Leading with Trust
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© 2011 The Ken Blanchard Companies. All rights reserved.

5 Ways to Avoid Moral Failures as a Leader

Sherrone Moore – Former University of Michigan head football coach (Photo by Luke Hales/Getty Images)

The most dangerous place you can be is if you think it couldn’t happen to you.

Last week’s firing of University of Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore is the latest reminder. He joins a long list of talented leaders who lost their way: Bobby Petrino at Arkansas, Steve Easterbrook at McDonald’s, Brian Krzanich at Intel, or this year’s “Kiss Cam” duo, Andy Byron and Kristen Kat from the company Astronomer.

Different fields, same pattern: people entrusted with influence making choices that violate the very trust that put them there.

Why does this happen so often?

Psychologists have been studying the effects of power for years, and the findings are sobering:

💠People who feel powerful judge others more strictly while becoming more lenient with themselves. Researchers call this moral hypocrisy.

💠Power also creates a kind of moral disinhibition—a focus on rewards, a sense of exceptionalism, and less empathy for how our actions impact others.

💠Studies even show that people of higher status are more likely to break basic social rules, like cutting off drivers or failing to yield to pedestrians.

💠And then there’s moral licensing: “I’ve done so much good…I’ve earned this.” Even ethical leaders aren’t immune.

Here’s the truth I keep returning to: Leadership is a sacred trust.

The moment we forget that truth, we start treating our role as a perk instead of a responsibility.

How do you and I protect ourselves from suffering the same fate?

⭐Clarify your lines before you’re tempted to cross them. Write down the boundaries you refuse to violate in relationships, money, and integrity.

⭐Keep clean, transparent relational boundaries. When you have the power to hire, fire, or promote, there’s no such thing as a “private” relationship. Full stop.

⭐Build an inner circle that can call you out. Give a few trusted people the permission to ask hard questions—and answer them honestly.

⭐Create rhythms of reflection. Regularly ask yourself: Where am I starting to believe the rules don’t apply to me?

⭐Strengthen organizational guardrails. Clear policies, psychological safety, and real accountability protect both people and leaders.

Moral failure isn’t inevitable. But it is predictable when we lose sight of our responsibilities and start treating them as privileges.

Guard your heart. Guard your influence. Guard the trust others place in you.

How do you stay grounded when the temptations present themselves?

I’d love to hear the practices, mentors, or guardrails that help you stay true to your values.

 4 Comments

 Posted on December 15, 2025 by

 Credibility, Ethics, Integrity, Leadership, Power, Trust, Trust Busters, Values

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Airing of Grievances – 4 Ways Leaders Can Combat a Culture of Resentment and Outrage

Any fan of the old TV series Seinfeld will remember the classic Festivus episode, where George Costanza’s father kicks off the make-believe holiday with the “Airing of Grievances.” At dinner, each person takes turns venting about how everyone else has disappointed them throughout the year.

Lately, it feels like Festivus never ends. Instead of a once-a-year laugh, many of us are living in a constant state of grievance. Political division, economic anxiety, and a non-stop outrage cycle have left people stuck in fight-or-flight mode—and it’s bleeding into our workplaces.

Even the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, a well-respected annual global survey, titled this year’s report: Trust and the Crisis of Grievance. Of the 33,000 people surveyed across 28 countries, the majority expressed deep resentment toward business, government, and the wealthy—driven by worries over job security, globalization, economic instability, and technological disruption. Add income inequality, dishonest leadership, and growing support for hostile activism, and you’ve got a potent recipe for disillusionment.

So, what can leaders do? While we can’t control global events, we can shape the culture within our teams. Here are four strategies to help counteract the grievance mindset and cultivate a culture of trust, resilience, and hope:

1. Boost Transparency

When information is scarce, people will fill in the blanks—often with fear or suspicion. That’s why transparency matters. As much as possible, share how and why decisions are made, what’s driving key priorities, and the financial health of your organization.

Also, make it a habit to distinguish facts from opinions. Too often, our conversations are shaped by misinformation or echo chambers. Promoting evidence-based dialogue fosters smarter decisions and better outcomes.

And don’t forget, transparency goes both ways. Create space for feedback. Invite perspectives. Healthy dialogue, especially across differences, strengthens your team’s thinking and builds trust from the inside out.

2. Lead with Empathy

Empathetic leaders are curious. They lean in with genuine interest, seeking to understand the person—not just the performance. They make space for stories, concerns, and identities, honoring each person as more than their job description.

They also listen differently. Most of us listen to respond, rebut, or reinforce our own viewpoint. But empathetic leaders listen to understand. That requires patience, presence, and the willingness to hear what’s not being said.

Lastly, they help. Simple, yes—but not always easy. Being helpful means expending energy, offering support, and taking initiative. And it’s hard to stay resentful toward someone who’s consistently looking out for your well-being. Show up with service.

3. Make Trust a Priority

Trust isn’t a soft skill—it’s a core competency. And too often, we don’t talk about it until it’s already eroded. Make trust a visible, measurable part of your culture.

That starts with defining what trust looks like—then teaching it. Trust-building behaviors can be learned and practiced. Training your team on these fundamentals strengthens relationships and performance alike.

It also means tracking trust. Include it in your leadership dashboard. Use surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one conversations to keep a finger on the pulse of your organization’s trust levels—both internally and externally.

4. Stay True to Your Values

In an unpredictable world, your greatest power is how you choose to show up. Your values don’t matter if they’re just words on a wall—they come alive through consistent action.

