who wake up in the morning and on their way into the office exclaim to themselves, “I think today is a fabulous day to break someone’s trust!” Most leaders unintentionally erode trust through what I call “trust busting” behaviors. Despite our best intentions, we sometimes get in our own way and bust trust without even realizing it.

I did a little crowd-sourcing with my team and asked them to send me a list of the most common trust-busting behaviors they’ve experienced from leaders in their career. The wisdom of the crowd was amazing! The behaviors on their lists were eerily similar. In classic David Letterman style, here’s the list of the Top 10 Ways Leaders Erode Trust:

10. Spinning the truth – Leaders erode trust when they try to shape or color the truth to their liking rather than being transparent and authentic in their communication. Spinning the truth is manipulation, just in a more socially acceptable manner, but it’s manipulation nonetheless. Save spin for the gym, not the workplace.

9. Not being available – If your schedule has you constantly booked in meetings and unavailable to the questions or concerns of your team members, you are sending the message that you don’t care about them. That may not be how you really feel, but it’s the message that’s being sent. Your schedule is a reflection of your values and priorities, so be sure to build in time for regular check-in meetings with your team members or just blocks of time where people can drop in for quick questions.

8. Not soliciting or listening to feedback – Believe it or not, your team members probably have pretty good ideas about how to improve your business if you’ll only ask. And if you do ask, make sure you do something with their feedback. Asking for feedback and then disregarding it erodes trust more than not asking for it at all.

7. Withholding information – Why do leaders withhold information? It’s because information is power and power is control. Most people think distrust is the opposite of trust. It’s not. Control is the opposite of trust. If you’re withholding information it’s likely because you’re trying to control your environment and the people around you. People without information cannot act responsibly, but people with information are compelled to act responsibly.

6. Taking credit for other people’s work – Leaders can easily fall into the habit of taking credit for work of their team members. Because it is work produced by their team, the leader rationalizes that it’s OK to take credit for it personally. Trustworthy leaders do the opposite. They call out the good performance of team members and credit those individuals for doing the work. Taking credit for the work of others is another form of plagiarizing. It sends the message to your team members that you don’t value their work and it’s more important for your ego to get credit than giving it to someone else.

5. Not keeping confidences – Integrity is the hallmark of trustworthy leaders. If someone tells you something in confidence then it should never be shared with someone else. Gossip, hallway conversations, or speaking “manager to manager” about something told to you in confidence should not happen. Above all, you should protect your integrity as a leader. At the end of the day it’s the only thing you have.

4. Playing favorites – Want to erode trust and divide your team from within? Then play favorites and watch your team burn. It’s a recipe for disaster. Now, treating people fairly doesn’t mean you have to treat everyone the same. Most leaders resort to this leadership tactic because it’s the easiest thing to do. In reality, it can be the most unfair thing you do. Aristotle said, “There is nothing so unequal as the equal treatment of unequals.” They key to fairness is treating people equitably and ethically given their unique situation.

3. Inconsistency – A key element of being trustworthy is reliability and predictability. Trustworthy leaders behave consistently from setting to setting. They don’t have wild swings of behavior, exhibit temperamental outbursts, or say one thing and do another. Inconsistent leaders keep their team members on edge because they never know who is going to show up. It’s hard to trust someone when you can’t rely on the consistency of their character.

2. Micromanage – As I mentioned in regards to not sharing information (point #7), micromanagement is about control. Micro-managers often rationalize their behavior by saying they’re trying to ensure high quality, or they have the most knowledge and expertise, or they are protecting their team members from failure. That’s BS. Hire smart people, train them properly, and then let them do their jobs. Trust requires risk and leaders need to be the first to take a risk, extend trust to team members, and let them succeed or fail on their own.

And the #1 way leaders erode trust…

1. Not keeping their commitments – I think most leaders have every intention to follow through on their promises, but the problem lies in our eagerness to make the promise without having a clear idea on what it will take to deliver. Leaders tend to be problem-solvers and when a problem presents itself, leaders spring into action to marshal the resources, develop an action plan, and get the problem solved. It’s important to carefully chose your language when you make commitments with other people because although you may not use the word “promise,” others may interpret your agreement to take the next action step as a promise to accomplish the goal. Be clear in your communications and set the proper expectations for what you are and aren’t committing to do.

P.S. If you’re in the mood for a little crooning, here’s a link to Michael Buble’s great cover of Call Me Irresponsible.

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

I recently had to return an item to an office supply store (a national chain) where I encountered this very situation. The item had not been opened from its original packaging, cost less than $20, and I had the receipt of purchase from the same store just a few days prior. The cashier was as helpful and polite as he could be but he couldn’t process the return on his own. He had to call his manager over for approval and get him to unlock the register with his “magic” key so he could take back the item and refund my money.

Really? For a $20 item that hadn’t even been opened? Are you telling me you can’t trust your employees to make that decision on their own? Do you distrust your customers so much that you’re afraid they’ll sneak one over on your unsuspecting cashiers?

Contrast that return policy with those of Nordstrom’s or Costco. You can return virtually anything, without a receipt, purchased from who knows how long ago, and they’ll accept it with little or no questioning. Their employees don’t have to call over a manager to make the decision and customers are rarely inconvenienced by the organization’s return policy. I purposely choose to go out of my way to do business with these companies and others with similar customer service policies because I know I’ll be treated well. If I change my mind about my purchase or something goes wrong with the product, I know I’ll be able to bring it back with no questions asked. They trust their employees to make smart decisions and they trust me, as the customer, that I’m not trying to take advantage of the situation.

If you’re interested in developing customer service policies that demonstrate trust in your employees and customers, consider these five strategies:

1. Operate from the mindset that people are generally trustworthy – Unfortunately, most organizational policies are developed from the opposite mindset: people are not to be trusted and the organization must protect itself from being taken advantage of. That’s operating from a distrusting, fear-based mindset. Undoubtedly there is a small percentage of people who look to take advantage of any given situation. Is it better to tailor your policies to the minority who want to abuse the system or design the policy to support the vast majority of trustworthy people? I advocate for the latter. When operating from a trustworthy mindset, the worse case scenario is you can monitor your policies over time and adjust as necessary given your particular business conditions. But don’t just assume your employees or customers aren’t trustworthy, because the vast majority of us are.

2. Define the boundaries – Let your employees clearly know the boundaries of your policies. Make sure they are clear on the decisions they can make within the purview of their role and which ones require input from leadership. I encourage you to make the boundaries as wide as possible and hire and train your people to take the lead within that space. That means you as the manager lets go and lets the employee operate freely within their boundaries.

3. Foster autonomy – In conjunction with establishing boundaries, foster an environment of autonomy with your employees within those boundaries. Give them the freedom to make decisions that are in the best interest of the customer and the organization. Will they make mistakes? Yes, they will. But they’ll learn from them and that’s one of the benefits and responsibilities of having autonomy. Autonomy fosters responsibility and you want employees who are responsible and personally invested in their work.

4. Share information liberally – When armed with information about the business, it’s strategies, goals, and performance, employees are compelled to act responsibly. Employees operating without the information they need to make good decisions are working with one hand tied behind their backs. Leaders often withhold sharing important information because they are afraid of what employees may do with it. Once again, that’s operating from a fear-based mindset and it reflects a desire to control, not empower people. Make sure your team has all the information they need to make good decisions on behalf of the organization and the customer and then trust them to do their job well (and manage the results if they don’t).

5. Reward appropriate risk taking – The previous four strategies create an environment where employees are empowered to lead on their own and take appropriate risks. When they do that, celebrate their successes. If the risk backfires, then treat it as a learning moment by analyzing what went wrong and what can be learned from it. Don’t treat mistakes as the apocalypse. Coming down hard on people for mistakes will only make them reticent to step out and take a risk in the future. I’m not suggesting you turn a blind eye to failures, because repeated mistakes shows the employee isn’t learning from his/her experience and using proper judgment. Those situations need to be managed appropriately. But for the occasional, honest mistake, celebrate the individual for taking initiative, help them learn the needed lessons, and encourage them to keep leading confidently.

So how does your organization rate? Do your customer service policies show you trust your employees and customers?

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

We tend to make things more complicated than they need to be and that’s definitely true in the field of leadership. To prove my point, go to Amazon.com and search their book listings for the word “leadership” and see how many returns you get (but wait until you finish reading this article!). What did you find? It was 138,611 as of the writing of this post.

Browsing the titles of some popular best-sellers would lead you to believe that in order to be a successful leader you just need to find the magical keys, take the right steps, follow the proper laws, figure out the dysfunctions, embrace the challenge, ascend the levels, look within yourself, look outside yourself, form a tribe, develop the right habits, know the rules, break the rules, be obsessed, learn the new science, or discover the ancient wisdom. Did I say we like to over-complicate things?

What if successful leadership isn’t really that complicated? What if I told you there was one thing…not a title, power, or position…that determined whether people followed your lead? What if you understood there was one aspect of your leadership that was a non-negotiable, must-have characteristic that must be in place for people to pledge you their loyalty and commitment? What if you knew there was one element that defined how people experienced you as a leader? Would you be interested? Can it really be as simple as one thing?

That one thing is trust. It’s the foundation of any successful, healthy, thriving relationship. Without it, your leadership is doomed. Creativity is stifled, innovation grinds to a halt, and reasoned risk-taking is abandoned. People check their hearts and minds at the door, leaving you with a staff who has quit mentally and emotionally but stayed on the payroll, sucking precious resources from your organization.

However, with trust, all things are possible. Energy, progress, productivity, and ingenuity flourish. Commitment, engagement, loyalty, and excellence become more than empty words in a company mission statement; they become reality. Trust has been called the “magic” ingredient of organizational life. It simultaneously acts as the bonding agent that keeps everything together as well as the lubricant that keeps things moving smoothly. Stephen M.R. Covey likes to say that while high trust won’t necessarily rescue a poor strategy, low trust will almost always derail a good one. Trust is essential to your success as a leader.

But trust doesn’t come easy and it doesn’t happen by accident. It’s advanced leadership and requires you to work at it each and every day. It starts by you being trustworthy. The ABCD Trust Model is a helpful tool to help you understand the four elements of being a trustworthy leader.

Leaders build trust when they are:

Able—Being Able is about demonstrating competence. One way leaders demonstrate their competence is having the expertise needed to do their jobs. Expertise comes from possessing the right skills, education, or credentials that establish credibility with others. Leaders also demonstrate their competence through achieving results. Consistently achieving goals and having a track record of success builds trust with others and inspires confidence in your ability. Able leaders are also skilled at facilitating work getting done in the organization. They develop credible project plans, systems, and processes that help team members accomplish their goals.

Believable—A Believable leader acts with integrity. Dealing with people in an honest fashion by keeping promises, not lying or stretching the truth, and not gossiping are ways to demonstrate integrity. Believable leaders also have a clear set of values that have been articulated to their direct reports and they behave consistently with those values—they walk the talk. Finally, treating people fairly and equitably are key components to being a believable leader. Being fair doesn’t necessarily mean treating people the same in all circumstances, but it does mean that people are treated appropriately and justly based on their own unique situation.

Connected—Connected leaders show care and concern for people, which builds trust and helps to create an engaging work environment. Leaders create a sense of connection by openly sharing information about themselves and the organization and trusting employees to use that information responsibly. Leaders also build trust by having a “people first” mentality and building rapport with those they lead. Taking an interest in people as individuals and not just as nameless workers shows that leaders value and respect their team members. Recognition is a vital component of being a connected leader, and praising and rewarding the contributions of people and their work builds trust and goodwill.

Dependable—Being Dependable and maintaining reliability is the fourth element of trustworthiness. One of the quickest ways to erode trust is by not following through on commitments. Conversely, leaders who do what they say they’re going to do earn a reputation as being consistent and trustworthy. Maintaining reliability requires leaders to be organized in such a way that they are able to follow through on commitments, be on time for appointments and meetings, and get back to people in a timely fashion. Dependable leaders also hold themselves and others accountable for following through on commitments and taking responsibility for the outcomes of their work.

Trust – the one requirement for successful leadership. Do you have it?

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

That was the feedback from team members to a recent survey about the state of collaboration within our department. The feedback was consistent that collaboration was…well…inconsistent. It all depends on who you’re working with.

In all organizations you’ll hear people complain about the difficulty of working with certain colleagues. The common refrain is, “If only they would____” communicate better, be more responsive, give me all the information I need…fill in the blank with whatever fits your particular situation.

Instead of being frustrated with other people not being easy to work with, shift the focus to yourself. Are YOU easy to work with? If you are easy to do business with, odds are you’ll find others much more willing to cooperate and collaborate with you.

Here are seven ways to make it easy for people to work with you:

1. Build rapport – People want to work with people they like. Are you likable? Do you build rapport with your colleagues? Get to know them personally, engage in small talk (even if it’s not your “thing”), learn about their lives outside of work, and take a genuine interest in them as people, not just a co-worker who’s there to do a job.

2. Be a good communicator – Poor communication is at the root of many workplace conflicts. People who are easy to work with share information openly and timely, keep others informed as projects evolve, talk through out of the box situations rather than make assumptions, and they ask questions if they aren’t sure of the answer. As a general rule, it’s better to over-communicate than under-communicate.

3. Make their job easier – If you want to gain people’s cooperation, make their job easier and they’ll love you for it. But how do you know what makes their job easier? Ask them! If handing off information in a form rather than a chain of emails makes their job easier, then do it. If it helps your colleague to talk over questions on the phone rather than through email, then give them a call. Identify the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) from your colleague’s perspective and it will help you tailor your interactions so both your and their needs are met.

4. Provide the “why” behind your requests – Very few people like being told what to do. They want to understand why something needs to be done so they can make intelligent decisions about the best way to proceed. Simply passing off information and asking someone to “just do it like I said” is rude and condescending. Make sure your colleagues understand the context of your request, why it’s important, and how critical they are to the success of the task/project. Doing so will have them working with you, not against you.

5. Be trustworthy – Above all, be trustworthy. Follow through on your commitments, keep your word, act with integrity, demonstrate competence in your own work, be honest, admit mistakes, and apologize when necessary. Trust is the foundation of any healthy relationship, and if you want to work well with others, it’s imperative you focus on building trust in the relationship. Trust starts with you being trustworthy.

6. Don’t hide behind electronic communication – Email and Instant Message have their place in organizations, but they don’t replace more personal means of communication like speaking on the phone or face to face. I’ve seen it time and time again – minor problems escalate into major blowouts because people refuse to get out from behind their desks, walk to their colleague’s office, and discuss a situation face to face. It’s much easier to hide behind the computer and fire off nasty-grams than it is to talk to someone about a problem. Just step away from the computer, please!

7. Consistently follow the process – Process…for some people that’s a dirty word and anathema to how they work. However, processes exist for a reason. Usually they are in place to ensure consistency, quality, efficiency, and productivity. When you follow the process, you show your colleagues you respect the norms and boundaries for how you’ve agreed to work together. If you visited a friend’s home and were asked to remove your shoes at the door, you would do so out of respect, right? You wouldn’t make excuses about it being inconvenient or it not being the way you do things in your house. Why should it be different at work? If you need to fill out a form, then fill it out. If you need to use a certain software system to get your information, then use it. Quit making excuses and do work the way it was designed to be done. Besides, if you consistently follow the process, you’ll experience much more grace from your colleagues for those times you legitimately need to deviate from it.

No one likes to think of him/herself as being difficult to work with, yet from time to time we all make life difficult for our colleagues. Focus on what you can do to be easy to do business with and you’ll find that over time others become easier to work with as well.

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Some time ago I was working with a CEO to help him improve the levels of trust and engagement in his company. He had recently hired a Vice President from a competing organization in the same industry. This gentleman was highly successful in his previous organization and had excellent values and ethics—by all accounts a great hire. But the CEO was dissatisfied with the VP’s performance less than a year into his tenure. The CEO felt the VP wasn’t “stepping up” or helping the team “get to the next level.” I asked the CEO, “Have you defined what ‘stepping up’ and ‘getting to the next level’ look like and have you communicated that to the VP?” “No,” said the CEO, “I figured given his experience he should know what that means.”

The curse of unspoken expectations. The result? The CEO was constantly dissatisfied with the VP’s performance, the VP was working his butt off trying to impress the CEO but had no clue he’s missing the mark, and all the while the team plods along producing at half their potential.

Here are three common sense, yet uncommon practices to prevent the curse of unspoken expectations and improve teamwork and collaboration:

1. Don’t assume expectations are clear – You know the old saying about the danger of assuming something, right? When you “assume,” you run the risk of making an “ass” out of “u” and “me.” People are not mind readers so don’t assume expectations are clearly understood. It doesn’t matter how much experience someone has or how long they’ve been in a particular role. If you think there is the slightest chance for misunderstanding, take the time to clarify the goal and objectives.

2. Clearly state, discuss, and agree on expectations – It was completely unfair for that CEO to hold the VP accountable to certain levels of performance without clearly defining the standard by which he would be judged. Just stating the expectations isn’t enough; you need to make sure the other party has the same understanding of those expectations as you do. I’ve had conversations with employees where it’s been clear my expectation of a certain performance standard…let’s say, proactiveness…is definitely different from their perception of what proactive means. That’s why it’s important to discuss and agree upon a common understanding of the expectation so both parties are clear.

3. Consistently adhere to the expectations – If you agree to a standard then keep it. Don’t set the standard at one level for a particular situation and then a different level the next time. Constantly changing expectations leads to confusion and erratic performance. Not meeting expectations is a trust-buster. Consistent and dependable behavior is essential to building and maintaining trust. If you aren’t able to meet an expectation, identify and communicate the problem as early as possible to avoid letting someone down and eroding their trust.

Expectations are tricky in relationships. On the one hand, healthy and clearly communicated expectations can help us raise our performance to new heights. On the other hand, if they aren’t clearly communicated and understood, they become a point of friction and discord that lead to poor performance. Don’t assume expectations are clear, take the time to discuss and agree upon them, then consistently meet them. Everyone will be better off as a result.

