Are You a Trustworthy Leader?

leadership of the organization. Their concerns focused on their bosses:

• Lack of transparency
• Shifting priorities that could never be nailed down.
• Lack of commitment to the overall mission of the organization.
• Not helping them develop as professionals

The result for these staff members were that they did not feel very engaged or committed to the company and were planning their strategy of how to get out. A recent survey by Interaction Associates reported on trust in organizations and showed that High Performing Organizations (HPOs) which had high scores in trust and leadership outperformed Low Performing Organizations (LPOs) in everything from top line and profit revenue to customer loyalty and attraction and development of talent. What was equally interesting was that while HPOs were building their organizations through the development of loyal customers and strong talent, LPOs were focused on growing their organizations through cost reduction strategies and finding ways to make their employees be more productive. Talk about going to the light vs. going to the dark! According to the survey, the top 5 trust building activities for leaders include:

1. Set employees up for success by providing tools and learning opportunities
2. Seek out their input for decision making
3. Provide information around why decisions are made
4. Consistently act in alignment with the company’s vision
5. Inspire your employees by creating a shared vision that everyone can work towards to achieve the company’s goals.

We all respond to leaders who are authentic and real and want to work harder for them because they respect us and believe our efforts will pay off. Trust in the workplace in beginning to become a new metric that employees will use to gauge you as a leader. Let me know what you do to be a trustworthy boss or what you would like to see from your manager in terms of trust. For more information or to read the entire report, go to http://tinyurl.com/nsra3xt © Richard Citrin, 2013]]>