Living your values gives people something to believe in. It offers hope, stability, and a shared sense of purpose. As the old saying goes, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Your job as a leader is to articulate that vision—and anchor it in values that inspire.

This isn’t a one-time declaration. It’s a daily discipline. Lao Tzu said it best:

“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”

The “Airing of Grievances” may be funny on a sitcom, but in real life, resentment, disappointment, and disillusionment are serious barriers to connection and performance. As leaders, we have a choice: react to the grievance culture or rise above it.

By increasing transparency, leading with empathy, prioritizing trust, and staying grounded in our values, we don’t just survive the storms—we build teams that thrive through them.

And that’s a Festivus miracle we can all get behind.

 1 Comment

 Posted on May 4, 2025 by

 Culture, Empathy, Leadership, Transparency, Trust, Values

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What Kind of Trust Are You Feeling? A Simple Map to the 4 Ways We Connect

There’s a kind of magic that happens when we trust someone—but have you ever stopped to wonder what kind of trust you’re feeling?

Not all trust is created equal. Some trust lives in your head, built on logic and consistency. Other trust? It blooms in your heart, born from warmth and connection. I call these two types head trust and heart trust, and understanding the blend of both can transform how we lead, collaborate, and show up for one another.

Head trust sounds like this: “I trust her because she always follows through.” It’s grounded in reliability, competence, and good judgment. Head trust grows when people do what they say they’re going to do. It’s the kind of trust that makes you feel safe putting someone in charge of the numbers, the project, the car keys.

Heart trust, on the other hand, whispers: “I trust him because he truly listens.” It’s the emotional side of trust—rooted in empathy, care, and emotional availability. Heart trust shows up when someone remembers your coffee order, checks in after a hard day, or sits with you in silence without needing to fix anything.

Here’s where it gets interesting: we can actually map our trust experiences by looking at the levels of head and heart trust we feel toward someone. Think of it as a matrix, with head trust on one axis and heart trust on the other, ranging from low to high. The combination of these levels creates four distinct kinds of trust:

  • Balanced Trust (High Head + High Heart): This is the gold standard. You believe in someone’s competence and feel emotionally safe with them. These are the relationships where trust multiplies and collaboration thrives.
  • Calculated Trust (High Head + Low Heart): You trust someone’s skills but keep your emotional guard up. This works well in transactional or task-focused situations, but it may feel cold or disconnected over time.
  • Emotional Trust (Low Head + High Heart): You feel a strong personal connection but question their reliability or competence. This can lead to warmth without results—and that can create friction when performance matters.
  • Suspicious Trust (Low Head + Low Heart): Neither competence nor connection are present. This is where mistrust lives, and where collaboration tends to stall before it even starts.

Most of our deep, enduring relationships are built on some mix of head and heart trust. But the balance shapes how those relationships feel and function.

So next time you’re wondering why a relationship feels flat or fragile, ask yourself:

  • Is the head trust strong, but the heart trust missing?
  • Or is there heart, but not enough follow-through?
  • Am I dealing with calculated, emotional, or even suspicious trust?

And most importantly:

  • How can I offer both head and heart trust to the people around me?

Because trust isn’t just something we receive. It’s something we build—with our words, our actions, our presence. And when we build it with both head and heart, we don’t just create better teams.

We create better humans.

 3 Comments

 Posted on April 7, 2025 by

 Relationships, Trust

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3 Priorities of Servant Leaders

I find that when I speak about servant leadership, many people misunderstand what it means. Some say, “Oh, you mean being nice to people.” Others think, “That’s all about not micromanaging employees.” One of my favorites is, “Letting the inmates run the prison!” Really? Is a prison the best analogy for the workplace?

Although servant leaders are often kind and avoid micromanaging, those ideas miss the mark. So, how do we define it? The modern father of servant leadership, Robert K. Greenleaf, used this test: “Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?”

Servant leaders focus on bringing out the best in people and organizations. To do that, they prioritize three key areas:

1. Results — Does listing this first surprise you? Servant leaders are responsible for their organization’s success. They ensure people achieve their goals, which drives results. Servant leadership isn’t only about people. Without success, there are no people to serve. “No margin = no mission.”

2. Relationships — People are the heart of every organization. Sometimes, we talk about organizations as if they exist separately from people. Without people, there is no organization. Servant leaders prioritize growth and well-being because they understand this truth.

“Servant leadership is the best way to achieve both great results and great relationships.” — Simple Truth #1, Simple Truths of Leadership

3. Trust — Leadership starts with trust. Great results and strong relationships require an environment built on trust. Servant leaders develop trust by showing competence, acting with integrity, demonstrating care, and keeping commitments.

Leaders who focus on results, relationships, and trust bring Greenleaf’s definition of servant leadership to life.

Want to explore these ideas further? Join me in the Blanchard Community on February 10th at 12:00 p.m. Pacific. We’ll discuss Simple Truths of Leadership and other principles from Blanchard’s leadership courses. This interactive session will help turn common sense into common practice. The Blanchard Community is free and open to all.

 1 Comment

 Posted on February 9, 2025 by

 Leadership, Servant Leadership, Simple Truths of Leadership, Trust

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4 Strategies to Remove Fear from Your Leadership

What is the first emotion you feel when you receive an email, text, or phone call from your boss that says, “I need to speak with you?”

Is it interest? Joy? Eagerness? Or a positive sense that something good is about to transpire?

Or is it dread? Suspicion? Concern? A foreboding sense of doom or even outright fear?