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

1. Acknowledge that trust has been broken. As we’ve learned from the success of the twelve-step recovery process, acknowledging that there is a problem is the first step to healing. Don’t use the “ostrich technique” of burying your head in the sand and hoping the situation will resolve itself because it won’t. The longer you wait to address the situation, the more people will perceive your weakness as wickedness.
2. Admit your role in causing the breach of trust. For some leaders this may be a challenging step. It’s one thing to acknowledge that there is a problem, it’s a whole other thing to admit you caused it. Our ego and false pride are usually what prevent us from admitting our mistakes. Muster up the courage, humble yourself, and own up to your actions. This will pay huge dividends down the road as you work to rebuild trust.
3. Apologize for what happened. A sincere apology involves admitting your mistake, accepting responsibility, asking for forgiveness, and taking steps to make amends to the offended party. Explaining the reasons why something happened is fine, but don’t make excuses by trying to shift the blame to something or someone other than yourself.
4. Assess where the breakdown in trust happened using the TrustWorks! ABCD Trust Model. Did you erode trust by not being Able, Believable, Connected, or Dependable? People form perceptions of our trustworthiness when we use, or don’t use, behaviors that align with these four elements of trust. Knowing the specific element of trust you violated will help you take specific actions to fix the problem.
5. Amend the situation by taking corrective action to repair any damage that has been done, and create an action plan for how you’ll improve in the future. Your attempts at rebuilding trust will be stalled unless you take this critical step to demonstrate noticeable changes in behavior.
6. Accountable behavior will be the ultimate determinant of your success. You can apologize until the cows come home and promise not to break trust again, but if your actions don’t align with your words, trust will never be restored. Build accountability measures into your trust-building plan to lessen the chance you’ll repeat the trust-busting behavior.

You can’t control the outcome of this process and there is no guarantee that following these steps will restore trust in the relationship. However, the important thing is that you have made the effort to improve yourself as a leader. You’ll be able to lay your head on the pillow at night with a clear conscience that you’ve done everything under your power to cultivate the soil for trust to once again grow and flourish.

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Power accompanies leadership. No matter how lofty or humble your title, whether you manage 3 people or 3,000, regardless if you lead a girl scout troop or you’re the CEO of a multi-million dollar company, you will be faced with choices on how to use your power. And the way you wield your leadership power will determine whether or not people choose to trust and follow you.

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” ~ Lord Acton

You’re probably familiar with the above quote from Lord Acton. Unfortunately, there is much truth to his quote. One only has to look at the news headlines for the latest example of a leader who has misused power for his/her own personal gain.

A good friend of mine, who has spent his entire career developing other leaders, once shared a keen observation with me. He said that people who need to be in power probably shouldn’t be. His experience has been that those people who craved power, who had an inordinate desire to be in control, were the ones most likely to use power in unhealthy ways.

Of course my friend’s statement caused me to wrestle with the concept of power. Do I need to be in power? If so, why? Is it because of ego, status, or enjoyment of the privileges it affords? Is it a bad thing to want to be in power? Would I be unhappy or unfulfilled if I wasn’t in power? One question begets the next.

As I’ve pondered this question, the following ideas have become clearer to me:

1. The best use of power is in service to others. Being a servant leader, rather than a self-serving leader, means giving away my power to help other people achieve their personal goals, the objectives of the organization, and to allow them to reach their full expression and potential as individuals. I love the servant leadership example of Jesus. When two of his disciples came to him seeking positions of power and authority, he chastised them and challenged them to remember that “Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave.” (Mt. 20:26-27) One of the paradoxes of leadership is that by placing others before ourselves, and using our power to serve, rather than dominate, actually brings us more power, respect, commitment and loyalty.

2. Followership is just as important, if not more so, than leadership. Learning to be a good follower is an essential component of being a wise leader who uses power appropriately. A person who learns to submit to the authority of others, collaborate with teammates, and sees first-hand the good and bad effects of the use of power, will have a greater appreciation for how power should be used in relationships. We can all probably think of examples of people who were bestowed leadership positions without ever being a follower, who then went on a “power trip” and showed just how ill-prepared they were to handle the power given them. Followership is the training ground for leadership.

3. The ego craves power. My leadership experiences have taught me that I need to be on guard to keep my ego in check. The ego views power as the nectar of the gods, and if leaders aren’t careful, their ego will intoxicate itself with power. In Ken Blanchard’s Servant Leadership program, he does an “Egos Anonymous” exercise that helps leaders come to grips with the power of the ego to make them self-serving leaders rather than servant leaders. Effective leadership starts on the inside and that means putting the ego in its proper place.

4. Power is held in trust. The power I have as a leader is something entrusted to me, both from my boss who put me in this position and by my followers who have consented to follow my lead. This power is not mine to keep. I’m a temporary steward of this power as long as I’m in my leadership role and it could be taken away at anytime should something drastic change in the relationship with my boss or followers. We’re all familiar with “consent of the governed,” the phrase that describes the political theory that a government’s legitimate and moral right to use state power over citizens can only be granted by the consent of the citizens themselves. The same concept applies to organizational leadership, and the minute our people no longer support our leadership, we have a serious problem.

So, do I need to be in power? I don’t think I need it to be fulfilled in my work, but it’s a question I haven’t yet fully answered. Do I like having power? Yes, I do. It allows me to help others in significant and positive ways. But if I’m being honest, I have to admit that I struggle with the shadow side of power and the temptation to use it to feed my ego.

Let me ask you the question: Do you need to be in power? Feel free to leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Me: Thank you, Santa, for taking the time to meet with me. You must be exhausted getting ready for Christmas Eve.

Santa: Ho, ho, ho! It’s my pleasure Randy! I’m not exhausted, I’m energized! I love the work I do and consider myself blessed to be able to bring happiness and joy to so many people.

Me: You are one of the most trusted and revered leaders in history. Why do you think that is so?

Santa: Well, I’m humbled by that compliment. I believe a large part of it has to do with my dependability. In all my years I’ve never missed a Christmas delivery. I know that millions of young boys and girls are relying on me to bring them gifts and I never want to disappoint them. If you want people to trust you, you have to be reliable and follow through on your commitments.

Me: How in the world do you manage to make all your deliveries in a single night?

Santa: I can’t reveal all my secrets, otherwise FedEx and UPS might give me a run for my money! Let’s just say that I have to be extremely organized. Any successful leader knows that you must have a clear plan of action. It’s a cliché, but it’s true: People don’t plan to fail, they just fail to plan. I maintain trust with kids and parents by being organized and methodical in my approach to work. It helps me stay on track.

Me: I’ve heard that you keep a list, you check it twice, and you know who’s been naughty or nice. Is that true? Why do you do that?

Santa: Of course it’s true! In leadership terms I consider it my way of “managing performance.” I like to stay in touch with how all the girls and boys are behaving and I think it helps them stay on their best behavior if they know there are consequences for their actions. The parents are the front-line “supervisors” in charge of their kids, so they send me regular reports about how things are going. I partner with the parents to help them set clear goals for their children so the kids know exactly what’s expected of them.It’s not fair to evaluate someone’s performance if they didn’t have defined goals in the first place.

Me: How do you keep all the elves motivated to work throughout the year?

Santa: I have the best team in the world! I’ve always tried to help the elves realize the importance of the work they do. They aren’t robots who work on an assembly line. They are fine craftsmen who are bringing the dreams of kids to life and that’s a very meaningful job. I also look for opportunities to praise their performance and encourage them to praise each other’s performance as well. It’s creates an environment in our workshop where we cheer each other on to greater success. Finally, I put them in charge of achieving the goal. I make sure they are sufficiently trained to do their particular job and then I get out of their way. The elves have a great degree of autonomy to do their work as they see fit.

Me: Santa, I know you’re tired and eager to get back to the North Pole and Mrs. Claus, so I’ll ask this one final question. If you could give one piece of advice to leaders reading this article, what would it be?

Santa: I would encourage leaders to remember the purpose of their position – to serve those they lead. Leaders set the vision and direction for their team, provide the necessary resources and training, and then look for ways to support their team members in achieving their goals. Successful leaders remember that the most important thing they have is their integrity and the trust they hold with their followers, and they continually look for ways to build and maintain trust with others. If they focus on that, they’ll be successful in the long run.

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Frankenboss

Tomorrow is Halloween and in many workplaces around the world employees will don costumes, have a party, and enjoy the crazy and scary alter-egos of their coworkers. On Monday everyone will show up to work dressed normally and we’ll resume our regularly scheduled programming…except for those Frankenbosses. I’ve reported to a few Frankenbosses in my time and it’s not fun. Just like the Frankenstein monster portrayed in Mary Shelley’s novel, a Frankenboss is ignorant of his identity and how he affects others. So before you start thinking this doesn’t apply to you (which is a classic Frankenboss mistake), think again. If any of the ten characteristics below describe your leadership style, take a look in the mirror and examine the face that’s peering back…you might have bolts growing out the sides of your neck.

You might be a Frankenboss if you…

1. Lose your temper – Some leaders think by yelling or cursing at employees they are motivating them. Baloney! Losing your temper only shows a lack of maturity and self-control. There’s no room for yelling and screaming in today’s workplace. Our society has finally awoken to the damaging effects of bullying in our school system so why should it be any different at work? No one should have to go to work and fear getting reamed out by their boss. If you have troubles controlling your temper then do something to fix it.

2. Don’t follow through on your commitments – One of the quickest ways to erode trust with your followers is to not follow through on commitments. As a leader, your people look to you to see what behavior is acceptable, and if you have a habit of not following through on your commitments, it sends an unspoken message to your team that it’s ok for them to not follow through on their commitments either.

3. Don’t pay attention, multi-task, or aren’t “present” in meetings – Some studies say that body language accounts for 50-70% of communication. Multi-tasking on your phone, being preoccupied with other thoughts and priorities, or simply exhibiting an attitude of boredom or impatience in meetings all send the message to your team that you’d rather be any place else than meeting with them. It’s rude and disrespectful to your team to act that way. If you can’t be fully engaged and devote the time and energy needed to meet with your team, then be honest with them and work to arrange your schedule so that you can give them 100% of your focus. They deserve it.

4. Are driven by your Ego – The heart of leadership is about giving, not receiving. Self-serving leaders may be successful in the short-term, but they won’t be able to create a sustainable followership over time. I’m not saying it’s not important for leaders to have a healthy self-esteem because it’s very important. If you don’t feel good about yourself, it’s going to be hard to generate the self-confidence needed to lead assertively, but there is a difference between self-confidence and egoism. Ken Blanchard likes to say that selfless leaders don’t think less of themselves, they just think about themselves less.

5. Avoid conflict – Successful leaders know how to effectively manage conflict in their teams. Conflict in and of itself is not a bad thing, but our culture tends to have a negative view of conflict and neglect the benefits of creativity, better decision-making, and innovation that it can bring. Frankenbosses tend to either completely avoid conflict by sweeping issues under the rug or they go to the extreme by choosing to make a mountain out of every molehill. Good leaders learn how to diagnose the situation at hand and use the appropriate conflict management style.

6. Don’t give feedback – Your people need to know how they’re performing, both good and bad. A hallmark of trusted leaders is their open communication style. They share information about themselves, the organization, and they keep their employees apprised of how they’re performing. Meeting on a quarterly basis to review the employee’s goals and their progress towards attaining those goals is a good performance management practice. It’s not fair to your employees to give them an assignment, never check on how they’re doing, and then blast them with negative feedback when they fail to deliver exactly what you wanted. It’s Leadership 101 – set clear goals, provide the direction and support the person needs, provide coaching and feedback along the way, and then celebrate with them when they achieve the goal.

7. Micromanage – Ugh…even saying the word conjures up stress and anxiety. Micromanaging bosses are like dirty diapers – full of crap and all over your a**. The source of micromanagement comes from several places. The micromanager tends to think their way is the best and only way to do the task, they have control issues, they don’t trust others, and generally are not good at training, delegating, and letting go of work. Then they spend their time re-doing the work of their subordinates until it meets their unrealistic standards and they go around complaining about how overworked and stressed-out they are! Knock it off! A sign of a good leader is what happens in the office when you’re not there. Are people fully competent in the work? Is the work meeting quality standards? Are they behaving like good corporate citizens? Micromanagers have to learn to hire the right folks, train them to do the job the right way, monitor their performance, and then get out of their way and let them do their jobs.

8. Throw your team members under the bus – When great bosses experience success, they give the credit to their team. When they encounter failure, they take personal responsibility. Blaming, accusing, or making excuses is a sign of being a weak, insecure leader. Trusted leaders own up to their mistakes, don’t blame others, and work to fix the problem. If you’re prone to throwing your team members under the bus whenever you or they mess up, you’ll find that they will start to withdraw, take less risk, and engage in more CYA behavior. No one likes to be called out in front of others, especially when it’s not justified. Man up and take responsibility.

9. Always play by the book – Leadership is not always black and white. There are a lot of gray areas when it comes to being a leader and the best ones learn to use good judgment and intuition to handle each situation uniquely. There are some instances where you need to treat everyone the same when it comes to critical policies and procedures, but there are also lots of times when you need to weigh the variables involved and make tough decisions. Too many leaders rely upon the organizational policy manual so they don’t have to make tough decisions. It’s much easier to say “Sorry, that’s the policy” than it is to jump into the fray and come up with creative solutions to the problems at hand.

10. You practice “seagull” management – A seagull manager is one who periodically flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps all over everyone, and then flies away. Good leaders are engaged with their team members and have the pulse of what’s going on in the organization. That is much harder work than it is to be a seagull manager, but it also earns you much more respect and trust from your team members because they know you understand what they’re dealing with on a day-to-day basis and you have their best interests in mind.

I’m sure you’ve had your own personal experiences with a Frankenboss. What other behaviors would you add to this list? Feel free to leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

There is a wide variety in the definition of what comprises “working virtually.” It can include those who work full-time from home, part-time telecommuting, and everything in between. Regardless of the amount of time you or co-workers spend working off-site, virtual teams have unique needs that need to be addressed if they are to reach their maximum potential and effectiveness.

All successful virtual teams have three common characteristics: trust, attentiveness, and communication.

Trust – Trust is the foundation of any successful relationship and it’s even more important when building relationships virtually. Without the benefit of regular face to face contact (or any face to face contact), virtual teams have to be much more intentional about focusing on building trust. There are four core elements of trust: competence, integrity, care, and dependability. Virtual team members can build trust by demonstrating competence in their responsibilities, integrity in their actions, care by developing personal relationships with colleagues, and dependability by following through on commitments.

Attentiveness – It’s easy to “check out” or fly under the radar when working on a virtual team. Without the benefit of face to face communication, virtual team members have to work extra hard at being attentive through their verbal and electronic interactions. Leaders of virtual teams have to be diligent about encouraging participation, dealing with conflict, and appropriately rewarding and recognizing team members.

Communication – Body language adds tremendous context to communication with some studies suggesting it comprises more than 55% of the message transmitted…and virtual teams miss out on that (unless you regularly use webcams which I highly recommend). Virtual team members have to work diligently on their tone of communications (written and verbal) and learn to be more perceptive of the emotional content of the message being communicated.

Trust, attentiveness, and communication are essential characteristics of virtual teams and there are a number of strategies leaders can employ to develop these attributes in their teams. To learn more, I encourage you to download our free white paper, Achieving Excellence, Virtually.

Feel free to share your comments, tips, and suggestions on how you foster success in your virtual teams.

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

With over 450 people responding, 61% said acting with integrity – being honest in word and deed was the most important behavior leaders use to build trust. The second most important behavior identified by this group was maintaining reliability – doing what you say you’ll do, followed by caring about others – showing care and compassion and demonstrating competence – being good at what he/she does. (These four behavioral areas are the cornerstones of a trusting relationship.)

I’ve conducted this survey with thousands of individuals and acting with integrity is consistently rated the most important leadership behavior that builds trust. So what does it mean for a leader to act with integrity? The word integrity stems from the Latin adjective integer which means “complete” or “wholeness.” Integrity in behavior means you act with a sense of consistency and steadiness that reflects an alignment between your espoused values and your actions. There are three key ways you can demonstrate integrity with those you lead:

1. Be honest – It seems silly this even has to be mentioned, but all you have to do is read the news headlines to understand even the most well-intentioned leaders can struggle with honesty. The basics apply here: don’t lie, cheat, or steal. But being honest also means not stretching the truth, telling half-truths, omitting facts out of convenience, or failing to speak the truth when needed. Honesty is always the best policy. Period.

2. Live out your values – Do you know your core values? What motivates you as a leader? When faced with a difficult choice, what are the values you use to filter your decision? Developing and articulating your values, and asking others to hold you accountable to living out those behaviors, will help keep your ego in check and allow others to gain confidence in the consistency of your behavior. Living your values is walking the talk.

3. Treat people fairly – Do you treat people fairly or do you play favorites? Whenever I ask leaders this question I typically get a response like, “I’m being fair because I treat everyone the same.” If that’s the way you think, I’d like to challenge your viewpoint. One of the most unfair things a leader can do is to treat everyone the same because it takes the individual’s needs and circumstances out of the equation. Leaders often resort to this approach because it’s the easiest and safest way to go. You can’t get accused of playing favorites if you treat everyone the same, right? Instead, I would suggest you consider treating people equitably and ethically given their unique situation. There are certain policies and procedures that need to be applied across the board, but leaders will find they can build trust more deeply by treating people fairly according to their specific situation and upholding consistent principles with their entire staff.

The cost of not acting with integrity is immense and recovering from a breach of integrity is perhaps one of the most difficult challenges a leader can face. That’s because people perceive integrity to be about who you are as a leader, not just what you do. One only needs to look at today’s news headlines to see the devastating effects of these failures. Politicians resigning from office, corporate leaders arrested for wrongdoing, celebrities losing millions from lost endorsements, and spiritual leaders being disgraced are all results from not acting with a sense of integrity.

The value of acting with integrity is an important reminder for any of us in leadership positions. Whether you’re a parent, teacher, coach, project team member, boss, or any other role that requires you to influence others in a leadership capacity, being consistent in word and deed is the most powerful way to build trust with others.

But I really don’t care if you’re happy at work. In fact, I think all the hype about happiness at work is a bit misguided. Now, before you blow up my Twitter feed with negative feedback or blast me in the comments section of this article, let me explain.

