Be a leader others choose to follow.
Trust is the most important ingredient for building a team. It is the confidence born of the character and competence of a person or an organization. When leaders inspire trust, they move from leading a team where culture just happens to leading a team where a high-trust culture is created intentionally.
Leaders can inspire trust by accelerating their credibility and shape culture from the inside out. Their personal credibility determines how others see them, interact with them, and ultimately trust them.
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The 4 Cores of Credibility
Integrity and Intent are the foundations of Character. Competence is the result of Capabilities and Results. Leaders need to demonstrate all 4 Cores of Credibility to inspire trust.
The 4 Cores Explained
Integrity is deep honesty and truthfulness. It is who you really are. It includes congruence, humility, and courage.
- Congruence means to live in harmony with your deepest values and beliefs. Leaders with congruence walk their talk.
- Humility means to stand firmly for principles, especially in the face of opposition. Leaders with humility are more concerned with what is right than with being right.
- Courage means to act according to principles. Leaders with courage do the right thing—especially when it’s hard to do.
Intent is your fundamental motive or agenda and the behavior that follows.
- The motive that inspires the greatest trust is genuine caring—about people, your values, the quality of what you do.
- The agenda that inspires the greatest trust is seeking mutual benefit—genuinely wanting what’s best for everyone involved.
- The behavior that best creates credibility is actin in the best interests of everyone.
Capable people and organizations inspire confidence. Capability is your capacity to achieve results and includes your talents, attitudes, skills, knowledge, and style.
- Talents: What are your unique, native strengths?
- Attitudes: Do you approach work with energy and the determination to contribute?
- Skills: Do you continuously upgrade your skills?
- Knowledge: What are you doing to stay current and keep learning?
- Style: Does your style of doing things get in the way or ease the path?
Results matter! They matter enormously to your credibility. People evaluate your results/performance on three key indicators: past performance, current performance, and anticipated performance.
- Past performance: Your reputation and track record for delivering results, not just activities.
- Current performance: Producing results now, not resting on past performance.
- Anticipated performance: How people project you will perform in the future based on past and current results.
Trust is the most important ingredient for building a team. Without trust, there’s nothing.
Trust starts with a leader’s own character and competence—the credibility that allows leaders to intentionally build a culture of trust.
Effective leaders create a shared vision and strategy, and communicate it so powerfully that others join them on the journey.
Leaders must not only think big, but also execute their vision and strategy all the way through to completion, with and through others.
Effective leaders develop the leadership potential in others and improve performance through consistent feedback and coaching.