My experience has shown that most people’s reaction is the latter. Their first thought tends to be, “Did I do something wrong?”

Why is that? Part of it has to do with human nature.

Our brains are hardwired to be threat-detecting machines. We are constantly assessing our environment for threats and making determinations about potential impacts to our well-being. If we perceive something could harm us, then we go into fight, flight, or freeze mode. It’s not always logical and we have to train ourselves to react in more thoughtful ways, but it’s a reality of the human condition.

Another reason we react negatively to that simple inquiry is we’ve been conditioned to expect bad news from our boss. Think about your personal experience in the workplace. Have most of your impromptu encounters with the boss been because they’ve wanted to catch you doing something right and praise you, or are they because the boss needed to point out something that wasn’t quite right? Unfortunately, it’s usually the latter.

What’s driving leaders to create this culture of fear? Well, it’s fear. No duh!

According to a recent survey, 33 percent of managers lead with fear. As the study’s authors point out, if you were to ask a manager if they lead with fear, most will say no. But when you ask them about the fear-based sentiments they feel throughout the day (e.g., suspicion, blame, imposter syndrome, micromanagement, unwillingness to receive feedback), it becomes clear that fear is unconsciously driving their behavior.

Ken Blanchard and I address this topic in our book, Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust. Simple truth number 33 simply says, “Fear is the enemy of trust.”

I’ve observed many leaders who manage people through fear. They think pointing out mistakes, being critical, or even yelling at team members will get them to perform better. However, the long-term result is more likely to be people who either tune out the leader or fail to take initiative because they are afraid to make mistakes.

Even if you aren’t the stereotypical loud, in-your-face type of boss, you may be casting a shadow of fear over your team without realizing it. Your positional authority alone is enough to create a certain amount of anxiety in the hearts of your employees. Mix in other low-key, fear-based behaviors like hoarding information or being passive-aggressive, and you’ve got a recipe for creating a culture of fear.

So, what’s the antidote to fear? It’s safety grounded in trust.

In our recently published workbook, Simple Truths of Leadership Playbook: A 52-Week Game Plan for Becoming a Trusted Servant Leader, Ken and I share several strategies leaders can use to build trust and create a psychologically safe environment.

First, be consistent in behaving in a trustworthy manner. Trust doesn’t just mysteriously happen. It’s a skill that leaders need to learn and develop to foster trust with their team. Consistently displaying trustworthiness allows your team to confidently know what they can expect from you, whereas inconsistent behavior breeds doubt and suspicion and erodes trust.

Second, treat mistakes as learning opportunities. Rather than assign blame, examine what was learned and what can be done differently in the future. Our friend, Garry Ridge, former CEO of WD-40, modeled this principle during his career. His treatment of mistakes as learning opportunities transformed what was once a fearful, risk-averse culture into one of innovation, trust, and safety.

A third strategy to create a culture of safety and trust is to communicate clearly, openly, and as transparently as possible. Clear communication reduces misunderstandings, and sharing information shows that you trust people with knowing the details.

A final strategy to pursue is to share the “why” behind decisions. I’ve learned that in the absence of knowing the logic and reasons behind a decision, people will make up their own versions of the truth, which is usually more negative than reality.

So, examine yourself and explore the deeper motivations behind your leadership. Do you find instances where you’ve led with fear? If you don’t, then you probably lie to yourself about other things in your life!

Which of these strategies might you pursue to eliminate fear and build trust and safety with your team? What will be your first steps?

To support you in the effort to become a trusted servant leader, I invite you to join me for a monthly book club on the Simple Truths of Leadership Playbook. Each month we will unpack a handful of the simple truths and discuss how to incorporate them into our daily actions. There’s no cost for the book club (other than purchasing your own Simple Truths Playbook) and it’s open to all members of the Blanchard Community (free to join). Click here to join.

I hope to see you there!

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 Posted on January 17, 2024 by

 Fear, Leadership, Trust

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How Quickly You Decide to Trust…and Why You’re Likely Wrong

How much time do you think it took you to read this sentence?

The average person reads approximately 238 words per minute, so that 13-word sentence probably took you about 3.25 seconds to read.

How long do you think it takes you to make an initial assessment of another person’s trustworthiness? Try 1/10th of a second.

A study by two Princeton psychologists, Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov, revealed that people assess the facial features of others in milliseconds and form judgements about the person’s trustworthiness, among other traits. Although Willis’ and Todorov’s study was remarkable for revealing the speed at which people make these assessments, other studies support the notion of how quickly we form initial impressions. One study illustrated that it takes under 30 seconds to assess a person’s body language and form judgements about how we think they’ll behave toward us, while another showed that it takes just 20 seconds for a person to appraise the trustworthiness of a complete stranger.

Whether it’s milliseconds or a half-minute, we make quick judgements about another person’s trustworthiness…and those decisions are often wrong.

Our initial impressions of another person are often clouded by our own mental biases and falsely interpreting the physical and behavioral signals we receive from them. I like to call these trust traps.

Trust Traps

One common trust trap is affinity bias. We have a predisposition to look favorably upon others who share similar characteristics, backgrounds, interests, or beliefs that we hold. Without even consciously recognizing it, we may place more trust in a person who went to the same school as we did, grew up in the same neighborhood, or shares the same religious faith, yet none of those factors can fully speak to the person’s trustworthiness without further exploration.