I’m all in favor of being happy. Personally, I much prefer happiness over sadness. If I have a choice, I’ll take happy every day of the week and twice on Sunday. When it comes to work, I’ll take happy there, too. I’d much rather work with happy people than mean people, and I know I’m more productive, creative, and a better teammate at work when I’m happy.

But here’s the deal…On the surface, all the talk about happiness sounds great. But If you aren’t careful and discerning about what you hear in the media and popular culture, you’d think that happiness of employees should be the primary goal of every leader and organization. I don’t buy it and here’s why:

1. Happiness is a fleeting emotion largely dependent on external circumstances – Defining happiness can easily lead to a battle of semantics, but a common, basic definition of “happy” is: delighted, pleased, or glad, as over a particular thing (e.g., to be happy to see a person). I’m happy when I come home from work and my kids have straightened up the house or loaded the dishes into the dishwasher. When it doesn’t happen (which is often), I’m not happy. Does that mean I love my kids any less? No. Is my life less fulfilled because I’m not happy? No. Happiness comes and goes, so it’s not something I want to build my life around. Happiness is too dependent on circumstances beyond my control for me to make it my goal. However, I can control how I respond to the circumstances of my life and I can choose to have a positive attitude. There are many times when work and life deal us a crummy hand. We have to work overtime, business travel takes us away from important family events, or we make a mistake and get reamed out by the boss; none of those things make us happy. But if we have the right attitude and perspective on work and life, we can put those situations in their proper place and learn and grow from the experience.

2. Happiness should be a pleasant outcome of good leadership and organizational culture, not the goal – My job as a leader is not to make you happy. If that was the case, then I’d serve ice cream every afternoon and cater to your every need. No, my job is to help you develop to your fullest potential while accomplishing the goals of our team and organization. If I’m smart, I will lead in a way that builds your commitment to the organization and fosters engagement in your work. I’ll also strive to create a culture that supports your health and well-being and makes your work enjoyable. Oh, and by the way, if you’re happy as a result, then great! Your happiness is not my goal, but you’re free to make it your own.

It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness. ~ Viktor Frankl

3. Happiness is negatively correlated with meaning – It didn’t take scientific research studies for Viktor Frankl to understand a fundamental truth: pursuing happiness as your primary goal is like a dog chasing its tail. Studies have shown that people who place more importance on being happy end up becoming more depressed and unhappy. Rather than happiness, we need to pursue meaning and purpose. Sadly, according to one study by the Centers for Disease Control, 40% of Americans either do not think their lives have a clear sense of purpose or are neutral about whether their lives have purpose.The same study also reported that nearly 25% of Americans feel neutral or do not have a strong sense of what makes their lives meaningful. Having purpose and meaning in life and at work increases overall well-being and satisfaction, improves mental and physical health, enhances resiliency and self-esteem, and decreases the chances of depression. As a leader, your efforts at helping employees understand and connect to the purpose and meaning of their work will reap more benefit than striving to make them happy.

4. Happiness is self-focused; true fulfillment in life (and work) comes from being others-focused – At its core, happiness is a pretty selfish motive when you think about it. Psychologists explain it as drive reduction. We have a need or drive, like hunger, and we seek to satisfy it. When we get what we want to meet the need, we’re happy. However, lasting success and fulfillment in life comes from what you give, not what you get. The greatest example of this is Jesus and his demonstration of servant leadership. This ancient truth is echoed in contemporary research by Adam Grant, the youngest tenured and highest rated professor at The Wharton School. In his book Give and Take, Grant identifies three ways people tend to operate in their relationships: as givers, takers, or matchers. Not surprisingly, although givers may get burned occasionally, they experience higher levels of fulfillment, well-being, and success in life compared to takers or matchers. I’ve experienced it in my own life and seen it in the lives of others. Those who chase happiness as their primary goal tend to be the most selfish and unhappy people I know. Those who give to others tend to be the most fulfilled, joyful, and happy people I’ve seen.

Happiness is a great thing. As I said, I much prefer it to the alternatives. But when happiness at work becomes such a primary focus that organizations start having CHO’s – Chief Happiness Officers – you know happiness has jumped the shark. Happiness at work is a byproduct of doing a good job in all the other fundamental areas of leadership, but it’s misguided to make it our ultimate aim.

Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts, opinions, or questions.

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Although I say that somewhat jokingly, there is an element of truth I’m trying to reinforce with my team—every day you show up to work is an interview for your job. In today’s economy you have to continually demonstrate to your employer how you’re adding value to the organization. I’m not talking about approaching your job from a state of fear, constantly afraid of being let go if you don’t hit a home run every time you come to bat. I’m talking about having an understanding and appreciation for how you have to “bring it” each day you walk through your company’s front door.

Here are five key principles that will help you increase the value and contribution you provide to your organization and increase your chances for long-term success in your career:

1. Accept the new reality – My brother Ron had only one job his entire life. He recently retired from a 40+ year career with a national grocery store chain, having been employed by them since he was a 17 year-old high school student. Those days are gone for most of us. We live in a new reality of a dynamic, constantly shifting, and evolving global economy. It requires businesses to be agile and shift their strategies to take advantage of new opportunities, create new markets, or ward off upstart competitors. You have to come to grips with the need to constantly stay relevant in your job or profession. Complacency and stagnation makes you vulnerable and less valuable to your organization. If you aren’t adding value, you’re probably expendable.

2. Take charge of your own career development – As employees, all of us should expect our employer to help develop us in our role, but career development should be seen as a privilege, not a right. Organizations have an obligation to provide the right training, tools, and resources to enable employees to maximize their potential in the job they were hired to do. But career development (promotions, moving into new roles, etc.) is a privilege and is not the employer’s responsibility. Is it a smart thing for employers to facilitate career development in order to attract and retain key talent? Absolutely! But it’s up to you to keep learning, to further your education, improve proficiency in your job, and develop new skills in alignment with the direction of your organization’s goals and strategies. No one else except you is responsible for your career development.

3. Have an ownership mentality – How would the value of your contribution be different if you acted like you own the place? Would you be more emotionally invested and passionate about the work you do? Would you produce higher quality products? Would you be a little more prudent or cautious with company expenses? Would you care a little more about the customer experience? People who approach their jobs with an ownership mentality care about these sorts of things. They view themselves as stewards of the company’s resources and work hard to promote the success of the entire organization, not just their particular role, team, or department.

4. Build your brand – Whether you realize it or not, you have a brand image at work. Your brand image is not only how people perceive you (your reputation), but also what differentiates you from everyone else in your company. Tom Peters, the guru of personal branding, says, “If you are going to be a brand, you’ve got to become relentlessly focused on what you do that adds value, what you’re proud of, and most important, what you can shamelessly take credit for.” Forget your job title. What is it about your performance that makes you memorable, distinct, or unique? What’s the “buzz” on you? Forget about your job description too. What accomplishments are you most proud of? How have you gone above, beyond, or outside the scope of your job description to add value to your organization? Those are the elements that make up your brand. Check out this article if you need help developing your brand.

5. Consider yourself an independent contractor – Most of us are governed by at-will employment agreements with our companies. Either party can decide to end the employment relationship at any time for any reason (within certain legal boundaries, of course). You would be well-served to view yourself as an independent contractor in the business of you—You, Inc. You have hired out your services to your employer in exchange for a specific level of compensation. At some point in time, either by your choice or your employer’s, that business arrangement may change or end. In the meantime, focus on building a portfolio of accomplishments you can use to secure business with future clients. See rules 1 and 2 above.

Thinking of yourself in these ways might be new to you. It takes a shift in perspective to view yourself as not just an employee doing a job, but as an independent contractor running your own business. If you make that shift, you’ll realize you have to constantly develop your skill-set (i.e., the services you have to offer), build an attractive brand image, and consistently demonstrate to your client (i.e., employer) how you’re adding value. Remember, you are in the business of YOU!

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Liberman’s basic point is that people are having trouble keeping up with the amount of tasks added to their plates and the pace of change occurring in their organizations. Recession-driven layoffs, restructures, and job modifications have forced people to take on extra work, new job duties, or assume different roles and it’s taking a toll. As job scope increases, people feel overwhelmed with the amount of work they have to accomplish, and it leads even the most engaged employees to gravitate toward focusing on the least complex, simple tasks they can control, rather than focusing on the most important and complex issues that need to be addressed.

According to Liberman, much of the fault lies at the feet of senior leaders. Whether it’s pursuing the latest management fad, reorganizing on a whim, or doing a poor job of managing change, senior leaders can be prone to lay the blame of organizational failure at the feet of employees who aren’t performing up to snuff, not taking into account those same employees are still trying to come to grips with the previous round of changes. Wharton professor Peter Cappelli says, “Today, work demands are through the roof. Not just the amount of work but challenges that employees do not know how to meet, in part because they may not be achievable.” Workplace frustration leads to insecurity which leads to a lack of trust and confidence in leadership.

I can identify with these conditions. The team I lead has experienced increased job scope and responsibilities over the years as our business has grown more complex and demanding in today’s global economy. “Task saturation” is a word we’ve used to describe this condition and the insecure, frustrated state of mind it induces. Here are six strategies I’ve found helpful to deal with this “performance anxiety” in the workplace:

1. Create a safe and trusting environment—The number one job of a leader is to build trust with his/her followers. Fostering a culture of safety is essential for trust to not only survive, but thrive. People need to know they can count on their leaders to look out for their best interests, protect them when necessary (even from themselves sometimes), and to genuinely care about them as people and not just worker drones showing up to do a job. Simon Sinek speaks to this truth in his insightful TED Talk, Why good leaders make you feel safe.

2. Ask people for their opinions—One of the most tangible ways leaders can combat frustration and insecurity in the workplace is to ask people for their opinions. But asking is just the first step; you have to do something with what they tell you. The higher up a leader rises in the organization, the easier it is to lose touch with the daily frustrations and battles your employees face. It’s easy to oversimplify the problems and solutions our people face and dismiss their expressions of frustration as whining or griping. Listen with the intent of being influenced and be willing to take action on what you learn.

3. Start, stop, continue—As you consider your next round of corporate restructuring, job modification, or process improvements, ask yourself these three questions: What do we need to start doing? What do we need to stop doing? What do we need to continue doing? I’ve found it’s easy to keep adding new tasks while continuing to do the old tasks. It’s much, much harder to identify those things we should stop doing. We can’t continue to pile more and more work on people and expect them to perform at consistently high levels. There is only so much time to accomplish the work at hand. As an addition to the start, stop, continue strategy, I’m seriously considering adopting a strategy from the simplicity movement: for every new task I add for my team, we have to eliminate one task. Enough of task saturation!

4. Manage change, don’t just announce it—Managing a change initiative involves more than just announcing a new strategy. That’s the easy part! The hard part is actually implementing and managing the change well. People go through specific stages of concern when faced with a major change and leaders need to be equipped to address those concerns throughout the process. By addressing the information, personal, and implementation concerns of employees, leaders can be much more successful in helping their people adapt and endorse the change initiative.

5. Focus on development of boss/employee relationship—One of the primary factors in an employee’s success, satisfaction, and engagement on the job is the quality of the relationship with their boss. Intentional effort needs to be placed on cultivating high-quality boss/employee relationships founded on trust and mutual respect. Frequent and quality conversations need to occur regularly between the boss and employee so the boss is aware of the daily challenges faced by the employee and can work to remove obstacles.

6. Foster empowerment, control, and autonomy—People don’t resist change; they resist being controlled. Much of today’s workplace frustrations are caused by workers having a lack of empowerment in their role, little control over what effects them at work, and scant autonomy in how they perform their tasks. Leaders can build engagement by focusing on the development of these three qualities in the work people do.

Workplace frustration and insecurity is like organizational high blood pressure—it’s a silent killer. This silent killer is not always evident through outward symptoms, but it’s always lurking underneath causing damage day after day. We have a choice…will we do anything about it?

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

How can we be in the flow more often? First, we have to understand the conditions that lead to flow experiences. Second, we have to take steps to create the environment for us to get in the flow.

Conditions for Flow Experiences
There are three basic conditions you need for flow experiences:

1. A clear goal – This is why you often hear athletes talk about being in the zone or having tunnel focus when it comes to their activities. Whether it’s trying to hit a pitched ball, complete a pass, score a goal, make a last second shot, or cross the finish line ahead of others, there is a clear goal that lends purpose, structure, and process to the task at hand. A lack of clear goals often prevents the achievement of flow experiences at work. Unclear goals make it difficult to narrow our focus and attention and leaves us feeling stuck or overwhelmed with the work in front of us.
2. A balance between your skills and the challenge of the task – If you perceive you have the skills to meet the difficulty of the challenge ahead of you, it’s easier to get in the flow. If you believe you’re ill-equipped or don’t have the talent to accomplish the goal, anxiety and stress will prevent you from achieving a flow-state. Conversely, if you believe the goal is not challenging enough given your experience and skills, you’ll encounter boredom or apathy. You need the goal to be challenging enough to capture your attention and simultaneously have enough expertise to give you confidence to tackle the situation.
3. Real-time feedback on your performance – You can feel when you’re in the flow. It’s those occasions where you lose track of time because you’re completely immersed in an activity and things just, well…flow. And when you’re not, you feel like you’re trudging up a muddy hill, taking one step up and sliding back two. Flow is sustained by receiving feedback on your performance. When you see you’re performing well, it increases your confidence and desire to stay in the flow. When you see you’re off course, you can make adjustments to get back on track and in the flow.

How to Increase Flow Experiences
We can take concrete steps to help increase flow experiences at work that will allow us to perform our best. Here are six suggestions:

1. Connect your work to the bigger picture – Too many of us view our work with a microscope rather than a telescope. A microscope allows you to zoom in on the details of a particular object, ignoring the surrounding area. A telescope, on the other hand, allows you to see long distances away—the big picture. Rather than being uninspired by the small tasks you have to do, connect them to the importance of the big picture. Figure out how your work contributes to the betterment of the world. How does your work help improve the lives of people by meeting their needs or desires? All work has redeeming value and it’s up to us to discover it. Tapping into the bigger picture will add motivation and commitment to your work and help you achieve flow in your activities.
2. Clarify and prioritize goals – If your goals aren’t clear, work on gaining clarity. Figure out specifically what you’re trying to accomplish, what the standards are, the deadlines to meet, or the deliverable being produced. If you’re challenged with too many goals, work on prioritization. If you have conflicting priorities from multiple stakeholders, you may have to involve your supervisor to help you. Get clear on what you need to accomplish and then apply laser-like focus to your activities.
3. View work as a game – Games in general, and video games in particular, lend themselves to flow experiences because they are immersing in nature. We get wrapped up in figuring out how to reach a new level, unlock the next treasure, or beat the “boss.” You can apply the same principles to your work. Engage your mind in thinking about how you can accomplish things faster, better, or easier. Are there other ways you can approach tasks or activities that may bring more fulfillment? Look at work as a game you’re trying to master and let your creativity run wild.
4. Seek out bigger challenges and/or improve your skills – Complacency, boredom, and apathy are flow killers. If you find your work lacking in challenge, seek out new ones. Work with your supervisor to see if there are increased responsibilities you can take on, project teams you can join, or other ways to add more challenge in your work. On the flip side, worry, stress, and anxiety are also flow killers. If you find your work is too challenging, explore skill development opportunities. Go back to school, read books, get a mentor, or seek out additional training to boost your confidence and capability to meet the challenges you face.
5. Find your sweet spot – Your sweet spot is where your skills are matched appropriately to the challenge, and when you find that place, you have the greatest chance of achieving states of flow. Finding your sweet spot might mean following point #4 above, or it might mean transforming how you do your work by changing/improving processes, delegating it to someone, or collaborating with others.
6. Choose your motivation – Your supervisor is not responsible for motivating you. You, and only you, control your level of motivation. You can choose to be disinterested in your work or feel like others are imposing work on you, or you can choose to shift your motivational outlook by focusing on areas of your work where you can exhibit autonomy in your activities, mastery over how well you do your job, and satisfaction in the relationships you build with others.

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Yesterday I partnered with Linda Locke, a corporate reputation management expert and Senior Vice President at Standing Partnership, to host the Trust Across America radio show. We explored the topic of how leaders respond to and lead during a crisis of trust. One glance at the news headlines tells you there is no shortage of crises facing leaders today. Whether it’s politics, government, business, sports, or non-profit organizations, there are plenty of contemporary examples of individuals leading during a crisis of trust. Some manage it well; most don’t. The problem? They respond in the wrong way.

Linda suggests there are four primary ways leaders can respond to a crisis of trust:

1. Deny – This is a viable strategy if you can truthfully say you have no culpability or responsibility for the crisis at hand. However, if you have any involvement in the situation, no matter how small, then you need to own up to your actions. We have seen way too many leaders or public figures use this strategy in an attempt to cover their misdeeds, only to have it come back to haunt them when the truth finally surfaced. Think Bill Clinton, Anthony Wiener, Ryan Braun, Lance Armstrong, etc. Deniers would be well served to follow Mark Twain’s advice: “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”

2. Justify – Just like the previous strategy, justifying your actions could be a legitimate response if you truly had no alternative course of action. Sometimes leaders are faced with a trust dilemma, where upholding trust with one group of stakeholders may violate the trust of a different group. We see this often in government, politics, and business, where stakeholder groups have competing interests. In these situations it’s important for leaders and organizations to have a clear set of values that guide their decisions and actions. That doesn’t make it easier to lead during a crisis of trust, but it provides a path forward. On the flip side, trying to justify your actions when you could have acted in a more trustworthy fashion, makes you appear insincere, irresponsible, and incompetent.

3. Excuse – Children are a great example of how this strategy is used, aren’t they?. Think of the typical things a child says when confronted with wrongdoing…It’s not my fault! She made me do it! It’s her fault! Unfortunately, too many leaders haven’t grown out of their childish ways. In an effort to shift blame or responsibility, leaders often respond to a crisis of trust by making excuses. Whether it is natural disasters, the actions of another party, market conditions, governmental policies, or any number of other reasons, the excuse strategy always tries to lay responsibility at the feet of another. Not a recipe for building trust at any time, especially during a crisis.

