The Question That Defines Trust for Leaders

When trust exists between people, the confidence and comfort it creates feeds performance. Trust lies at the foundation of leadership success. Without it, leaders can’t guide colleagues and teams to effective outcomes.  There is little debate that trust is the fundamental building block for relationship and team success. We can never have too much of it. 

As an abstraction, we all understand the nature and importance of the concept. The question is not how critical trust is for everything leaders do. The riddle is how to create it, maintain it, and promote it. 

Trust is an easy thing to believe in and discern, but a complex idea to act on. So many things foster or destroy trust, it is hard to pin down. Is there a formula to foster trust? A guideline of sorts? How can leaders produce more of it on purpose? 

When it comes to leadership and trust, the best leaders have a particular view on the nature of this elusive and indispensable relationship ingredient. They know that trust is created through action and reaction. What people do and how they do it tells us whether we should trust them. We come to trust leaders not because of their values, intentions or results, but because of how they orient to us through their actions. 

We most trust leaders who create reciprocity through their requests, directions, and challenges. In other words, we trust leaders who personally embrace the same standards and commitments they require from others. As leaders make requests of others, direct tasks and respond to challenges, the calculus of trust rises or falls based upon our perception of what they would do if we asked the same of them. 

Behaviorally speaking, leadership trust is a reciprocal exchange. The question that defines trust can be expressed and understood in simple terms: “Would you do it for me?” When colleagues and reports believe a leader would act in kind if asked to, trust blossoms. Whatever you ask of me, do you do it, as well? If you had the time and capacity to perform the same actions, would you? 

Whatever leaders ask of others, those on the receiving end ponder whether the leader would do that same thing for them. When the answer is “Yes,” trust reaches the stratosphere. Power, status, compensation and experience often get in the way of how leaders meet this standard. The best leaders live up to the expectation that whatever is needed from others includes them. 

This is more than just taking your own medicine or leading without double standards. Trust requires that leaders earn the credibility to extend themselves in the same way they ask others to. “Would you do it for me?” is the question everyone implicitly asks of their leader. Leaders who meet this test enjoy an unparalleled level of trust. Where do you stand in the eyes of those who follow?