Another frequent trust trap is confirmation bias. This unconscious bias happens when we look for evidence that confirms our existing beliefs, essentially seeing what we want to see. If your life experiences have conditioned you to believe that most people can’t be trusted, then you will (consciously and unconsciously) look for signs in another person that confirm your belief that they are untrustworthy. Conversely, if your experience has taught you that most people can be trusted, you’ll be more likely to look for signs confirming you can trust another person. In either scenario, your previous experience has no bearing on the trustworthiness of a person you’re meeting for the first time.

Cultural norms can be another trust trap that derails our judgement. For example, in Western culture, people generally interpret direct eye contact and a firm handshake as signs of trustworthiness. However, in Eastern cultures, a softer handshake and indirect eye contact is more the norm. If we only use our own cultural lens to interpret the behavior of others, we will likely make mistakes that damage or limit the effectiveness of our relationships.

Perhaps one of the trust traps people most often encounter is mistaking a person’s confidence for competence. People who project self-confidence and assertiveness are often perceived as being competent and trustworthy, yet anyone can talk a good game without backing it up. Confidence is feeling capable. Competence is being capable. We want to place our trust in people who are truly capable, not those who simply feel they are capable.

These are just a few of the common trust traps that impair our ability to accurately gauge another person’s trustworthiness. Others include the social status of the person being judged, emotions being expressed by us and others, and our own emotional intelligence. All these dynamics play a factor in shaping our judgements about trusting others.

Deciding Whom to Trust

The reality is that when it comes to assessing another person’s trustworthiness, our initial impressions can only take us so far. And, as I’ve discussed above, our initial impressions are often faulty.

To fully understand another person’s trustworthiness, we need to examine their behaviors. The best predictor of a person’s future trustworthiness is their past trustworthiness. If you’re not sure where to start, you can start by asking these four questions.

What’s your experience with trusting others? Have your initial assessments proved accurate? Have they gotten you in hot water? Feel free to join the conversation by sharing your comments on this article.

 9 Comments

 Posted on November 13, 2023 by

 Decision-Making, Relationships, Trust

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Don’t Assume You’re Trusted – 3 False Beliefs That Get Leaders in Trouble

My experience has shown that many leaders take trust for granted. They assume people trust them by virtue of their title or position, when the reality is they aren’t as trusted as they think they are. A recent survey by PWC reported a 15-point gap between leaders who believe employees highly trust their company (84%) and what the employees reported (69%).

Ironically, building and maintaining trust is an issue that most leaders agree is critically important, but few have a plan to achieve it. A survey by YPO showed 96% of chief executives said building and maintaining trust was a high priority for their success, yet just 34% of the respondents said they had defined and specific plans for building trust in their organizations.

It reminds me of the old project management adage: people don’t plan to fail; they just fail to plan.

I’ve found that principle also applies in my work teaching leaders how to build trust in the workplace. Most leaders don’t plan to fail in building trust, they just fail to create a plan. I’ve observed three common assumptions leaders make that prevent them from building trust in a consistent and proactive way.

They assume trust “just happens.
Like some sort of relational osmosis, people figure trust just naturally develops over the course of time, and the longer you’re in relationship with someone, the greater the likelihood you’ll build a strong bond of trust. Well, if you believe that, I’m sorry to burst your bubble. Trust doesn’t work that way. Trust is based on perceptions, and those perceptions are formed by the behaviors you use. If you use trustworthy behaviors, you’ll be trusted. If you use behaviors that erode trust, people won’t trust you. Building trust is a skill that can be learned and developed, and once you have those skills, you can be intentional about acting in ways that build trust with others.

They assume others view trust the same way they do.
When I conduct training workshops on building trust, I often like to ask participants to draw a symbol or picture that represents trust. I’ve seen hundreds of representations of trust: wedding rings, a cross, a child holding a parent’s hand, a bank vault, and people shaking hands, just to name a few of the common ones. I conduct this activity because it illustrates the point I mentioned earlier: trust is based on perceptions. Everybody has their own view of what trust means, based on their unique personal experience. This varied understanding of trust reminds me of the classic movie, The Princess Bride. The character Vizzini uses the word “Inconceivable!” as an adjective to describe just about any situation, even if it doesn’t quite make sense. Finally, Inigo says to him, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” The same misunderstanding happens between leaders and their team members if they don’t share a common definition of trust.

They assume trust is only a “warm and fuzzy” concept.
When you discuss building trust, many leaders jump to the conclusion that you’re talking about building warm and fuzzy relationships. You know, the “let’s all hold hands and sing kumbaya” kind of warm and fuzzy. Well, trust does have a relationship component, and it’s the interpersonal connection that often sparks the development of trust in the first place. However, trust also has a hard, bottom-line impact on organizations. The research is clear that high-trust organizations have lower turnover, higher employee engagement, and outperform low-trust organizations on practically every measurable metric. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that pizza lunches, fancy off-site retreats, or ropes courses check the box for having a strategy of building trust in the workplace.

I’m sure you noticed I used the word “assume” in the three examples above; that was intentional. You’ve probably the heard the familiar warning about what happens when you assume, right? Well, when it comes to building trust, you don’t want to assume anything. Don’t assume trust just happens by chance. Have a defined plan for building and sustaining it. Don’t assume other people perceive trust the same way you do. Chances are they see it differently, and if you’re not on the same page as to what trust looks like in a relationship, your efforts in building trust will miss the mark. Finally, don’t assume trust is solely a “soft” relationship dynamic. Trust can literally make or break the success of your organization. To build trust, I’m reminded of another project management adage: plan your work and work your plan.