4. Apologize – Ok, finally a strategy that makes sense! Of course, this is the tried and true, most effective strategy for leading during a crisis of trust. Saying I’m sorry are the two most powerful words you can use to begin rebuilding trust. Using those words conveys remorse for your actions, demonstrates humility, and displays vulnerability, all of which are vital to repairing a breach of trust. Other essential ingredients of an effective apology include not using conditional language, expressing empathy for the offended party, listening to concerns, and committing to not repeating the behavior.

Just like very few people intentionally plan for a natural disaster by having reserves of food, water, and emergency supplies, few leaders have a plan of action for how to respond during a crisis of trust. Although there isn’t a single, one-size-fits-all crisis response plan, leaders should invest the time necessary to develop a strategy tailored to the needs of their organizations.

Are there other strategies you would offer for leading during a crisis? If so, share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

We tend to over-complicate things in life, and when it comes to defining what successful leadership looks like, we 

Searching the shelves of your local bookstore (do those still exist?) or doing a search on Amazon.com would lead you to believe that to be a successful leader you’ll need to discover the keys, take the right steps, obey the laws, figure out the dysfunctions, embrace the challenge, ascend the levels, look within yourself, look outside yourself, form a tribe, develop the right habits, know the rules, break the rules, be obsessed, take control, let go of control, learn the new science, or discover the ancient wisdom. Did I say we like to over-complicate things?

I don’t think leadership should be that complicated. If you’re looking for leadership success, consider these seven simple truths:

1. There aren’t any shortcuts – Leadership is hard work and most of it is on the job training. Formal education and ongoing development are essential parts of developing your leadership competency, but don’t think you can transform yourself into a great leader by reading a certain book or taking a particular training course. Great leaders are built by being in the game, not by standing on the sidelines or sitting in the classroom.

2. Great leaders start by being great followers – Most successful leaders were successful followers at some point. They learned how to be part of a team, put the needs of others ahead of their own, and work toward a goal bigger than themselves. In our hero-worshiping culture, we tend to place the spotlight on the individual achievements of leaders, and not pay much attention to how they cultivated those winning ways earlier in their career. Learn to be a good follower and you’ll learn what it takes to be a good leader.

3. There’s no mysterious secret to leadership success – Contrary to the titles of popular leadership books, there is no single, mysterious secret to unlocking leadership success (see truth #1). All those books I lovingly teased earlier offer valuable insights about various aspects of leadership, but most of them tell you what you already know to be true…which brings me to the next point.

4. You already know what it takes to be a good leader – Not to plagiarise Robert Fulghum, but you probably learned in kindergarten most of what it takes to be a good leader. Be nice. Play well with others. Say please and thank you. Do what you can to help others. Of course you have to mature and apply those fundamentals in adult ways like being transparent and authentic with others, challenging people to strive for their goals, holding them accountable, and having difficult conversations when needed.

5. The difference between management and leadership is overrated – Tons of books and blogs have been written debating the differences between these two concepts. Yes, each has its own unique characteristics, and yes, each of them overlap significantly in the practice of leadership and management. Leaders have to manage and managers have to lead. Learn to do them both well because they are much more similar than they are different.

6. Leaders aren’t special – We’re all bozos on the same bus. Leaders aren’t any more special than individual contributors and everyone is needed to have a successful team. If you view leadership as service, which I happen to do, you should consider your team members more important than yourself. Get your ego out of the way and you’ll be on your way to success.

7. Leadership is much more about who you are than what you do – This is probably the most important truth I’ve learned about leadership over my career. I view leadership as a calling, not a job. As a calling, leadership is about who I am—my values, beliefs, attitudes—and my actions are the visible manifestation of those inner ideals. If you want to be a successful leader, your primary focus should be on the inner work that is required, not on behavioral tricks or techniques.

So there you go, those are my seven simple truths. What do you think? What would you add, delete, or change? Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts. Just don’t make it too complicated.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

No one disagrees that trust is an indispensable ingredient of strong, healthy relationships. In the workplace, high levels of trust increase productivity, efficiency, innovation,and profitability. When trust is low or absent, people avoid risk, decisions are questioned, bureaucracy increases, and productivity and profitability diminish.

However, there are some uncomfortable truths about trust we must confront. These difficult areas often hold us back from fully trusting others and enjoying the personal and corporate benefits of high-trust relationships. We often shy away from acknowledging or addressing these truths because they are exactly that – uncomfortable. But confront them we must if we are to grow in our capacity to trust others and be trustworthy ourselves.

Four Uncomfortable Truths about Trust

1. Trust exposes you to risk – Without risk there is no need for trust. When you trust someone, you are making yourself vulnerable and opening yourself to being let down. That’s scary! People are unpredictable and fallible; mistakes happen. We all know and accept that fact as a truism of the human condition. But are you willing to let the mistakes happen with or to you? Ah, now that’s where the rubber hits the road, doesn’t it? It’s one thing to be accepting of other people’s fallibility when it doesn’t directly affect you. But when it messes up your world? Trust suddenly becomes very uncomfortable and painful.

If you are risk-averse and slow to trust others, take baby steps to increase your comfort level. Start by trusting others with tasks or responsibilities that have no or minimal negative consequences should the person not follow through. As the person proves trustworthy in small matters, extend greater amounts of trust in larger, more important matters.

2. Trust means letting go of control – Most people assume that distrust is the opposite of trust. Not true. Control is the opposite of trust. When you don’t trust someone, you try to retain control of the person or situation. In a leadership capacity, the desire to control often leads to micromanagement, an employee’s worst nightmare and one of the greatest eroders of trust in relationships. Control, of course, is closely related to your level of risk tolerance. The lower your tolerance for risk, the higher degree of control you try to exert.

The truth is we really don’t have as much control as we think we do. I’m defining control as that which you have direct and complete power over. You may be able to control certain aspects of situations or influence people or circumstances, but when you consider that definition, you really only have control over yourself—your actions, attitudes, values, emotions, opinions, and the degree of trust you extend to others. As I wrote about in this post, you can learn to let go of control and like it!

3. Trust requires a personal investment – Trust doesn’t come free; it costs you dearly. Whether it’s your acceptance of risk, loss of control, emotional attachment, time, energy, or money, trust requires a personal investment. Trust works best in a reciprocal environment. I trust you with something and in exchange you reciprocate by trusting me. It’s the very foundation of cooperative society and our global economy. Trust without reciprocation is exploitation. Whether or not you receive anything in return, trust requires a down payment in some form or fashion. From the perspective of earning trust from someone else, trust requires your investment in demonstrating your competence, integrity, care for the relationship, and dependability – the four key elements of trust.

4. Trust is a journey – Establishing trust in a relationship is not a destination; it’s a journey. It’s Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride as you experience the highs and lows of building relationships and nurturing the development of trust. Trust isn’t something you can mandate. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Trust has to be given freely for it to achieve its fullest power. Who do you trust more? The person who demands your trust and allegiance, or the one who earns it by his/her behavior over time? Because trust needs to be given freely, you can’t put a timer on its development. Trust grows according to its own schedule, not yours. Patience is a prerequisite on the journey to high trust.

It’s human nature to prefer comfort and safety, but trust is anything but comfortable and safe. Trust pushes us out of our comfort zones into the world of risk and uncertainty. Yet in one of the strange paradoxes of trust, confronting these uncomfortable truths allows us to achieve the very things we desire: safety, security, comfort, reliability, and predictability. Confront these uncomfortable truths about trust. You won’t regret it.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

If you aren’t familiar with Rudolph’s story, here’s the Reader’s Digest version: Rudolph was a reindeer with a red nose. None of the other reindeer had red noses so Rudolph was frequently ridiculed and ostracized for being different. One foggy Christmas eve, Santa asked Rudolph if he could join the sleigh team and use his red nose to light the way through the fog. Rudolph took the challenge, was a big success, and became loved and admired by all the other reindeer.

Despite how it might sound when Bing Crosby croons about Rudolph’s achievement, that little red-nosed reindeer wasn’t an overnight success. He worked for years preparing himself for his opportunity, and when it came, he took advantage of it. Here’s four lessons we can learn from Rudolph:

1. Don’t let assumed constraints hold you back – Assumed constraints are the self-limiting beliefs we hold that prevent us from being our best. We tell ourselves things like, “I’m not smart enough,” “I’m not creative,” “That job will be too hard,” or, “I’m not like all the other reindeer.” Well, maybe you don’t say that, but you get what I mean. Rudolph could have chosen to limit himself by believing his red nose would prevent him from being on Santa’s team, but instead, he chose to embrace his unique talents. Which leads to the second secret of Rudolph’s success…

2. Leverage your strengths – As illustrated in Marcus Buckingham’s ground-breaking work, we tend to spend most of our time and energy at work, and in life, trying to shore up our weaknesses. If we focus on building upon our strengths and minimizing the instances our weaknesses come into play, we tap into more joy, engagement, and success in our work. Rudolph had a strength no other reindeer possessed, a red nose, and found success because he discovered and leveraged that strength.

3. Prepare for your opportunity – The Roman philosopher Seneca famously said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Rudolph didn’t know if he would ever get the opportunity to be part of Santa’s sleigh team, but he prepared each day so he would be ready when his chance arose. When his opportunity came, he was ready. So much of success comes down to being in the right place at the right time, but that only helps if you’ve put in the right preparation to help you succeed.

4. Take a risk – Nothing ventured, nothing gained…at some point you have to take a risk if you want to succeed. You have to raise your hand, volunteer for the special project, offer an opinion, sign up for that class, ask the girl on a date, or any number of risky actions to move forward in your life and career. Rudolph could have offered Santa a number of excuses…”It’s too foggy,” “My nose isn’t that bright,” “It’s more comfortable here in the stable”…but he saw his chance and he took it! Preparation breeds confidence, and if you’ve put in the hard work to prepare yourself (see point #3), then you can step confidently into your future knowing you’ve done your best to set yourself up for success.

Rudolph transformed himself from a reindeer who lacked self-confidence to the leader of Santa’s sleigh team because he refused to let his assumed constraints hold him back, leveraged the unique strengths he possessed, prepared diligently, and took a risk when the opportunity presented itself. Outstanding lessons for all of us this holiday season.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Whenever I conduct trust workshops with clients and discuss the role that rewards and recognition play in building trust, I will ask participants to raise their hands if they feel like they receive too much praise or recognition on the job. No one has ever raised a hand.

So on this day of giving thanks, take a few minutes to review this list and commit to using one of these methods to tell your employees “thank you.” I’ve used many of these strategies myself and can attest to their effectiveness.

1. Let them leave work early – This may not be feasible in all work environments, but if you’re able to do it, a surprise treat of allowing people to leave early does wonders for team morale and well-being. I use this technique occasionally with my team, usually when they’ve had the pedal to the metal for a long period of time, or if we have a holiday weekend coming up. Allowing folks to get a head start on the weekend or a few hours of unexpected free time shows you recognize and appreciate their hard work and that you understand there’s more to life than just work.

2. Leave a “thank you” voice mail message – Don’t tell my I.T. department, but I’ve got voice mails saved from over ten years ago that were sent to me by colleagues who took the time to leave me a special message of praise. The spoken word can have a tremendous impact on individuals, and receiving a heartfelt message from you could positively impact your employees in ways you can’t imagine.

3. Host a potluck lunch – You don’t have to take the team to a fancy restaurant or have a gourmet meal catered in the office (which is great if you can afford it!), you just need to put a little bit of your managerial skills to practice and organize a potluck lunch. Sharing a meal together allows people to bond and relax in a casual setting and it provides an excellent opportunity for you to say a few words of thanks to the team and let them know you appreciate them.

4. Give a small token of appreciation – Giving an employee a small memento provides a lasting symbol of your appreciation, and although it may cost you a few bucks, it’s well worth the investment. I’m talking about simple things like giving nice roller-ball ink pens with a note that says “You’ve got the write stuff,” or Life Savers candies with a little note saying “You’re a hole lot of fun,” or other cheesy, somewhat corny things like that (believe me, people love it!). I’ve done this with my team and I’ve had people tell me years later how much that meant to them at the time.

5. Have your boss recognize an employee – Get your boss to send an email, make a phone call, or best-case scenario, drop by in-person to tell one of your employees “thank you” for his/her work. Getting an attaboy from your boss’ boss is always a big treat. It shows your employee that you recognize his/her efforts and you’re making sure your boss knows about it too.

6. Hold an impromptu 10 minute stand up meeting – This could be no or low-cost depending on what you do, but I’ve called random 10 minute meetings in the afternoon and handed out popsicles or some other treat and taken the opportunity to tell team members “thank you” for their hard work. The surprise meeting, combined with a special treat, throws people out of their same ol’, same ol’ routine and keeps the boss/employee relationship fresh and energetic.

7. Reach out and touch someone – Yes, I’m plagiarizing the old Bell Telephone advertising jingle, but the concept is right on. Human touch holds incredible powers to communicate thankfulness and appreciation. In a team meeting one time, my manager took the time to physically walk around the table, pause behind each team member, place her hands on his/her shoulders, and say a few words about why she was thankful for that person. Nothing creepy or inappropriate, just pure love and respect. Unfortunately, most leaders shy away from appropriate physical contact in the workplace, fearful of harassment complaints or lawsuits. Whether it’s a handshake, high-five, or fist bump, find appropriate ways to communicate your thanks via personal touch.

8. Say “thank you” – This seems like a no-brainer given the topic, but you would be amazed at how many people tell me their boss doesn’t take the time to express thanks. Saying thank you is not only the polite and respectful thing to do, it signals to your people that they matter, they’re important, valuable, and most of all, you care.

9. Send a thank you note to an employee’s family – A friend of mine told me that he occasionally sends a thank you note to the spouse/significant other/family of an employee. He’ll say something to the effect of “Thank you for sharing your husband/wife/dad/mother with us and supporting the work he/she does. He/she a valuable contributor to our team and we appreciate him/her.” Wow…what a powerful way to communicate thankfulness!

10. Give a handwritten note of thanks – Some things never go out of style and handwritten thank you notes are one of them. Emails are fine, voice mails better (even made this list!), but taking the time to send a thoughtful, handwritten note says “thank you” like no other way. Sending handwritten letters or notes is a lost art in today’s electronic culture. When I want to communicate with a personal touch, I go old school with a handwritten note. It takes time, effort, and thought which is what makes it special. Your employees will hold on to those notes for a lifetime.

What other ways to say “thank you” would you add to this list? Please a share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Liz Wiseman, author of Multipliers – How The Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, spoke at Blanchard’s annual Client Summit the past two days. She shared the following six ways leaders diminish the performance of their team and offered strategies to combat these tendencies. Do you recognize yourself in any of these descriptions?

1. The Idea Guy – You know this kind of leader…He never came up with an idea he didn’t like! Every new business book he reads is a reason to redesign the organization. Every wild idea about a new product or service results in changing business strategies. His ideas are always the best, and even though he may pay lip service to the input of others, he’s always the smartest guy in the room and his ideas prevail. At some point team members get their ideas shot down enough that they stop trying. Even though this leader thinks he’s doing a good thing by coming up with new ideas, he’s actually diminishing the performance of his team dramatically.

How to Fix It: Instead of offering ideas, consider asking questions like: What do you think? How would you solve this problem? What are the pros and cons of our alternatives?

2. Always On – The Always On leader is, well, always on! He doesn’t have an off switch and he’s constantly moving at Mach 5 with his hair on fire. It’s one thing to have a strong work ethic and give work your all, but it’s a whole other thing to expect (or require) people to live at the same breakneck pace you choose for yourself. You’ll eventually burn people out and reduce their effectiveness.

How to Fix It: Play Your Chips – When you go into meetings with your team, pretend you only have 3 to 4 poker chips to play. Reserve your input for the most strategic and important times where you feel you can add the most value. That will allow your team members the space to breathe and devise their own strategies for managing the work.

3. Pacesetter – In a noble effort to set the pace for his team, the Pacesetter leader takes pride in being out in front of his team and setting the example they should follow. That’s a key function of being a leader, but it can diminish your team’s performance if you get too far out in front of your team. If your performance, goals, and expectations are so ridiculously high, your people will give up before they even start the race. Why? They know they don’t have a chance to win. You’ve already got too far of a head start.

How to Fix It: Stretch the responsibility of your direct reports. Instead of you leading the charge on all the important projects, delegate assignments to your team members. Assuming they have the competence and commitment needed to succeed on the particular goal or task, you’ll not only get more work done by involving others, you’ll also increase their engagement and morale.

4. Rescuer – Leaders like to feel needed, and there’s no better way to feel needed than coming to the rescue of your team members (cue Superhero music). Unfortunately, constantly rescuing your people creates learned helplessness on their part, and because you are required to always step in to save the day, it lowers the performance and capacity of your entire team.

How to Fix It: Learn to hold and fold and give the work back to the person who owns it. Assuming you hired the right people and properly trained them, they should be capable of handling their own work.

5. Rapid Responder – The Rapid Responder diminishes the performance of his team because he’s always the first one to respond to a problem or challenge. This leader seems to be everywhere at all times, always putting out whatever fire might exist. What happens over time? Your team members eventually learn that you’ll be the first one to tackle the issue and they can just sit back and watch you do your thing.

How to Fix It: Pause and allow debate. Give your team a chance to respond and figure out a solution before you jump into action.

6. The Optimist – I can identify with this diminishing behavior. In an effort to minimize negative energy or dissent, it’s easier to play the role of the optimist, cheering your team on to success while blindly ignoring the difficult realities of the situation. Life isn’t always full of sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns, and your insistence that “this shouldn’t be too hard” destroys the morale of your team.

How to Fix It: Create space for mistakes. Acknowledge the hard realities facing your team and let them move forward, knowing they’ll make mistakes, learn from them, and improve along the way.

These behaviors are idea killers, energy sappers, intelligence drainers, and diminishers of talent and commitment. With a little self-awareness and self-control, leaders can shift from being diminishers of talent to multipliers of talent.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

mal·prac·tice

1. any improper, negligent practice; misconduct or misuse
2. immoral, illegal, or unethical professional conduct or neglect of professional duty
3. the behavior of most bad bosses in today’s workplaces

What if leaders could be sued for malpractice? Malpractice, as a legal course of action, is usually applied to professionals in the healthcare, legal, accounting, or financial investment fields, but imagine if it applied to bad leaders? Would it change the way you view your position of authority and influence you to be a better leader?

