Trust: Today’s critical, learnable competency.
The Trust Crisis is real. For reference, the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that Trust has suffered the largest-ever-recorded drop in the survey’s history among the general population.
So what do leaders do in the context of Trust Crisis?
For business, today’s global marketplace puts a premium on true collaboration, teaming, relationships, partnering, and all these interdependencies require Trust. Partnerships based on Trust outperform partnerships based on contracts. Compliance does not foster innovation, Trust does!
Trust is built from the inside out. Whatever Trust we are able to create in our organizations or in the marketplace is a result of the credibility we first create in ourselves, in our relationships, in our organizations, in our markets, and in society.
In issue after issue, the data is clear: high-trust organizations outperform low-trust organizations. Total return to shareholders in high-trust organizations is almost three times higher than the return in low-trust organizations. So we assert that Trust is a key competency of all organizations.
Trust is the one thing that affects everything else you’re doing. It’s a performance multiplier which takes your trajectory upwards, for every activity you engage in, from strategy to execution.
Unfortunately, the climate we are in now is hurting this Trust. The distrust we see all around is suspicion, a response to the corporate scandals and vicious downward cycles of cynicism. Executives need to understand the economic benefits of this Trust dividend, especially when the behavior is real, not artificially or superficially created as PR to manipulate Trust.
Leaders must lead in creating Trust and the job of the leader is to go first. Someone needs to go first, and that’s what leaders do - leaders go first.