 2 Comments

 Posted on May 19, 2023 by

 Leadership, Trust

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6 Principles to Consider Before Electronically Monitoring Remote Employees

Let’s be honest. Many leaders are suspicious of remote employees’ work habits.

“I know remote employees aren’t working eight hours a day,” said a leader when I recently asked him how his organization was dealing with remote/hybrid workers. He didn’t have any specific data to support his conclusion, but it was clearly his perception that people working remotely weren’t putting in the same effort as those in the office.

Keeping an eye on workers

This leader’s perception is not an outlier, as Microsoft’s 2022 Work Trend survey showed that 85% of leaders doubt their remote workers are being productive. “Productivity Paranoia” has taken hold in a large number of organizations as leaders struggle to adjust to new ways of managing remote workers. In June 2022, Gartner’s research showed the number of large employers using tools to track their workers had doubled since the beginning of the pandemic to 60%, with that number expected to rise to 70% within the next three years.

Monitoring employees in some form or fashion has occurred for decades—think GPS trackers in trucks, timecards, swipe badges, CCTV, regulating web browsing—but some of today’s methods border on outright distrust of remote workers. Organizations are surveilling employees by using software to record keystrokes, monitor time spent in specific applications, take periodic screenshots, record meetings, and even accessing employees’ webcams, with some requiring “always on” live video feeds for remote workers.

Effects of electronic monitoring

Is there a good or “right” way to monitor remote employees? Research indicates it’s a risky proposition that often backfires on organizations. One study found that workers under surveillance intentionally worked more slowly, took more breaks, and stole more office supplies than their un-monitored peers. A meta-analysis (a study of multiple studies) examining the effects of electronic monitoring on employee wellness and performance found that monitoring workers had no impact on improving performance and resulted in lower job satisfaction and higher stress.

The reason for these negative impacts? Monitoring an employee’s every move directly opposes the basic psychological need for autonomy. Workers who are monitored feel they have less choice and control, so they circumvent company rules to regain a sense of autonomy over their actions and work environment.

Trust vs Control

If the consequences of monitoring remote employees are so obviously bad, why do organizations do it?

As I share in my recent book with Ken Blanchard, Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust, the very nature of trust requires one party to take a risk and extend trust to another. Extending our trust to someone makes us vulnerable to their actions. Will they reward our trust? Will we get burned? If we feel the risk is too great, we resort to control. Control is the opposite of trust.

Granted, the nature of some industries requires an appropriate level of monitoring. Certain governmental, military, healthcare, or financial services organizations work with confidential or highly sensitive data, and this requires them to tightly control and monitor employee activity. Monitoring remote employees in these environments makes sense, and it presents leaders with the extra challenge of figuring out ways to meet legal/regulatory requirements while minimizing the negative impact on the employee experience.

Apart from these situations, it seems most organizations who electronically monitor remote employees do it because they simply don’t trust workers to be productive (although they would never state that publicly).

Six Important Principles

The decision to electronically monitor remote employees is not one to be taken lightly or made quickly. If you’re considering going this route, I recommend you consider these six important principles.

1. Examine Your Motives—Be brutally honest with yourself. Why do you feel the need to monitor your remote workers? Is it truly a concern over their productivity? If so, what data do you have that shows it’s suffering? Is the quality of work not up to snuff? Again, what data supports your conclusions? Or is the root issue a lack of trust? It’s OK to admit there are trust issues. You can’t improve trust until you first acknowledge there is a problem.

2. Look for Ways to Address Concerns That Don’t Involve Monitoring—If there are legitimate concerns that need to be addressed, explore ways to resolve those concerns that don’t involve electronic monitoring or surveillance (e.g., completing status reports, daily scrums, etc.). It may require more time and effort to create and implement new systems or processes, but the effort will result in higher trust and respect with your team members than if you take the quick and easy route of digitally tracking their every move.

“People who plan the battle rarely battle the plan.” ~ Simple Truth #22
Simple Truths of Leadership, by Ken Blanchard & Randy Conley

3. Involve Employees in Creating the Strategy—If you find some sort of monitoring of remote employees is needed, digital or otherwise, involve the people who will be impacted in developing the strategy. People will have greater ownership and commitment to the strategy if they understand the purpose of it and help create and implement it. If it’s done to them, rather than with them, they will push-back and act in self-protective ways that are usually counter to what the organization desires.

4. Be Clear on What’s Being Measured and Why—Simple, rote tasks that have easily measurable metrics around quantity and quality are easiest to monitor, but complex, knowledge-based tasks requiring discretion and judgement are much harder to measure. How do you quantify innovation and collaboration? The difficulty of measuring these factors is why many organizations have defaulted to demanding remote workers return to the office.

5. Make it a Win-Win—The organization clearly benefits from keeping tabs on remote workers, but what about the employees? Creating a win-win is a key success factor of any employee monitoring system, say researchers who study this topic. From the employee perspective, will it result in more manageable workloads? Training opportunities? Higher compensation? It will look different for every organization and job role, but it’s critical that employees see the benefit.

6. Play Fair—Fairness is treating people equitably (being impartial, unbiased, giving them what they deserve) and ethically (according to the principles, standards, or rules). If monitoring remote employees is necessary, then be completely above-board and transparent about why it’s required, how it’s being done, what the data will be used for, and how it will impact employees.

Is It Worth It?