The sad reality is there are too many leaders in organizations today guilty of malpractice. I believe that bad leadership accounts for the majority of dysfunctional behavior in organizations and our research has shown it can result in a financial cost equal to 7% of a company’s annual revenue. That’s over $1 million dollars for an organization with $15 million or more in annual sales.

So what does leadership malpractice look like, and to make this really personal, could you be guilty as charged? Here’s ten warning signs you may be committing leadership malpractice:

1. You’re not trusted – Trust is the one non-negotiable for successful leadership. If you have it, all things are possible. If you don’t, you might skate by for a while as people comply with your leadership, but you won’t gain cooperation and collaboration which are key to long-term success. Lack of trust in your leadership shows up in many ways: people avoid you, they don’t confide in you, gossip, low morale, and lack of engagement just to name a few.

2. Being self-oriented, not other-oriented – Examine the way you speak. Is your language filled with “I/me/mine” or “you/we/our?” Do you place your success ahead of your team’s? Is your leadership in service to self or in service to others?

3. Focusing on results at the expense of relationships – Good leadership focuses on both results and relationships. Focusing on either one to the detriment of the other will place the organization out of balance. You could focus solely on results and burn your people out in the process, or you could cater to the whims of your people and party all the way to bankruptcy. As stewards of the organization, leaders have to strike the right balance between the needs of their people and the bottom-line.

4. Being unethical – I’ve yet to meet anyone who would describe himself as unethical, yet the fact is too many leaders have grown comfortable with practicing situational ethics. We’ve grown comfortable with rationalizing our choices or bending the rules ever so slightly to achieve our goals. Dishonesty, taking credit for other people’s work, turning a blind eye to wrong doing, or dismissing bad behavior as routine are ways this shows up in the workplace. Faced with an ethical dilemma? Here’s three questions that could save your career.

5. Not caring about people – Believe or not, there are many people in leadership positions who don’t really like people. These leaders have moved into management positions because it’s the next natural career step or it’s the only way to gain experience or make more money. You hear them say things like “I wish my people would leave me alone so I can get my job done!” Uh, hello…your people ARE you’re job! Caring for people means you value them for who they are as individuals, not just as workers paid to do a job.

6. Holding people back – Have you ever seen or experienced a situation where a star performer was held back from promotion in order to suit the needs of the boss? I have and it’s not pretty. It’s downright despicable on the part of the leader. Leaders should take pride in being a net-exporter of talent, someone who attracts top talent, grows them to new heights, and helps them move to new opportunities (hopefully ones you’ve created for them in your own organization).

7. Carelessness – Just like a surgeon being careless and leaving a sponge inside a patient, leaders often move too fast and don’t practice good listening skills, use the wrong leadership style, give ineffective feedback, or are preoccupied and not truly present when meeting with an employee. All these behaviors diminish the power and potential of your people.

8. Acting like a know-it-all – Malpractice involves inflicting some sort of injury or harm to another person and know-it-all leaders harm their employees by making them feel “less than.” The boss’ way is the only right way, no matter what the facts are or what others say. A colleague of mine experienced this attitude with a doctor who was treating her young daughter. The girl experienced a seizure and was exhibiting all the signs of diabetes insipidus, a condition that ran in the family. Yet every time my colleague suggested it as a cause, the doctor talked to her like she was an idiot and ignored the test results that confirmed diabetes was indeed the cause. Please don’t be a know-it-all, unless of course you want to be a jerk.

9. Not using all the resources at your disposal – Wouldn’t you want your doctor or lawyer to examine all possible avenues in their attempt to help you? Your employees want the same thing. They want you to use your power to remove roadblocks, secure resources, and provide them the tools and training they need to succeed in their jobs. It’s malpractice when leaders get lazy and don’t go to bat for their employees because it’s too exhausting, hard, or inconvenient.

10. Not staying current and relevant – Leaders need to stay educated and current in their chosen fields, both technically and as leaders. You can’t rely on old practices and outdated leadership techniques (e.g., command and control leadership and carrot-stick motivational techniques) that may have been applicable 30 years ago but aren’t relevant in today’s global, fast-paced, inter-connected work environment.

Malpractice, in the general sense of the word, is negligent conduct by a person in a position of trust that causes harm to another individual. Leaders are in a position of trust and we should use our influence for the betterment of our team members, not for their harm.

About the author

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Oomph! Those words feel like a punch to the gut of the employee on the receiving end, and for the leader delivering the bad news, those words create anxiety and many sleepless nights leading up to that difficult conversation.

No leader likes to see an employee fail on the job. From the moment we start the recruitment process, through interviewing, hiring, and training, our goal is to set up our employees for success. It takes a tremendous amount of time, energy, and expense to bring new people into the organization and ramp them up to full productivity so it’s in everyone’s vested interest to see an employee succeed. Yet we all know there are situations that, for whatever reason, an employee struggles on the job and there isn’t much hope of turning it around.

I recently met with a group of HR professionals and line managers to debrief employee termination situations. As we reviewed the cases at hand, the following nine signs emerged as warning signals, that had they been heeded early on in the employee’s career, a termination decision could have been made much earlier in the process that would have saved everyone a lot of heartache and the company a lot of money. Any one of these signs is alarming in and of itself, but when you combine all of them together…KABOOM! You’ve got an employee meltdown waiting to happen.

Nine Warning Signs of a Failing Employee

1. Things don’t improve with a change of scenery – Maybe it’s the relationship with their boss, certain peers, or the nature of the work has changed and the employee is struggling to perform at her best. Whatever the reason, moving the employee to another role or department can get her back on track. I’ve done it myself and have seen it work. But if you’ve given someone another chance by giving them a change of scenery and it’s still not working out, you should be concerned. The scenery probably isn’t the problem.

2. You feel like you have to walk on eggshells around the employee – We all have personality quirks and some people are more difficult to work with than others, but when an employee becomes cancerous to the morale and productivity of the team and everyone feels like they have to walk on eggshells around the person for fear of incurring their wrath, you’ve got a serious problem. Don’t underestimate the destructive power of a toxic, unpredictable employee.

3. Emotional instability – Part of being a mature adult is being able to manage your emotions and it’s critically important in a professional workplace. If you have an employee that demonstrates severe emotional mood swings on the job and in their relationships with others, you need to pursue the proper legal and ethical guidelines in dealing with the employee and getting them the support they need. Don’t ignore the behavior by chalking it up to the heat of the moment, the stress of the job, or excusing it by saying “Oh, that’s just Joe being Joe.”

4. Trouble fitting into the company culture – Perhaps one of the earliest signs that you have a failing employee is noticing she is having significant trouble adapting to the culture of the organization. There is a natural transition time for any new employee, but if you’re constantly hearing the employee make negative comments about how the company operates and criticizing leadership, or not developing solid relationships with others and becoming part of the team, warning alarms should be going off in your head.

5. Blames others, makes excuses, and challenges authority – You know the incredibly loud sound of air raid sirens used in civil defense situations? That’s the sound you should be hearing if you have an employee with a track record of blaming others and making excuses for her poor performance. Failing employees will often challenge authority by trying to lay the blame at the boss’ feet by saying things like “You should have done this…” or “You didn’t address that problem…” or whatever the case may be. If you have an employee who always seems to be involved in drama, ask yourself “What (or more appropriately ‘who’) is the common denominator in these situations?”

6. Distorts or manipulates the truth – I’ve dealt with employees who were very skilled at manipulating or distorting the truth. In whatever difficult situation they were in, they would find a kernel of truth to justify and excuse their involvement to the point that I would feel compelled to side with them. I learned you have to be discerning and consistent in your approach to dealing with manipulative people and make sure you document your interactions so you have sufficient data to support your termination decision.

7. Unseen gaps in performance – One of the most challenging situations is when an employee seems to be performing well by outside appearances, but when you explore behind the scenes you discover there are gaps in her performance. Maybe it’s sloppy work, not following correct procedures, or even worse, being intentionally deceptive or unethical. Be careful, things may not always be as they seem.

8. A trail of broken relationships – Employees don’t have to be BFF’s with all of their coworkers, but they do need to respect others and be able to work together. A person may be a high-performer in the tasks of her job, but if she can’t get along with other people and has a history of damaging relationships with colleagues, eventually there will come a point where her contributions are outweighed by the damage and drama she creates.

9. Passive-aggressive behavior – You know those smiley-face emoticons at the end of slightly sarcastic and critical emails? A classic example of passive-aggressive behavior where the sender is trying to couch her criticism in feigned-humor. This is toxic and can be hard to manage because it manifests itself is so many ways that appear to be innocuous in and of themselves. Veiled jokes, procrastination, sullenness, resentment, and deliberate or repeated failure to follow-through on tasks are all signs of passive-aggressive behavior. Be careful…very careful.

The number one job for a leader is to help his or her employees succeed. Before an employee is terminated, a leader needs to be able to look in the mirror and honestly admit that everything possible has been done to help the employee succeed. These nine warning signs should serve as critical guideposts in helping any leader be alert to a failing employee.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

In this post from February 2012, I wrote about the fragility of trust and the challenges Ryan Braun faced in trying to rebuild his credibility when he escaped penalty from a failed drug test on a procedural technicality. At that time, Braun used a page from Lance Armstrong’s playbook and vehemently denied any involvement with performance enhancing drugs. Now the truth comes to light and Braun is revealed as not only a cheater but a liar too. #EpicFailure

All of us experience failure from time to time when it comes to building trust. Usually it’s because we think trust “just happens” and we don’t intentionally work at building it. It seems the only time we think about trust is when it gets broken, and then we’re shocked, surprised, and at a loss for what to do. #EpicFailure

Here’s four reasons why we…leaders…YOU…tend to experience epic failure in building trust:

1. You aren’t good at what you do. A key element in building trust in a relationship is your competence. Are you good at what you do? Do you keep learning and growing? People show they are competent when they have the expertise needed for their job, role, or position. They consistently achieve results and are effective problem solvers and decision makers. Demonstrating competence inspires others to have confidence and trust in you.

2. You don’t act with integrity. Trustworthy people are honest with others. They behave in a manner consistent with their stated values, treat people fairly, and behave ethically. “Walking the talk” is essential in building trust in relationships. Braun, Armstrong, and many other fallen public figures are excellent examples of talking the talk, but not walking the walk.

3. You don’t connect with others. Being connected means focusing on people, having good communication skills, and recognizing the contributions of others. We, as human beings, are hardwired for connection with others. We want to be treated as individuals at work and not viewed as mindless worker bees whose only value is to get the work done. You can be the most competent leader out there, but if you don’t care for your people they won’t trust you. Remember, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

4. You aren’t dependable. Dependable people follow through on their commitments. They respond timely to requests and hold themselves and others accountable. Not doing what you say you will do is one of the quickest ways to erode trust with others.

No one likes to think of him/herself as untrustworthy, yet it’s important to know that trust is in the eye of the beholder. Trust is based on perceptions and we create those perceptions by our behavior, one interaction at a time. So in a sense, it doesn’t matter if YOU think you are trustworthy, it matters what OTHERS think about you.

Want to be a trustworthy person? Then act trustworthy. Be good at what you do. Act with integrity. Connect with people. Be dependable. Do that and you won’t ever have to worry about being an #EpicFailure in building trust.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Bosses hear all sorts of crazy things from their team members. Some of the things employees say are funny, some outlandish, some critical, some stupid, some helpful, and some are just downright mean. Receiving feedback comes with the territory of being a leader. I’ve learned you must have a thick skin and a soft heart when it comes to leading people. You can’t let the negative chatter get under your skin and give you a jaundiced outlook on people, yet you also need the emotional maturity to examine the feedback and see if there is something you need to learn or improve upon.

But there are four words a boss never wants to hear: “I don’t trust you.”

However, you will rarely, if ever, hear someone say that to you directly. Trust is one of those topics, along with religion and politics, that is usually taboo to discuss openly in the workplace. It’s often talked about in the shadows and hallways of the organization, not in conference rooms and one-on-one meetings. Instead, you will see how people don’t trust you through behaviors and actions like:

• Excluding you from activities
• Not sharing information with you
• Not following through on commitments to you
• Stress or tension in your relationships
• Team members not taking risks
• Team members doing the bare minimum to get by
• Low morale and productivity in your team
• Rumors and gossip abound in your team
• Team members question your decisions

So if this is your reality, how do you turn it around? What do you do to address low trust with your team? Here are three steps to get you started:

1. Own it – Assess the feedback, take it to heart, and determine where you need to improve. If you’ve broken trust, consider this five-step process to rebuild it. Don’t be afraid to admit your mistakes. Owning up to your shortcomings and apologizing for your behavior is a key way to infuse your relationships with a high dosage of trust.

2. Be consistent – DWYSYWD – Do What You Say You Will Do. Follow through on your commitments, be reliable, and walk your talk. Steady and consistent leaders inspire trust because their people can reasonably predict how they will behave in most situations. Leaders with Jekyll and Hyde personalities create a culture of fear, suspicion, and uncertainty, whereas trusted leaders create an atmosphere of security, confidence, and consistency.

3. Be patient – Trust takes time; it doesn’t happen overnight. If you’re starting in a trust deficit, it can take even more time than if you’re starting from a neutral or low-trust position. Focus on using behaviors that build trust, such as displaying competence in your job, acting with integrity, establishing meaningful connections with your people, and being a reliable and dependable person. Stay committed to your goal of building trust and the results will follow.

Trust is the foundation of all successful relationships. With it, all things are possible. Without it, you’re pushing a large boulder uphill. If you are hearing, or seeing, “I don’t trust you” from your people, take steps now to remedy the situation. Your success as a leader depends on it.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

I think that needs to change. Leaders need to use the “F” word more. Much more.

I used to be afraid of the “F” word until I learned better. Now I find myself using the “F” word whenever I get the chance. Here are four reasons why it’s important for leaders to use the “F” word – feelings – in the workplace (you didn’t really think I was talking about that “F” word, did you?!):

1. It recognizes reality – People don’t check their feelings and emotions at the office door. Every one of your employees is a walking, talking, bundle of thoughts and emotions that affect the way they “show up” at work. Even though every manager in the world wishes that people kept their personal lives at home and didn’t bring their issues to work, that’s just not realistic. Everybody, including you and me, have issues in our lives that affect our work performance. Maybe it’s a sick child, an ailing parent, marital problems, financial pressures, <insert challenge here>, you name it – we all have ups and downs in life. Effective leaders have learned to be emotionally intelligent and understand the need to manage the whole person, not just the faceless/mindless “worker” that shows up to do a job.

2. It builds trust – There is no more important leadership competency than building high-trust relationships. There is very little chance for success in the leader/follower relationship without a solid foundation of trust. One of the core elements of a trustworthy relationship is “connectedness.” People trust you when they know you care about them as individuals and not just workers being paid to do a job. Acknowledging emotions, maintaining open communication, and recognizing/rewarding people for their accomplishments are key behaviors in building trust. You can’t build trust without using the “F” word.

3. It fosters engagement – Research has shown there are 12 primary factors in creating passionate employees at work. By “passionate” I mean engaged employees that are willing to be good corporate citizens, perform at high levels, and devote their discretionary energy to accomplishing their goals and those of the organization. Two of those 12 factors are relationship-focused: connectedness with leader and connectedness with colleagues. Like the theme song from the old TV sitcom “Cheers” says, “You want to go where everybody knows your name.” People need rewarding interpersonal relationships with their coworkers to be fully engaged on the job. Employees also want and need a supportive and personal relationship with their boss. Of course this varies by personality types and other factors, but everyone wants to have a positive and productive relationship with their leader. You have to talk about feelings if you want to have engaged employees.

4. It helps manage stress – People need an appropriate emotional outlet at work to share their concerns and frustrations. There needs to be a “safe zone” where people can voice their feelings without fear of recrimination, and in order for this to be possible, there has to be a high level of trust. Admittedly this can be scary. If there aren’t proper boundaries in place, venting can quickly turn into gossiping, whining, complaining, and general negativity. That’s why I think it’s important for leaders to take charge on this issue and create a culture where their people feel safe in coming to them to share these concerns. People are going to vent about their frustrations whether the leader chooses to be involved or not. Why not be purposeful about creating a system, process, or structure to positively channel these feelings? (Oops, there I go…using the “F” word again.)

The world at work has changed dramatically over the last 25 years. The “F” word used to be off-limits. Everyone understood that a person showed up for work, punched the clock, did their job, punched out, and went home. There was no namby-pamby talk about feelings, engagement, well-being, or happiness at work. You want to be fulfilled? Get a hobby outside of work. That will fulfill you.

Nowadays there is much less separation between a person’s personal life and work life. Technology has blurred the boundaries between those areas and it’s created new dynamics in the workplace to which leaders have to adapt. Whether you like it or not, leaders have to know how to deal with feelings in the workplace. Get used to it, you’re going to have start using the “F” word more. Much more.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

The Doing More With Less challenge was explored from several angles. Several speakers encouraged us to stop and think about our work before rushing headlong into the fray while others reminded us of the power we have to redefine our view of what doing more with less really means. Tips on preventing burnout, time management, communication, and employee relations were offered as well.

Here’s just a few of the thoughts that stood out to me:

• Busyness doesn’t equal productivity. Take time to think and plan. (Mark Sanborn on the importance of taking time to think, focus, and learn)
• You have a finite amount of time and energy. Prioritize what you want to do and relentlessly focus on high value work. (Mike Alpert on disciplined planning spells success)
• Work-life balance assumes one suffers at the expense of the other. We need to integrate the two and find ways that one supports the other. (Fons Trompenaars on integrate, don’t balance)
• Don’t suffer from “brain lard” – wasting your mental energy by focusing on unimportant stuff. (Dick Ruhe)
• Get the right people with the right motivation in the right place with the right tools. (Jack – 13 year old student)
• Your work isn’t just a job. Your work is a series of promises you make. (Susan Mazza on delegating less and negotiating more)
• Leaders need to focus on providing daily inspiration, breeding accountability instead of blame, and balancing self-confidence with humility. (Kate Nasser on being a buoy of inspiration and balance)
• Don’t let what gets your attention drive your focus. Focus on what needs your attention. (Tanveer Nasseer on the power of focus)
• Lean times require a lean approach. Work less and focus on the most important and highest ROI tasks. (Jason Diamond Arnold on the lean approach to working)
• Shift your mentality from “I have to do this” to “I get to do this.” (Margie Blanchard on I have to versus I get to)

I shared that leaders need to eliminate the phrase “do more with less” from our vocabularies. It erodes trust whenever we tell our people they have to do more with less. They feel like we “just don’t get it.” Instead, we need to communicate the reality of our business situation with our team, solicit their involvement in creating strategies to deal with the challenges we’re facing, and dial-up the amount and type of support we offer our folks.

