Are your company leaders trustworthy?
Nowadays, that’s a crucial question, according to John Hamm, author of Unusually Excellent: The Necessary Nine Skills Required for the Practice of Great Leadership (Jossey-Bass).
For Hamm, cultivating trust isn’t just a moral issue; it’s a practical one. “Trust is the currency you will need when the time comes for you to make unreasonable performance demands on your teams,” he says.
Hamm offers some suggestions HR pros might want to pass along to company managers and execs:
First, realize that being trustworthy doesn’t mean you have to be a Boy Scout. You don’t even have to be a warm or kind person, says Hamm. On the contrary, history teaches us that some of the most trustworthy people can be harsh, tough, or socially awkward — but their promises must be inviolate and their decisions fair.
Look for chances to reveal some vulnerability. We trust people we believe are real and also human (imperfect and flawed) — just like us, Hamm says. And that usually means allowing others to get a glimpse of our personal vulnerability — some authentic (not fabricated) weakness or fear or raw emotion that allows others to see us as like them, and therefore relate to us at the human level.
No matter how tempted you are, don’t bullsh*t your employees. Hamm cautions leaders to tell the truth, match your actions with words, and match those words with the truth: no spin, no BS, no fancy justifications or revisionist history.
Don’t punish “good failures.” This is one of the stupidest things an organization can do — yet it happens all the time, according to Hamm. A “good failure” is a term used in Silicon Valley to describe a new business start-up or mature company initiative that, by most measures, is well planned, well run, and well organized — yet for reasons beyond its control (an unexpected competitive product, a change in the market or economy) it fails.
In other words, “good failures” occur when teams play well, but still lose. When they’re punished, leaders instill a fear of risk-taking in their employees, and stifle creativity and innovation.