When deciding to monitor remote employees, each organization must answer this question: Is it worth it? From my perspective, the drawbacks far outweigh any potential benefits. I believe organizations have much more to gain by collaborating with employees to define this new world of remote work.

The pandemic let the genie out of the bottle and proved that remote work can deliver business results just as effectively, if not more so, than in-person work. With survey after survey showing most people wanting some form of remote work, organizations are going to have to address this issue head on. The ones who will be the most successful are those who build their approach on a foundation of trust with their employees rather than suspicion.

 1 Comment

 Posted on April 18, 2023 by

 Distrust, Hybrid Work, Trust

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Does Our Personality Determine How Much We Trust Others?

One of the things I love most about the field of trust is its depth and breadth. Trust is multi-dimensional, and for a trust geek like me, it’s easy (and fun!) to get lost exploring all its nooks and crannies.

Early childhood and life experiences, beliefs, values, gender, nationality, culture, age, and personality are among the factors that influence both how we view trust and our willingness to trust others. Of those, personality is probably the one factor that I get asked about most often when I’m helping leaders build trust with others.

Personality, like trust, is a concept with many components. I’ve learned that when people ask me how their personality shapes their view on trust, they’re usually wondering if they are hardwired to respond to trust in a specific way.

The study of personality—or more specifically, temperament—dates back more than 2,500 years to when Hippocrates first described four basic temperament types: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic. The study of personality has continued over the centuries and research has deepened and expanded our knowledge. There are many popular personality typing systems in use today, but these systems tend to be too complex for most people to apply them in their moments of need. Earlier this year we launched Essential Motivators™, which teaches a four-pattern framework to help people discover how their pattern shapes their core psychological needs, values, talents, and behaviors so that they can better understand themselves and others.

Now back to the question of how our personality influences our willingness to trust. Are some people hardwired to be more trusting than others?

First, we have to explore what’s called our propensity (willingness) to trust. It’s our natural, default approach to extending trust to others.

Think of a person’s willingness to trust others as a continuum. On one end there is the position of “I automatically trust everyone,” and the opposite end is “I don’t trust anyone.” Depending on the situation and context (the person being trusted, the level of risk, potential for having our trust betrayed, etc.), we can be anywhere on that spectrum. In one situation we may willingly extend trust, and in a different situation we may withhold it. However, in our average, everyday interactions with people, most of us fall somewhere in the middle of that scale.

One of the key factors in our willingness to extend trust is the other person’s trustworthiness. A person’s trustworthiness can be assessed by how well their actions align with the ABCDs of trust:

  • ABLE – Demonstrates Competence
  • BELIEVABLE – Acts with Integrity
  • CONNECTED – Cares about Others
  • DEPENDABLE – Honors Commitments

By comparing the four Essential Motivator patterns with the four elements of trust, one can begin to see how they influence our willingness to trust. Let’s look at the four patterns of Essential Motivators in a little more detail:

Fire pattern – People of the Fire pattern tend to be improvisers who value the freedom to choose the next action and respond to the needs of the moment. They seek impact, results, and solutions that will work now. What elements of trust do you think people of the Fire pattern find most trustworthy? They are more likely to trust people who are Able and Dependable—who are competent in what they do, have the right knowledge, skills, and expertise for the situation, and get things done.

Earth pattern – People of the Earth pattern want to have a place to contribute. They desire responsibility, accountability, structure, and stability, and they want to protect and preserve. Because of these essential motivators, people of the Earth pattern extend trust more willingly to people who are Believable in their actions. They are triggered to more naturally trust those who are honest and ethical (not that other patterns aren’t as well), as well as those who model Dependability by following through on commitments no matter what.

Air pattern – People of the Air pattern tend to be theorists and want to know the theories behind everything before taking action. They value competence and mastery, and are usually oriented to logic and operating principles that provide long-term results. People who demonstrate trustworthiness through their competence (Able) are more likely to earn the trust of those of the Air pattern.

Water pattern – People of the Water pattern want to be authentic, caring, and have meaningful connections. They value meaning, purpose, identity, and seek those elements in their relationships. What element of trust do you think the Water pattern gravitates toward? Connected! People who build rapport, communicate openly, and value genuine, caring relationships earn the trust of those of the Water pattern.

When we discuss Essential Motivators, it’s important to understand that although we all tend to have a dominant pattern, each of us displays elements of all four patterns. The same goes for the ABCDs of trust. We demonstrate our trustworthiness by using behaviors that align with all four elements of trust, and we trust others who have a healthy balance of the ABCDs. So, it’s not fair or appropriate to pigeonhole someone by their pattern and say they only extend trust to certain types of people—however, it is fair to say that our dominant pattern often drives our initial perceptions of another person’s trustworthiness. And what often triggers our trust in someone? When we perceive them to be just like us!

Both our Essential Motivators and the other person’s trustworthiness play a big part in how willing we are to extend our trust to them. When we understand the four patterns as well as which elements of trust each one naturally gravitates to, we are better able to communicate our own trustworthiness and have deeper, more meaningful relationships.

This post was originally published on Blanchard’s LeaderChat blog.

 3 Comments

 Posted on March 28, 2023 by

 ABCD Trust Model, Personality, Trust

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The #1 Strategy for Improving The Employee Experience in 2023

Employee experience can be defined as the journey an employee takes with your organization over the course of their employment. Everything from the way they experience recruitment, interviewing, onboarding, training, career development, performance management, recognition, rewards, and even the way they exit the organization makes up their overall experience.