Did you attend the Doing <Still> More With Less Leadership Livecast? If so, what were the nuggets of trust you discovered? If you happened to miss it, you can purchase access to the recording and/or program notes here.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

When it comes to building trust in relationships, someone has to make the first move. One person has to be willing to step out, be a little vulnerable, and place trust in another person. Is it risky? Yes! Without risk there isn’t a need for trust.

So in a work setting, who makes the first move, the leader or the follower? Some would argue that trust has to be earned before it is given, so that places the responsibility on the follower to make the first move. The follower needs to demonstrate trustworthiness over a period of time through consistent behavior, and as time goes by, the leader extends more and more trust to the follower. Makes sense and is certainly valid.

I would argue it’s the leader’s responsibility to make the first move. It’s incumbent upon the leader to extend, build, and sustain trust with his/her followers. Why? It’s the leader’s job to create followership. It’s not the follower’s responsibility to create leadership. In order to create followership – influencing a group of people to work toward achieving the goals of the team, department, organization – trust is an absolute essential ingredient, and establishing, nurturing, and sustaining it has to be a top leadership priority.

When you make the first move and say “I trust you,” through word and deed, you accomplish the following:

• You empower your people — Being trusted frees people to take responsibility and ownership of their work. Trust and control are closely related. We don’t trust others because we want to remain in control and over-supervising or micromanaging employees crushes their initiative and motivation. Extend trust means letting go of control and transferring power to others.
• You encourage innovation — When employees feel trusted they are more willing to take risks, explore new ideas, and look for creative solutions to problems. Conversely, employees that don’t feel trusted will do the minimum amount of work to get by and engage in CYA (cover your “assets”) behavior to avoid catching heat from the boss.
• You tap into discretionary effort — Trust is the lever that allows leaders to tap into the discretionary effort of their people. People who feel trusted will go the extra mile to do a good job because they don’t want to let the boss or organization down. Being trusted instills a sense of responsibility and pride in people and it fuels their efforts to succeed.
• You free yourself to focus in other areas — What happens when you don’t trust your people? You end up doing all the work yourself. Leadership is about developing other people to achieve their goals and those of the organization. Does it take time? Yes. Is it hard work? Yes. Is it worth it? Absolutely! Develop and build trust with your team so that you can spend time on the critical leadership tasks that are on your plate.

Let me make an important point – I’m not suggesting that leaders extend trust blindly. It’s foolish to give complete trust to someone who isn’t competent or hasn’t displayed the integrity to be trusted. I’m talking about extending appropriate levels of trust based on the unique requirements and conditions of the relationship. Leaders have to use sound judgement in regards to the amount of trust they extend and it usually begins with small amounts of trust and grows over time as the person proves to be trustworthy. But the point is, someone has to make the first move to extend trust in a relationship.

Leaders – It’s your move.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

One thing is certain – trust is at the heart of a successful work from home policy. If your work from home policy isn’t based on the premise that your employees are trustworthy, and if the boundaries of the policy don’t nurture and protect trust, you’ll find that allowing employees to work from home will be an ongoing source of suspicion, resentment, and irritation.

Working from home can provide tremendous benefits to both the employer and the employee. Studies have shown that working from home can increase motivation, productivity, efficiency, and allow for better work/life balance. I know that when I work from home I often work longer, harder, and accomplish more than when I’m in the office.

Based on my experience in managing a large team composed of a mixture of office-based and home-based associates, here are some tips I’d pass along:

1. Have a written policy. The policy should include who is eligible to work from home, technology requirements, communication norms, etc.

2. Be clear on performance expectations. It’s easy for people to fly under the radar when working from home. Make sure goals are clear, regular one-on-one meetings are scheduled to stay in touch, and performance evaluation standards are clear.

3. Deal with performance issues. Don’t let poor performance slide. It’s easy to adopt the “out of sight, out of mind” philosophy with remote workers but you should treat them the same as you do associates in the office. If you noticed an employee arriving to work 40 minutes late every day you’d have a discussion with him/her, right? Do the same with your telecommuters.

4. Evaluate people on results. It’s critical to have some sort of performance metrics in place to gauge an employee’s effectiveness. Whether you adopt a Results Oriented Work Environment philosophy, have employees keep time sheets, or audit work samples, it’s important that you have a method of evaluating a remote worker’s productivity and effectiveness.

5. Be transparent and fair. Publish your policy. Talk about it with your team. Let everyone know exactly where they stand when it comes to working from home. Vague or inconsistent telecommuting policies breed suspicion and resentment in teams.

6. Set people up to succeed. Make sure your remote workers have all the tools they need to succeed such as the right training, technology, and equipment. Remote workers need to be high performers in their role and be technologically savvy in order to operate independently.

Working from home isn’t for everyone. Not every employee has the home work environment, personality type, or work ethic to be a successful telecommuter. Working from home can provide just as many distractions as those found in the office so it’s important to have clear boundaries in place and be consistent in how you apply the policy within your team or organization.

What is your experience in working from home or managing those who do? Feel free to share your expertise by posting a comment.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Judy Garland’s line from The Wizard Oz could appropriately capture the feeling of many leaders when it comes to managing Millennials in the workplace – it’s a whole new world! Millennials, or Gen Y (born 1982-1995), are rapidly becoming a greater share of the workforce and some studies have estimated that by 2025 they will comprise 75% of the working population. Like each generation before them, they bring a unique blend of attitudes, traits, and characteristics that define how they “show up” at work. Building trust with this generation and leveraging their strengths in the workplace is a pressing priority for today’s generation of leaders.

Last week I had the privilege of participating in a panel discussion on the topic of Trust in Millennial Leaders, on the Trust Across America radio show, hosted by my friend Jon Mertz, a leadership writer and marketing executive. Jon assembled representatives from Gen Y who are in the early stages of their careers along with a couple of “old guys” (me included!) further along in their career.

The insightful discussion produced a number of valuable learning moments, four of which stood out to me as particularly important for leaders to grasp in order to build trust with Millennials.

1. Millennials are a trusting, optimistic generation – Whenever you speak about generational demographics, there is the danger of over-generalizing and stereotyping individuals. With that said, by and large the Millennial generation has a higher propensity to trust others and they value authentic relationships. A study by Deloitte showed that 87% of the Millennials they surveyed reported that they “completely,” “mostly,” or “moderately” trust their boss, with nearly 1 in 3 falling in the “completely” category. This opens the door for leaders to extend trust to the Millennials on their team with the expectation that trust will be reciprocated. Trust is the foundation of any successful relationship and it’s the starting point for leaders interested in maximizing the talents of the younger generation.

2. Tech savviness of Millennials opens new doors – Gen Y is the first workforce generation to grow up completely in the world of modern computers and it fundamentally drives the way they approach work. Millennials take to technology like a fish takes to water and their use of technology is forcing organizations to reevaluate their business practices. The ubiquitous use of social media by Millennials is one prominent example. For many younger workers there is a blending of work and social community interaction through Facebook, Twitter, or other platforms. Today’s leaders need to consider ways to build trust with Millennials through the use of technology rather than viewing these new methods with fear or suspicion.

3. Millennials are quick learners – In large part due to their upbringing in the computer age, Millennials are conditioned to consume, absorb, and apply large amounts of information. (No experience with creating a business plan? Google it and have nearly 3 million options to meet your need!) Because of their fast-paced nature to learn on the fly, many in this generation have gotten the bad rap of not wanting to “pay their dues” or are “entitled” (Generation Me!) to quick promotions and pay raises. Leaders interested in building trust would be wise to avoid labeling Millennials with these stereotypes and treat them on an individual basis. As Jon Mertz pointed out, many Gen Y’ers understand that growth in organizations today is much more horizontally focused than vertically up the traditional corporate ladder.

4. Millennials know the power of community – A common trait of this generation is their focus on social causes and the strength that comes from like-minded individuals banding together to achieve a common goal. Whether it’s assisting in disaster relief, combating slave trafficking, or providing clean water to villagers in Africa, Millennials have emerged as leaders in addressing social issues. What does that mean for organizational leaders? Millennials are naturals at teamwork! Who wouldn’t want that skill in their company? Millennials are eager and ready to accept new responsibilities and have a natural inclination to partner with others to achieve ambitious goals. Rather than forcing Millennials to “wait their turn,” leaders can build trust by looking for appropriate projects and growth opportunities where they can showcase their talents.

I encourage you to listen to the recording of the radio show. I think you’ll come away from the discussion with a greater appreciation for the skills and talents that Millennials bring to the workforce and a greater hope for a bright future with this new generation of leaders.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

From my perspective, the most damaging leadership cliff from which leaders fall is that of breaking trust with their followers. Repairing broken trust can be a long and arduous process, and the best way to build trust with others is to not break it in the first place. But how does a leader go about intentionally building trust? There are four ways:

1. Demonstrate competence – Leaders build trust when they are good at what they do, both from a technical perspective as well as from a leadership perspective. Part of being a competent leader is having the knowledge and expertise required for your position. Having the education, skills, and know-how for your job allows others to trust your judgement, and coupled with having a track record of success, lets others open themselves to following your lead. Competent leaders also build trust by having excellent problem-solving and decision-making skills. You may not have all the answers, but knowing how to find the answers builds trust in others. Your people learn to trust in your ability to help them get the resources and information they need to do their job.

2. Act with integrity – The most important element in building trust with people is your integrity. Are you honest? Do you gossip? Do you know your core values, and most importantly, do you live them out? Do you walk the talk? Trusted leaders know that at the end of the day the only thing they have left is their character and integrity…that can never be taken away from you. Treating people ethically and equitably, upholding your values and those of the company, and striving to always do the right thing are paramount concerns for a leader concerned with building trust.

3. Care about others – Perhaps you’ve heard the saying “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” You can be the most technically brilliant leader out there, but if you don’t let your guard down and build relationships, people will hold back from fully trusting you because they aren’t sure of your intentions. Trust-builders demonstrate care and concern for the people they lead, viewing their team members as individuals and not just nameless workers doing a job. Communication is a key component of showing care to others. Sharing information about yourself and the organization, being open to feedback from others, and listening with the intent to be influenced are all good strategies. Trusted leaders focus on building rapport with others and valuing the diversity their staff bring to the team.

4. Maintain reliability – Following through on your commitments is a must-have characteristic for trustworthy leaders. Your dependability is only as good as your systems for being organized, and having an organized approach to your work allows you to follow through on your commitments which is a huge trust-booster. Being reliable also means that you hold yourself and your team members accountable. At its core, being accountable means being responsible. If you say you’re going to do something, do it. If you can’t keep a promise, don’t make it. Dependable people are trustworthy people.

Next year will undoubtedly bring its share of challenges, some of which could cause us to fall off our own leadership cliff. Demonstrating competence, acting with integrity, caring about others, and maintaining reliability will keep you far away from the most treacherous leadership cliff of them all – breaking trust.

Be a trust-builder in 2013!

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

There are three basic levels of trust. The first level is deterence-based trust, or what I like to call “rules-based” trust. This is the most fundamental, base level of trust in all relationships. Deterence-based trust means that there are rules in place that prevent one person from taking advantage of, or harming another person. In society we have laws that govern our behavior in personal and business settings. When we engage in business we have contracts that ensure one party can trust another to hold up their end of the bargain. In organizations we have policies and procedures that provide boundaries for how we interact and treat each other, and if we violate those rules, usually there are consequences involved.

The second level of trust is knowledge-based trust. This level of trust means that I’ve had enough experience with you and knowledge of your behavior that I have a pretty good idea of how you will react and behave in relationship with me. We’ve had enough interactions over time where there has been a consistent display of trustworthy behavior that I believe I can trust you with the everyday type issues we experience together. This is the level of trust that most of our day-to-day professional relationships experience.

The third and most intimate level of trust we experience in relationships is called identity-based trust. This level of trust means that you know my hopes, dreams, goals, ambitions, fears, and doubts. I trust you at this level because over the course of time I have increased my level of transparency and vulnerability with you and you haven’t taken advantage of me. You’ve proven yourself to be loyal, understanding, and accepting.

Identity-based trust isn’t appropriate for every relationship. This level of trust is usually reserved for the most important people in our lives such as our spouse, children, family, and close friends. Yet with the proper boundaries in place, this level of trust can unlock higher levels of productivity, creativity, and performance in organizations. Imagine an organizational culture where we operated freely without concerns of being stabbed in the back by power-hungry colleagues looking to move higher on the corporate ladder. Imagine less gossiping, backbiting, or dirty politics being played because we knew each other’s hopes and dreams and worked to encourage their development rather than always having a me-first attitude.

Take a moment to examine the level of trust in your most important relationships. What level are you at with each one and how can you develop deeper levels of trust?

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

The way NFL leadership has handled the referee lockout and the use of replacement referees offers several interesting lessons for leaders in any industry or organization.

Talent trumps – The NFL underestimated the gap in skill levels between their regular referees and the replacement referees, most of whom have only worked low-level college games or even just high school games. The replacement referees have had excellent attitudes and a willingness to work hard, learn, and improve. Those are critical traits for any successful employee. However, the simple fact is that they are literally out of their league when it comes to having the skills and knowledge to work in the NFL.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins emphasizes the importance of “getting the right people on the bus” and then leveraging their strengths to “drive the bus” (your organization) to its destination. Because of the way the NFL managed the lockout, the most qualified college referees were already locked into their conference schedules, so the NFL had to utilize people who weren’t qualified for the job, and as a result, their performance has been sub par. The number one rule for a leader is to hire the right people for the job and the NFL clearly deserves a penalty flag for this violation.

Training is necessary, but it shouldn’t be used to “fix” people – The NFL invested a tremendous amount of time, energy, and money in training the replacement refs on how to work in the NFL. They conducted rules clinics, refereed pre-season games, and have had weekly conference calls to evaluate their performance and work on improving their weaknesses. People can learn new skills and sharpen their existing abilities, but the purpose of training isn’t to “fix” people. Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller share a wonderful saying in their book The Secret – What Great Leaders Know and Do: “No matter how long the runway, that pig ain’t gonna fly.” Many leaders invest an incredible amount of time and resources into giving flying lessons to people who are never going to fly. Leaders have to be willing to accept the fact that there are some things that certain individuals will never learn to do well.

Your people are your brand – NFL leadership prides itself on managing its brand image. They are fond of talking about their efforts to “protect the shield” (the NFL logo) through efforts such as controlling illegal drug usage, player health and safety, and encouraging upstanding player conduct off the field. Yet they’ve willingly compromised their brand integrity by using under-qualified referees which has put player safety at risk and resulted in a sub-par product on the field. The individuals that operate your organizations and interact with your customers are the living embodiment of your company’s brand image. The focus must always be on serving the customer and delivering on your brand promise.

When people don’t perform, leaders need to look in the mirror – Whenever you have an employee who is failing in their job, you need to examine what you did or didn’t do to contribute to the situation. Referencing back to the previous points, did you hire the right person? Have you provided the correct amount and type of training? Have you clearly established the goals and performance standards and provided the specific direction and support needed? Too often we rely on our ability to make the right hiring choice and then just turn the person loose to do the job. People may have very relevant transferable skills, but there are always new things to learn or new ways of doing familiar tasks that have to be mastered. NFL leadership has no one to blame but themselves for the performance of the replacement referees.

The Monday night debacle ended up being the tipping point that drove the NFL and referees to reach a tentative agreement late last night that will end the lockout. The NFL may have succeeded in exerting their power and proving to the referee’s union who is really in charge, but in the process the league fumbled this leadership opportunity and damaged their brand integrity.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Granted, out of 7 billion people in the world, the odds of you being the absolute best at a particular something or other is pretty remote. But the point of the question is more general. What is it that you do really well? Probably better than most people you know? Knowing the answer to that question can help unlock levels of job satisfaction and engagement that you didn’t know existed.

Here are three steps you can take to understand the unique value you bring to your work and how you can stand out from the crowd.

1. Identify your strengths. Sounds pretty basic, huh? Well, it is pretty basic, but believe it or not, many people don’t have a good understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, or personality traits that help or hinder their success. Assessments such as the DISC, MBTI, Strengths Finder, or Marcus Buckingham’s newest StandOut survey can give you insight into what motivates you or how your personality preferences shape the way you perceive work experiences and “show up” to other people.

2. Understand the type of work or circumstances that best leverage your strengths and personality traits. One of my first “real” jobs was working for a popular Southern California fast food chain. I lasted one shift. The reason? My supervisor drilled into me the importance of following all the rules to the letter and corrected me whenever I deviated from them, yet he would go into the back of the kitchen and smoke a cigarette whenever he wanted (clearly in violation of the rules). I knew that I would never be happy working for a boss who didn’t display integrity in his actions. For me to be at my best, I need to be surrounded by people who have honorable values and strive to live up to those values.

One way to identify situations where you’ll thrive is to make a list of all the times where you’ve felt “in the flow” – those instances where you’ve been so absorbed in your work that you’ve lost track of time. What are the commonalities among those experiences? It might take a little digging and analysis, but you can probably find some themes running through those experiences. Perhaps it’s the type of people you worked with. Or maybe there was an element of problem-solving involved. Maybe it was the opportunity for you to use certain skills, like writing, teaching, or public speaking. Whatever the theme may be, it’s a clue to what really engages you and prepares you to take step #3 below.

3. Intentionally seek your “sweet spot.” Your “sweet spot” is that place where you find fulfillment in your work. You have two basic choices when it comes to identifying your sweet spot. The first is to leave it up to chance. You can hope that you stumble upon the type of job that is a good match for your personality and skills. Not a good option. The second choice is to actively look for situations that are a good match for what you bring to the table. Take what you’ve learned in steps 1 and 2 and apply it to your current situation. If you’re in a job that’s a complete mismatch for your personality and strengths, begin to put a plan together for how you can transition to something more in alignment with your natural gifts. If you’re in a job you like, but need a little more pizzazz in your work, map out new projects, tasks, or areas of responsibility that could benefit from the application of your strengths.