Employee experience is in the spotlight because of the importance of retention and engagement issues in today’s marketplace. Organizations are competing for the best and brightest workers who won’t jump ship for the next shiny new offer that comes their way. To keep their top talent, organizations are taking a close look at how their employee experience can set them apart from the crowd.

We recently completed research on this topic and gathered input from over 700 leadership, learning, and talent development professionals. We asked them to share their key strategies for improving their employee experience and the feedback showed a clear frontrunner:

Building trust between managers and direct reports

Why did this strategy rank ahead of other important initiatives like addressing workloads to prevent burnout, connecting work to purpose, setting clear performance expectations, and promoting teamwork and collaboration? It’s because trust is the foundation of the employee/employer relationship, and a person’s direct manager is the organization’s representative.

Research supports the criticality of trust between employees and their managers as the basis for being highly engaged at work. ADP Research conducted a global study on engagement that involved over 19,000 people across 19 countries and 13 industries. The study included full-time employees, part-time employees, gig workers, those with multiple jobs, and people with full-time jobs plus gig jobs on the side.

ADP found that two primary factors that characterized highly engaged employees stood out above all others: being on a team and trust in the team leader. In fact, a worker is 12x more likely to be fully engaged if they trust their team leader.

Our own research on the roles of cognitive trust (what I like to call “trust from the head”) and affective trust (“trust from the heart”) show a direct correlation between high levels of employee trust in their leaders and those employees having positive intentions to be highly engaged at work. Our study showed that leader trustworthiness is highly correlated to the five key intentions that drive employee work passion: discretionary effort, intent to perform, intent to endorse, intent to remain, and organizational citizenship.

So, trust is the foundation for a great employee experience. How do you build it?

Many leaders think trust “just happens,” like some sort of relationship osmosis. These people often understand trust is important, but they don’t know what it takes to have their people perceive them as being trustworthy. There are four elements of trust in a relationship that we’ve captured in the Building Trust model. If leaders use behaviors aligned with the four elements of trust, they will build trust with their people. If they don’t use those behaviors, or do the opposite, they will erode trust. It’s commonsense but not always common practice.

Your organization’s employee experience is critical to its health and success. But to bring it closer to home, it’s critical to your success as a leader, and the foundation of that experience begins with the trust your people have in you. Remember, every interaction you have with them is an opportunity to build trust or erode it. Will you focus on building trust with your people in 2023? 

 1 Comment

 Posted on December 14, 2022 by

 ABCD Trust Model, Engagement, Trust

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The Choice is Yours: 6 Principles for Leveraging the Power of Choice to Build Trust, Manage Change, and Empower Others

“People don’t resist change; they resist being controlled.”

That’s simple truth #46 in my book, Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust, co-written with Ken Blanchard. The truth is most people don’t actually resist change itself. They resist being told to change and forced to go along with it. In reality, they resist being controlled. They resent not having a choice.

Choice is an incredibly powerful psychological need. In the world of motivation theory, it’s commonly accepted that humans have three core psychological needs: autonomy, relatedness, and competence. We express our desire for autonomy through choice—the ability to exert control over our environment. Research also indicates control is a biological necessity.[i] Evidence from animal research, clinical studies, and brain neuroimaging suggests the desire for control is a biological imperative.

I believe the more leaders afford team members the opportunity to exert control by making their own choices, the more success they will have in building trust, managing change efforts, and empowering others.

Principles of Choice

Here are six leadership principles to consider as you look to leverage the power of choice:

1. Choice increases a person’s sense of control. As I mentioned previously, one of our core psychological needs is autonomy. In her book, Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work…and What Does, my friend and colleague, Susan Fowler, says “Autonomy is our human need to perceive we have choices. It is our need to feel that what we are doing is of our own volition. It is our perception that we are the source of our actions.”

The more autonomy a person has to freely choose their course of action, the more motivated and committed they will be to that decision. That’s why we included simple truth #22 in our book: “People who plan the battle rarely battle the plan.” If you want people to be accountable, to get on board with new strategies and changes, then find ways to give them choices to help shape the plan.

2. Choice produces higher personal satisfaction…even if there is no difference in outcome or reward. This is a fascinating psychological phenomenon. It has been demonstrated, both in animal and human research, that there is a preference for choice over non-choice[ii]. When presented with two options, animals and humans prefer the option that leads to a second choice over one that does not, even though the expected value of both options is the same and making a second choice requires greater expenditure of energy.

Any parent who has tried to get a stubborn toddler to eat its dinner or wear a certain outfit understands the power of this principle.

My son Matthew was incredibly headstrong as a toddler, and he’d fight with me tooth and nail when I tried to force decisions upon him. My parental decisions collided directly with his need for choice. When I finally wised up to this principle, I started to let him choose between a few different options of what to eat or wear. Problem solved! He got to express his need for choice, and I met my goal of making sure he was well fed and clothed.

Adults in the workplace are more sophisticated than stubborn toddlers, but the principle works the same. Even if you face constraints that don’t allow for much difference in outcomes, just giving people the ability to choose a course of action results in higher satisfaction than no choice at all.

3. Choice is a reward in and of itself. This principle builds on the previous one. In addition to choice producing higher personal satisfaction, the act of choosing is a reward in and of itself.[iii] Neuroimaging studies show that the rewards and motivation processing regions of our brain (the pre-frontal cortex and striatum) “light up” to a greater extent when we receive rewards based on choice versus rewards being passively received.