Discovering your strengths and learning how to use them in combination with your personality traits is an evolutionary journey. It doesn’t happen overnight and sometimes there is a lot of trial and error involved. However, taking a purposeful and introspective look into yourself and following these three steps can put you on the path toward finding a higher level of fulfillment and success in your work.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Of course there isn’t a “leadership” event in the Olympics, but if there were, I think there are four essential traits, qualities, or characteristics that leaders would need to master in order to have a shot at the gold.

1. Be a trust-builder – Leadership is about relationships, and all successful relationships have one thing in common: a foundation of trust. The ability to build high-trust relationships is the most important leadership competency in the 21^st century. Our fast paced, highly networked world requires leaders to build effective relationships across time zones, countries, cultures, organizations, and stakeholders. With trust a leader has a chance. Without it they’re doomed.
2. Have a high EQ – In the old days we use to say that someone had “good people skills,” meaning they had an ability to understand people and get along well with them. Today we’ve expanded and rebranded that concept under “emotional intelligence (EQ)” which means you have a high degree of self-awareness (your motivations, beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral patterns), are able to regulate those behaviors to meet the needs of the situation, and that you are also able to perceive and understand the behavioral needs and patterns of those you lead. That’s a tall order, but it’s a critical skill for leaders if they want to be successful in managing themselves and others.
3. Be a change agent – The only constant in today’s world is change. Technology has changed the speed at which we work, and gold medal winning leaders know they have to be the ones leading organizational change. Leaders can’t afford to be caught snoozing on the sidelines when it comes to change. They need to have their finger in the air to detect changing wind conditions and then be able to respond by getting their teams on course to meet the needs of the business.
4. Be other-focused – The most successful leaders have learned that it’s not about them; it’s about the people they lead. Gold medal leaders have discovered that they succeed when their people succeed, and in order for that to happen, leaders have to recruit and hire the right folks, train them, equip them with the proper resources, and then get out of their way. That doesn’t mean there aren’t times when a command and control leadership style may be needed (you don’t form a committee to formulate recommendations on how to evacuate a burning building; you point people to the exits and tell them to get out!), but it means that people thrive on having a sense of autonomy in their work and a leader’s job is to make that happen.

If I were to equate leadership to an existing Olympic sport, I would have to say it’s like the marathon. The marathon requires stamina, endurance, dedication, and mental fortitude to finish the race, and you have to pace yourself over a great distance and time period, not just for brief intervals. Focusing on these four keys will help leaders run the marathon – go the distance – and have a good shot at winning the gold.

I’m sure you can think of many other keys that define a gold medal winner in Leadership. Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

This is one in a series of LeaderChat articles on the topic of trust by Randy Conley, Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit the Leading with Trust blog or follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley.

One of the four key elements of establishing trust in a relationship is being “believable,” which means acting with integrity. In polls and surveys I’ve conducted with hundreds of people, this one element is often cited as the most important element in building trust. It’s also the element of trust that takes the biggest hit if your ego is left unchecked. An out of control ego signals to other people that you believe you’re more important than them, place your interests ahead of theirs, and that others can’t be vulnerable with you without fear of being taken advantage of.

There are three key areas leaders can focus on to keep their ego in check, increase their “believability” with others, and build trust.

• Honesty — The basics apply here: don’t lie, cheat, or steal. But being honest also means not stretching the truth, telling half-truths, omitting facts out of convenience, or failing to speak the truth when needed.
• Values — Do you know what your core values are? What motivates you as a leader? When faced with a difficult choice, what are the values you use to filter your decision? Developing and articulating your values, and asking others to hold you accountable to living out those behaviors, will help keep your ego in check and allow others to gain confidence in the consistency of your behavior.
• Fair Process — Do you treat people fairly? Egotistical leaders love to play favorites. Trustworthy leaders treat people ethically and equitably. Being fair doesn’t mean treating people the same across the board, no matter the circumstances. It means treating people fairly according to their specific situation and upholding consistent principles and ideals with your entire staff.

A believable leader is someone who acts with integrity and is a role model for the company’s values. We commonly describe believable leaders as credible, honest, and ethical. When someone is believable, he or she tells the truth, holds confidences, is honest about his or her skills, and gives credit when credit is due. Notice that egotistical doesn’t appear anywhere in that description. Egotistical leaders “bust” trust, whereas as believable leaders “boost” trust, and by focusing on developing honesty, values alignment, and acting fairly, leaders can keep their ego in check and build trust in the process.

This is one in a series of LeaderChat articles on the topic of trust by Randy Conley, Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit the Leading with Trust blog or follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley.

It’s easy for leaders to fall into the trap of thinking they need to have the answer to every problem or situation that arises. After all, that’s in a leader’s job description, right? Solve problems, make decisions, have answers…that’s what we do! Why listen to others when you already know everything?

Good leaders know they don’t have all the answers. They spend time listening to the ideas, feedback, and thoughts of their people, and they incorporate that information into the decisions and plans they make. When a person feels listened to, it builds trust, loyalty, and commitment in the relationship. Here are some tips for building trust by improving the way you listen in conversations:

• Don’t interrupt – It’s rude and disrespectful to the person you’re speaking with and it conveys the attitude, whether you mean it or not, that what you have to say is more important than what he or she is saying.
• Make sure you understand – Ask clarifying questions and paraphrase to ensure that you understand what the person is trying to communicate. Generous and empathetic listening is a key part of Habit #5 – Seek first to understand, then to be understood – of Covey’s famous Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
• Learn each person’s story – The successes, failures, joys, and sorrows that we experience in life weave together to form our “story.” Our story influences the way we relate to others, and when a leader takes time to understand the stories of his followers, he has a much better perspective and understanding of  their motivations. Chick-fil-a uses an excellent video in their training programs that serves as a powerful reminder of this truth.
• Stay in the moment – It’s easy to be distracted in conversations. You’re thinking about the next meeting you have to run to, the pressing deadline you’re up against, or even what you need to pick up at the grocery store on the way home from work! Important things all, but they distract you from truly being present and fully invested in the conversation. Take notes and practice active listening to stay engaged.

My grandpa was fond of saying “The Lord gave you two ears and one mouth. Use them in that proportion.” Leaders can take a step forward in building trust with those they lead by speaking less and listening more. You might be surprised at what you learn!

This is one in a series of LeaderChat articles on the topic of trust by Randy Conley, Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit the Leading with Trust blog or follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley.

I recently had the chance to interview the One Minute Manager (OMM) to get his thoughts on what today’s leaders should be doing to build trust. Here’s what we discussed:

Randy: Congratulations on the 30^th anniversary of your story being published. You must feel very proud.

OMM: I’m humbled that Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson felt my story was worth sharing and took the time to write a book about it. I’m gratified that it’s helped so many people.

Randy: I’m interested to know what you think leaders should be doing to build trust with their followers and stakeholders.

OMM: Well, I think having trustworthy relationships is the number one priority for leaders, and the three secrets support a leader in achieving that goal.

Randy: I thought the three secrets were techniques for managing people more effectively. Explain to me how they help leaders build trust.

OMM: One aspect of building trust is being competent in your role as a leader, and certainly practicing the three secrets displays your competence. Specifically, the first secret, One Minute Goals, allows leaders to build trust by setting clear performance expectations. People are more apt to trust you as a leader if you’re clear with them on what you expect them to do. Unclear expectations result in miscommunication, wasted energy, and ambiguity, which ultimately leads to mistrust of the leader.

Randy: So tell me how your second secret, One Minute Praisings, helps leaders build trust.

OMM: One of the easiest ways to build trust with others is to catch them doing something right! Recognizing and rewarding good work are key trust-building behaviors. When you take time to praise others, it shows that you value their contributions and you want them to succeed. If you fail to recognize the good work of your people, or even worse, hog the limelight and take credit for their work, you severely damage trust in the relationship. One Minute Praisings communicate care and concern, and when your people see that you care about them as individuals, they trust that you have good intentions toward them.

Randy: It’s amazing to see how One Minute Goals and One Minute Praisings support building trust. The third secret, One Minute Reprimands, seems a little counter-intuitive in regards to building trust. Help me understand.

OMM: On the surface it may seem counter-intuitive, but in reality, a One Minute Reprimand is another way of showing that you care about people and you want to help them succeed. When you give a One Minute Reprimand, you are reprimanding the behavior, not the person, and you’re giving the reprimand because you want to prevent that person from suffering the same mistake again in the future. People trust and respect leaders who give them honest, yet caring feedback about their performance. Leaders that hold themselves and others accountable create a culture of safety, security, and clear boundaries, which acts as a breeding ground for trust. A One Minute Reprimand is honest and caring feedback which is essential to have in a high-trust relationship.

Randy: Thank you for spending time with me. Your One Minute Secrets have helped me in my career as a leader and now I see how they’ve also helped me build trust with others.

OMM: It’s been my pleasure and I ask you to do just one thing: share it with others.

This is one in a series of LeaderChat articles on the topic of trust by Randy Conley, Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit the Leading with Trust blog or follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley.

Yet few organizations see personal well-being as an important focus for their business, nor do they understand the powerful connections between personal well-being and organizational success. Study after study has shown that when individual employees experience well-being, they consistently apply their skills and hearts in service of company goals and customers, adapt more flexibly to change, and are more creative and proactive problem solvers.

My colleagues at The Ken Blanchard Companies, Lisa Zigarmi and Chris Edmonds, have published a new book titled #POSITIVITY AT WORK tweet, that presents 140 short, actionable quotes on how to create and manage well-being in the workplace. Zigarmi and Edmonds present five “pillars” of well-being that are essential for positive workplaces. The five pillars are positive:

• Emotion – people function best in workplaces that provide a sense of satisfaction, achievement, and safety
• Relationships – human beings were created to live and work in community and our bonds of relationship are the most significant source of emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual well-being
• Meaning and purpose – again and again research shows that a sense of meaning, purpose, and doing worthwhile work is more important to employees than pay, status, or title
• Accomplishment – achieving mastery over work and working in service to a goal, group, or purpose beyond one’s self is a key driver of personal well-being
• Health – more than the absence of sickness, health is the balanced approach of taking quality time for work, family, and self, including total body exercise

Tweet #45 is the one that stood out to me. Zigarmi and Edmonds say “When you maintain a safe, open, trusting work environment, people bring all their skills and all their heart to the work opportunity.”

The foundation of any healthy, positive work environment is a culture of trust. When trust is present, people are willing to take risks, go the extra mile, and offer the best they have to give. The sense of safety and security that comes with a high-trust culture allows people to focus on the goals at hand rather than spending time questioning decisions or doing just the minimum amount of work to collect their paycheck.

Well-being in the workplace begins with trust, and Lisa Zigarmi and Chris Edmonds provide leaders with actionable steps to create a healthy, affirmative work environment where every individual contributes, connects, succeeds, and thrives.

This is one in a series of LeaderChat articles on the topic of trust by Randy Conley, Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit the Leading with Trust blog or follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley.

The Quit and Stayed phenomenon was studied from several angles. Leadership gurus, managers, employees, and team members examined the role an organization’s culture plays in fostering or inhibiting engagement, the value of leaders cultivating personal relationships with employees, different leadership styles to approach the situation, and the value of ongoing learning and career growth.

Here’s just a few of the thoughts that stood out to me:

• Leaders must think about growth like a deep-sea diver thinks about oxygen. Without it you die. (Mark Miller on the importance of career growth.)
• It’s leadership. It’s caring. And if you care about your people, your people are going to care about your organization. (Margie Blanchard’s reminder about the value of personal relationships.)
• When people quit and stay, it’s like a disease that drags everyone down. Be a mopey jerk on your own time. This time is for us. (Jack, a 7th grade student describing disengaged teammates on his football team.)
• My son told me, “Dad, you can’t fire me. You have to develop me.” We should look at treating our employees more like that. (Lee Cockerell on looking at disengaged employees through a different lens.)
• Too often people don’t get rewarded for succeeding in companies. They get rewarded for not failing. (Dick Ruhe describing organizational practices that encourage disengagement.)
• Respect, courtesy, compassion, and clear communication go a long way to firing people up, rather than them firing themselves. (Eileen McDargh’s reminder that kindness goes a long way.)
• My manager wore myself and my colleagues as accessories. The values at that organization offended me regularly. (Wendy Wong sharing her personal story of quitting and staying.)
• Engagement is not something to get out of employees. It is something to instill in them. When you’re disengaged at work, you’re disengaged in life. (David Zinger pointing out that disengagement goes beyond the workplace.)
• Bottom line: Life is too short to be “un” — uninspired, underwhelmed, unproductive, unimportant, unnecessary. (Jay Campbell reminding us of bigger life priorities.)
• Leaders need to start thinking about what we want FOR our people instead of what we want FROM them. (David Facer encouraging leaders to change their thinking about the true purpose and value of engagement.)
• The number one factor predicting a person’s level of engagement at work is the strength of their relationships. Your engagement is your responsibility. (Keith Ferrazzi on the importance of a strong network of relationships.)

All of the strategies shared held one thing in common — the critical importance of trust in relationships. Whether it’s the relationship between a leader and direct report, employees with each other, or individuals with the organization, a healthy level of trust must exist for any progress to be made in moving employees from “quit and stay” to “stay and thrive.”

Did you attend the Quit and Stayed Leadership Livecast? If so, what were the pearls of wisdom you discovered? If you happened to miss it, you can purchase access to the recording and/or program notes here.

This is one in a series of LeaderChat articles on the topic of trust by Randy Conley, Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. For more insights on trust, visit the Leading with Trust blog or follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley.

With that kind of attitude, it’s no wonder why performance reviews are a dreaded event, both from the supervisor’s and employee’s perspective! The reality is that performance reviews are one-of-a-kind opportunities for leaders to build trust and commitment with their followers. Having the right supporting processes and systems in place are helpful, but regardless of your organization’s approach to performance management, you can build trust with your team members by doing these four things:

1. Deliver candid feedback with care – One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a leader is to sugarcoat your feedback to an employee. Your employees deserve honest and sincere feedback about how they’re performing so that they have the opportunity to improve, otherwise you are handicapping them and limiting the capabilities of your organization by accepting sub-par performance. Unfortunately, many employees don’t hear about their poor performance until the situation has become critical and they’re put on a performance improvement plan. A look back through their personnel file reveals a series of performance reviews where they’ve met standards and suddenly they’re surprised with this bad news. There shouldn’t be any surprises in a performance review. Through regular conversations during the year, the employee should have received regular feedback about how they’re performing relative to their goals and competencies of their role. I think most people know if they aren’t performing up to snuff. Your people will trust and respect you more if you’re honest with them about their performance.

2. Listen – Don’t do all the talking during the performance review. Yes, you have to review their performance and deliver feedback, but you should also take the time to ask your employees how they felt about their performance. Ask open-ended questions like: “What did you learn this year?” “What would you do differently?” “What did you feel were your biggest successes?” Soliciting the thoughts and opinions of your employees sends the message that you care about what they think and that you don’t assume you have all the answers. You’ll learn valuable insights about what makes your people tick and you can use that information to help plan their future performance. Lending a listening ear is a great way to build trust.

3. Focus on the future – Wait…aren’t performance reviews about reviewing the past? Yes, they are, but in my opinion the real bang for the buck is using that information to focus on growth and development opportunities for your people. Learning from the past is essential, but it’s only valuable if we apply it to the future. What training or education is needed? What are some new stretch goals that can be established? In what ways can the employee leverage his/her strengths with new opportunities? Demonstrating to your employees that you are committed to their career growth builds trust in your leadership and commitment to the organization. Don’t miss this valuable opportunity by solely focusing on the past!

4. Ask for feedback on your leadership – I’m not suggesting you shift the spotlight from your employees to yourself and hijack their review in order to feed your ego, but I am suggesting you ask them two simple questions: “Am I providing you the right amount of direction and support on your goals/tasks?” and “Is there anything I should do more or less of next year to help you succeed?” One of your primary goals as a leader is to accomplish work through others. Their performance is a reflection of your skill as a leader so it’s only appropriate that you use this time to recalibrate the leadership style(s) you’ve been providing. It may come as a surprise, but have you thought that the reason why your people aren’t achieving their goals is because you’re not leading them properly? Make sure that’s not the case and get feedback on how you’re doing. Asking for (and graciously receiving) feedback from others is a trust-boosting behavior.

Performance reviews don’t have to be a painful, tedious, mundane task. If you approach them with the right mindset, they can be prime opportunities to build trust with your followers which in turn will help them, and you, to not only meet expectations but exceed them!

This is one in a series of LeaderChat articles on the topic of trust by Randy Conley, Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. For more insights on trust, visit the Leading with Trust blog or follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley.

Good leaders know they don’t have all the answers. They spend time listening to the ideas, feedback, and thoughts of their people, and they incorporate that information into the decisions and plans they make. When a person feels listened to, it builds trust, loyalty, and commitment in the relationship. Here are some tips for building trust by improving the way you listen:

• Don’t interrupt – It’s rude and disrespectful to the person you’re speaking with and it conveys the attitude, whether you mean it or not, that what you have to say is more important than what he or she is saying.
• Make sure you understand – Ask clarifying questions and paraphrase to ensure that you understand what the person is trying to communicate. Generous and empathetic listening is a key part of Habit #5 – Seek first to understand, then to be understood – of Covey’s famous Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
• Learn each person’s story – The successes, failures, joys, and sorrows that we experience in life weave together to form our “story.” Our story influences the way we relate to others, and when a leader takes time to understand the stories of his followers, he has a much better perspective and understanding of  their motivations. Chick-fil-a uses an excellent video in their training programs that serves as a powerful reminder of this truth.
• Stay in the moment – It’s easy to be distracted in conversations. You’re thinking about the next meeting you have to run to, the pressing deadline you’re up against, or even what you need to pick up at the grocery store on the way home from work! Important things all, but they distract you from truly being present and fully invested in the conversation. Take notes and practice active listening to stay engaged.

My grandpa was fond of saying “The Lord gave you two ears and one mouth. Use them in that proportion.” Leaders can take a step forward in building trust with those they lead by speaking less and listening more. You might be surprised at what you learn!

This is one in a series of LeaderChat articles on the topic of trust by Randy Conley, Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. For more insights on trust, visit the Leading with Trust blog or follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley.

A friend and former colleague, Danise DiStasi, has recently co-authored a book with J. Ford Taylor that provides a helpful model for leadership success. In The Hike – The Missing Link to Transformational Leadership, DiStasi and Ford share the story of a struggling corporate executive, Stuart, who discovers new personal and leadership insights that turn his life around while on a weekend hike in the mountains. Part of what Stuart learns is the V-STTEELE model, a tool to build leadership competence which in turn builds trust with others.

Vision – Developing and communicating a vision is a foundational role for successful leaders. It’s easy to get twisted up in the distinctions between vision and mission statements, but suffice it to say that a vision is a compelling picture of the future that describes the destination the team is trying to reach, the purpose of why the team exists, and the values the team will use to carry out their work. Casting a clear vision answers the “why?” question of what leaders do.

Serve – Some people hear the words “serve” or “servant leadership” and mistakenly associate them with concepts of weak, mamby-pamby, touchy-feely leadership. Servant leadership is quite the opposite. Servant Leaders are committed to serving the best interests of their people and organizations by teaching, training, equipping, and empowering team members to be the best they can be. Ken Blanchard says it’s turning the organizational pyramid upside down where leaders serve the needs of others rather than being served.

Teach – Teaching is one way that leaders serve others. All successful people have reached their station in life due to the efforts of others teaching them along the way. Great leaders understand that their success is perpetuated by teaching others how to be successful. Teaching is an ongoing process where leaders impart knowledge to others by their example or by guiding the development of the follower, perhaps through a mentoring relationship.

Train – Successful leaders develop others by providing training and skill development to be successful in their roles. As opposed to teaching, training is more short-term focused on specific skills, projects, or goals that a person needs to learn or accomplish. Providing specific direction on a task by showing and telling how it should be done are primary ways leaders train others.

Equip – Equipping others involves providing the tools, knowledge, training, time, money, and other resources for your team members to succeed. I’m sure you can think of your own personal experience where you’ve been asked to complete a task or goal but haven’t been given the resources to do so. Without properly equipping your people, you hamstring them from success.

Empower – Just like the word “serve,” empowerment has gotten a bum rap over the years. We shouldn’t let that distract us from the fundamental value of the concept which has resurfaced in different contexts lately. Daniel Pink’s best seller, Drive, is essentially about empowerment. According to Pink, you unleash someone’s inner drive or motivation (i.e., help them be self-empowered) by providing them autonomy, mastery, and purpose in their roles. Successful leaders empower (literally “invest with power”) their team members to do what they were hired to do.

Let Go – At some point leaders have to relinquish control and let their people work on their own. I remember teaching my oldest son how to ride a bike, running alongside him while holding on to the seat to help him balance, and then that scary moment of finally letting go to let him ride on his own. Letting go as a leader means trusting your people to do the right thing. If you’ve done a good job in serving them by teaching, training, equipping, and empowering, then you can let go with confidence.

Evaluate – Everyone needs effective feedback, both positive and corrective, to help them improve their performance. Leaders build trust with their followers when they learn to communicate effectively, are candid yet caring, provide reward and recognition, and create a culture where mistakes are viewed as opportunities to learn rather than reasons to punish.

Trust is the foundation of all successful relationships and one of the core elements of trust is the demonstration of competence. Leaders can build competence and trust by using the V-STTEELE model to live out their leadership purpose.

This is one in a series of LeaderChat articles on the topic of trust by Randy Conley, Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. For more insights on trust, visit the Leading with Trust blog or follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley.

The SPEAK model is a helpful tool to navigate challenging conversations.

S – State your concerns directly. Speak in private and face-to-face whenever possible and use “I” language to voice your concerns, thoughts, and feelings about the situation. A common myth about handling challenging conversations is that you should be objective and only stick to the facts. While you certainly want to be factual, you also need to share your feelings, without blame, so the other party understands the impact of the situation. Don’t make sarcastic or belittling remarks and be sure to share the consequences if the issue isn’t resolved. How it sounds: “Since we missed our deadline, I’m concerned that we may not meet our project goals.”

P – Probe for information to gain deeper understanding. Talk with an open and interested tone of voice and use open-ended questions to probe for more information to help you understand behavior that may seem incomprehensible. Pause long enough to give the person time to respond and listen with the intent to understand and be influenced by her point of view. How it sounds: “I’m confused about why we missed the deadline. Can you tell me more about what you thought our agreements were?”

E – Engage each other through whole-hearted listening. Be mentally present and intentional about listening. When people feel fully heard, they are more open to creative solutions, alternatives can be explored, wounds healed, and defensiveness lowered. Paraphrase to make sure you’ve heard and understood correctly and be sure to reflect the person’s feelings and values. How it sounds: “So you are saying that when I spoke with you about your performance that I was not clear about your goals and responsibilities?”

A – Attend to body language. Make sure that your body language matches your words. Sometimes leaders force themselves to be too relaxed when the situation is actually quite serious and that sends confusing signals to the other person. Pay attention to the other person’s body language and challenge inconsistent verbal and non-verbal messages with “I” statements. How it sounds: “I’m confused. I hear you saying that you think we don’t have a problem, yet I notice you sitting in a way that I’m interpreting as being angry.”

K – Keep forward-focused when possible. Once past issues have been addressed and the air cleared, focus the conversation on what each of you are going to do moving forward. Ask directly if the other person is ready to move forward, and if she isn’t, return to step E to explore any other issues or concerns that may be unresolved. How it sounds: “From my perspective, we have cleared up past misunderstandings. I am ready to move forward if you are. Is there anything on your end that we have not addressed yet?”

Working through difficult situations is an opportunity for leaders to build trust. It’s during these times that followers can feel most vulnerable to leaders because of the disparity of power in the relationship. Leaders who use their power in the service of others by demonstrating care and concern in handling challenging conversations will increase engagement, commitment, and trust with those they lead.

This is one in a series of LeaderChat articles on the topic of trust by Randy Conley, Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. For more insights on trust, visit the Leading with Trust blog or follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley.

“There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.”

Establishing trusted relationships is a critical imperative for leadership success today. A key way to develop trust with those you lead is by being vulnerable. I’m not talking about getting on the proverbial therapist’s couch and telling your direct reports all of your deep, inner secrets. I’m talking about disclosing appropriate and relevant amounts of information about yourself over the course of time as relationships grow and develop.

In his latest book, Getting Naked, author Patrick Lencioni discusses three fears that keep us from being vulnerable…from “getting naked.” Lencioni discusses these fears in the context of sabotaging client relationships, but the lessons are equally relevant for leaders in regards to developing trust with their followers. Leaders sabotage trust by giving in to the following fears:

• The fear of losing followership (“business” in the context of Lencioni’s parable about client relationships) – The business of a leader is influencing others to achieve their personal goals and those of the organization. Sometimes leaders fear being vulnerable because it could be perceived as a sign of weakness, or evidence that their leadership isn’t needed. Leaders can conquer this fear by being “other-focused” rather than self-focused and remembering that their top priority is to help others succeed. When your followers believe you have their best interests in mind, they will trust you and give you the discretionary energy and commitment that is essential for organizational success.
• The fear of being embarrassed – Many leaders are afraid they will be embarrassed by not having all the right answers or being proven wrong in public. To prevent embarrassment, leaders play their cards close to the vest, don’t share information with others, and don’t allow participation in decision-making. Creating a culture where mistakes are celebrated as learning opportunities, risk taking is encouraged, and stupid or obvious questions encouraged will help allay this fear and lead to higher levels of trust in leaders’ relationships.
• The fear of feeling inferior – This fear is rooted in the leader’s ego. Ken Blanchard likes to say that EGO stands for “edging good out.” Leaders do this by focusing on their reputation and social standing and pushing all other interests aside. These kinds of leaders often derive their self-worth from the successes they achieve and the applause of adoring fans. Trusted leaders overcome this fear by cultivating an attitude of humility. Humility doesn’t mean that you think less of yourself. It means you think about yourself less. You build trust by keeping the focus on the goals of the team and the needs of your followers and not worrying about who gets the credit for success.

The bottom line effect of getting naked with your followers is that you’ll develop trusted relationships that will fuel the success of your team and organization.

This is one in a series of LeaderChat articles on the topic of trust by Randy Conley, Trust Practice Leader at the Ken Blanchard Companies. For more insights on trust, visit the Leading with Trust blog or follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley.

In order to be a leader whose word is believed, it’s necessary to be honest in your dealings with people. Some would say that it’s unrealistic to be honest in all situations. In fact, just this week I read an article on a well-known management website that advocated the top ten reasons to be dishonest in the workplace, most of which were rationalizations for self-centric, me-first egoism. Being honest and ethical is actually a self-esteem boost for a leader. John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, said “There is no pillow as soft as a clear conscience.”

If asked if they were honest, most leaders would say “Yes, of course. I don’t tell lies.” Telling the truth is at the core of being honest, but it’s not the only behavior that people interpret as honesty. Sharing information openly, not coloring or hiding parts of the truth to fit an agenda, and delivering tough news with tact and diplomacy all go into someone forming a perception of you as an honest leader. In a recent survey conducted of over 800 people who attended our webinar, Four Leadership Behaviors That Build or Destroy Trust, 57% of respondents said that the most important behavior of a leader to build trust is acting with integrity; being honest in word and deed.

You can’t establish a relationship of trust without being honest. When you behave honestly, others are able to rely upon your consistency of character. Being reliable, consistent, and predictable in your behavior, decisions, and reactions to critical situations allows your followers to have a sense of security and confidence in your leadership. Being honest also helps the bottom line. Kenneth T. Derr, retired chairman of Chevron Corporation said “There’s no doubt in my mind that being ethical pays, because I know that, in our company, people who sleep well at night work better during the day.”

Honesty is like a behavioral tattoo, the indelible mark of a trusted leader. Do you have it?

This is one in a series of LeaderChat articles on the topic of trust by Randy Conley, the Trust Practice Leader at the Ken Blanchard Companies. For more insights on trust, follow Randy on Twitter @TrustWrks, Facebook, and the TrustWorks! blog.

Trust in relationships is comprised of four elements: Ability, Believability, Connectedness, and Dependability (TrustWorks!® ABCD Model). Part of being an able, competent leader is knowing how to get things done. Yet with today’s flat organizations and wide span of control, it’s impossible for a leader to know the answer to every problem that crops up.

A leader has to rely on problem-solving and decision-making skills to facilitate work getting done in the organization. Herman Cain, former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, who recently announced his candidacy for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, has said that he succeeded in business for over 40 years by asking the right questions of the right people about the right problems to get to the right solutions.

Trustworthy leaders also make sure employees receive the right amount of direction and support to be successful in their jobs. The leader owes it to the employee to set clear goals and performance expectations up front, and then give regular, timely, and meaningful feedback on performance along the way so the employee stays on track to achieving the goal.

If you feel like you have room to develop your facilitation skills in order to get things done in the organization, consider the following:

• Work on developing your meeting management skills. Encourage participation from others, solicit ideas, incorporate suggestions, record action items and hold yourself and others accountable to following through on commitments.
• Develop your coaching and leadership skills. Make sure you’re setting clear goals and giving frequent feedback to team members, not just at their performance review. Learn and use Situational Leadership® II so that you’re giving employees the right amount of direction and support they need to achieve their goals.
• Utilize problem-solving and decision-making techniques such as brainstorming, SWOT, or Force Field analysis.
• Perform an After Action Review of a recent problem-solving or decision-making situation. Ask these questions: What did we set out to do? What actually happened? Why did it happen? What can we do better next time?

Building trust is a process that takes time and effort, but can be accomplished through the use of specific behaviors. Continued focus on developing your facilitation skills to get work accomplished in the organization will help you create a track record of success and will earn you the trustworthy reputation of someone who can “Git-R-Done!”

This is one in a series of articles on the TrustWorks!® ABCD Trust Model and building trust in relationships and organizations. Be sure to “like” TrustWorks!® on Facebook or follow us on Twitter @TrustWrks.

“Money”…”Clutch”…”Nails”…Maybe you’ve used (or heard) one of those phrases to describe someone who seems to deliver when it matters most. It’s the go-to person that everyone trusts to get the job done on time, on budget, and with good quality. Why do those people engender so much trust from others? It’s pretty simple, right? They produce results!

We rarely have the conscious thought of building trust when we go about our daily jobs, but the fact is that our track record of results, or the lack thereof, contributes dramatically to how much we’re trusted by others. One of the quickest ways to erode trust with people is to not be productive in your role and provide positive contributions to your team and organization.

Producing quality results is a direct result of your ability, which is the first element of building trust in the TrustWorks!® ABCD Trust Model: Ability, Believability, Connectedness, and Dependability. Using effective goal setting practices, consistently achieving goals, and getting quality results causes others to have confidence in your ability which leads to higher levels of trust.

In order to produce quality results, it’s important that you have a clear road map of where you’re headed. Having clear goals will help you understand what you’re trying to achieve – what an “A” looks like. Yet it’s easy to be “busy” and “productive” and not achieve the goals that matter most. That’s why you need to make sure you’re focused on the right priorities which will guide your day to day business activities so that you stay on track to achieving the right results.  If you feel there are systemic or resource issues that are affecting your progress, it may be helpful to conduct a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis to help identify the roadblocks and devise strategies on how to remove them.

At the end of day, you want others to have such a high level of trust and confidence in your track record of producing results that you’re the go-to guy or gal – you’re MONEY!

This is one in a series of articles on the TrustWorks!® ABCD Trust Model and building trust in relationships and organizations. Be sure to “like” TrustWorks!® on Facebook.

The reason that “Chief” had faith in Agent 99 was that she had expertise in her role that warranted a high level of trust. She had the skills, relevant experience, and knowledge required to get the job accomplished. Think about the times you haven’t trusted someone. How often has it been because you felt the person didn’t have the expertise to get the job done? Perhaps you didn’t trust an auto mechanic because he didn’t have the know-how to repair your car the right way? Maybe it was the not-so-handy handyman you hired to do some home repairs that turned into a nightmare? Or, bringing it closer to home, maybe you don’t trust your boss because he doesn’t have a clue about the work you do, yet he pretends he does?

The TrustWorks! ABCD Trust Model provides a common framework for building trust in relationships. Trust consists of four elements: Ability, Believability, Connectedness, and Dependability. Developing your expertise and demonstrating competence is a critical component of Ability. You are trustworthy when you have and apply the task knowledge and skills for your job. You can be trusted because you constantly learn and build expertise in your chosen field, and you use your skills to assist and teach others. Having expertise in your job allows others to have a higher level of trust in you because they can be confident that you’ll get the job done right.

So what can you do if you think you have room for improvement in building trust by increasing your Ability? Find a mentor in the area where you need to improve and come up with an action plan to help you develop the skills and knowledge that you need. Seek out continuing education, volunteer for projects that will force you to learn new skills, or work with your boss to set goals around learning and development. In other words, Get Smart!

This is one in a series of articles on the TrustWorks! ABCD Trust Model and building trust in relationships and organizations. Be sure to “like” TrustWorks! on Facebook or follow on Twitter @TrustWrks.

As a college football fan (and in the spirit of full disclosure, a rabid University of Michigan fan), and a student of leadership, I’ve found the Rich Rodriquez era at UM an interesting case study of how a recognized expert in his field, with a winning track record, could experience such turmoil and discord in 3 years that would lead to the loss of his job. His experience is a lesson for those of us in any type of leadership position. My conclusion: he was never a fit for the culture from the very beginning.

Some of that was by design. After 13 years of steady, yet mostly unspectacular success under Coach Lloyd Carr (save one shared national title in 1997), there was a move afoot by school leadership to shake things up and create a more dynamic and electrifying brand of football. Usher in Rich Rodriquez and his high-scoring spread offense, a system heretofore unseen in Michigan. So some of the blame of this failed venture falls directly on the shoulders of school leadership.

However, Rodriquez underestimated two factors (among many others!) that led to his downfall. The first was the power of the culture to kill his efforts to implement such a drastic change in philosophy. Stan Slap, an organizational consultant, calls this failure to recognize the power of the culture the “original sin” of a strategic implementation. Coach Rodriquez committed many cultural missteps when he joined Michigan. He said and did things that showed he didn’t understand or appreciate the longstanding traditions of the winningest program in college football history. When leaders implement a large organizational change, they have to remember that most people view change as a “loss.” People often lose perspective when change occurs so we have to remind them about what isn’t changing so they can have security in some form of consistency. Rapid organizational change rarely succeeds.

A second lesson that we can learn from the downfall of Rich Rodriquez is the importance of building trust. When it comes to building trust, there are four elements that need to be present: ability, believability, connectedness, and dependability. Rodriquez had ability in spades. Before coming to Michigan he was the head coach at West Virginia where he compiled a record of 60-26, four Big East titles, and six consecutive bowl game bids. But ability will only take you so far when it comes to building trust.

Rodriquez’s believability was damaged when NCAA infractions came to light during his second season. For a University who had never suffered any NCAA sanctions, this severely damaged the perceptions of his honesty and values. He also eroded trust through his lack of dependability. Dependability involves being organized and accountable in following through on commitments. Anyone who saw the repeated mistakes and disorganization of the Michigan defense this season can attest to this fact! But most of all, Rodriquez failed to build trust by connecting with folks. He didn’t show the aptitude for communicating well and building relationships. There were times he threw his players under the bus in press conferences and he seemed to be perpetually unhappy and angry over the state of affairs. Perhaps this is all a case of misjudgment, but when it comes to building trust, perception is reality.

By all accounts Coach Rodriquez was an earnest, hard working man who took pride in his efforts. We can learn from his experiences to help us in our own leadership journeys. We have to deftly manage organizational change and respect the power of the culture to work against our efforts, and we can leverage the power of the culture by building trust. Building trust in relationships is the key to success, whether we’re on the playing field or in the board room.