So, how can leaders leverage this principle? An obvious area is how rewards and recognition programs are managed. Instead of designating specific gifts, rewards, or prizes for a particular achievement (service anniversaries, meeting sales quotas, etc.), offer people choices in what they can select. That gives individuals twice the pleasure in not only gaining a reward but also being able to choose the specific

4. Lack of choice increases stress. If choice is a reward and produces personal satisfaction, then it’s not much of stretch to realize that no choice produces stress. Scientific studies show that removal of choice increases the release of cortisol (the stress hormone), suppresses the immune system, and results in the development of what researchers call “maladaptive” (aka, bad!) behaviors.[iv]

In the workplace, lack of choice results in people having a greater sense of fear, increased negativity about their environment, developing learned helplessness, and placing more focus on how to regain control, all of which leads to more “maladaptive” behaviors. Yikes!

5. Too much choice increases stress. Didn’t I just say that lack of choice increases stress? Yes, I did. So, doesn’t that mean more choice should reduce stress? Yes, but only to a point. Research points out there is a difference in the desire to want choice versus the desire to make a choice.[v]

Have you ever wanted to paint a room in your house and been overwhelmed with deciding among the 87 different shades of your chosen color that are available at the home improvement store? Or, what about trying to decide which streaming service(s) you should use if you cut the cord on cable TV? Good luck with that!

Although a greater number of choices seem preferable, too many choices quickly lead to cognitive overload. That causes us to sticking with the status quo—not deciding—as a way to cope with the stress. People would rather make no choice than make the wrong one. How ironic! Leverage the power of this principle by giving your people choice, but within reasonable boundaries.

6. Complexity of choices increases the need for trust. When faced with complex situations, incomplete information, or a lack of resources, we turn to trusted advisors to either assist us in the decision-making process or actually making the decision on our behalf. It could be a family member, physician, attorney, boss, or any other person we feel is more capable of making the “best” decision.

This is where leaders earn their pay. If leaders have done a good job building high-trust relationships with their people, they will willingly come to you for help with these sorts of dilemmas. If you don’t have that level of trust, your people will try to address the situation on their own even though they feel ill-equipped to do so. They are also more likely to give you the monkey and let you own the problem, or perhaps worst of all, they will do nothing and let the situation fester.

The Choice is Yours

Trust between you and your team is the key to succeeding in our VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world. You must trust the competence and commitment of your team members to exert control and make wise choices. And your team members must trust you to set them up for success and be there to support them when they need it.

Let me close by returning to where I started. The simple truth, “People don’t resist change; they resist being controlled,” speaks to our fundamental human need for control, which is expressed through our desire for choice. The greater degree that leaders can offer their people choice, and thereby increase their sense of control, the greater the likelihood people will be engaged in their work, empowered by their freedom to choose, and achieve goals that are important to the organization.

It seems like a slam dunk to me, but only you can decide if this fits into your approach to leadership. The choice is yours.

[i] Born to Choose: The Origins and Value of the Need for Control – PMC (nih.gov)

[ii] The lure of choice – Bown – 2003 – Journal of Behavioral Decision Making – Wiley Online Library and Effects of number of alternatives on choice in humans – ScienceDirect

[iii] The effects of choice and enhanced personal responsibility for the aged: A field experiment in an institutional setting. – PsycNET (apa.org)

[iv] Recognizing behavioral needs – ScienceDirect

[v] When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing? – PsycNET (apa.org)

 1 Comment

 Posted on November 14, 2022 by

 Change, Control, Decision-Making, Leadership, Motivation, Performance Management, Trust

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Do You Trust Your Team Enough to Go on Vacation?

Trust never takes a vacation.

When you go on holiday this summer, will you be preoccupied with how things are going at work? Do you have low trust in your team’s ability to manage without you? Or perhaps your team doesn’t trust you, and they can’t wait for you to go on vacation, so they don’t have to look over their shoulder every minute of the day. Regardless of your situation, there’s never a right time to take a vacation from building trust.

Simple truth #44 in my new book with Ken Blanchard, Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust, says…

The most important part of leadership is what happens when you’re not there.

High-control leaders are afraid to take time off of work and delegate to their team members. They’re concerned that when they’re not around, people will get off-course and do something stupid that will reflect badly on the leader. Trusted servant leaders, on the other hand, develop and empower their people so that they will perform just as well, if not better, on their own as they do when the leader is present.

This is especially critical in today’s remote and hybrid work culture. When you as the leader are physically located alongside your people, it’s easy to observe their working behaviors. But that’s an impossibility in today’s environment. The real proof that you are a trusted servant leader is how your people perform on their own. They know you trust them and they want to live up to the standards you have demonstrated.

That’s why I’d like to invite you to join me for the 8-week Summer of Trust leadership reflection series. Every Monday, from July 11 through August 29, you’ll receive a weekly email containing…

  • An inspirational and thought-provoking message on how to become a trusted servant leader
  • Practical actions steps for that week’s focus area that will help you implement the mindsets and skillsets of trusted servant leaders
  • A downloadable tool or resource to help you in your leadership journey of building trust

The Summer of Trust series is free of charge, and you can opt-out at any time. I’ll be giving away five copies of Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust. All subscribers are eligible for the random drawing and Ken and I will personally sign your copy!

I hope you’ll join me. I’m confident the Summer of Trust series will provide you with knowledge and resources that will make this a summer to remember.

Subscribe to Summer of Trust

 6 Comments

 Posted on June 26, 2022 by

 Leadership, Servant Leadership, Simple Truths of Leadership, Trust

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