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A Matter of Trust

Written by: Lee Colan

Article Overview: Trust is the basis for all successful leaders and all successful relationships for that matter. You cannot buy trust, but it is free. Trust is priceless yet can be earned over time. Have you ever tried to request someone’s trust? Maybe it was a team member, customer or a colleague. You may have wanted a decision to be made in your favor. To overcome some initial disagreement and expedite the decision making process, you might resort to “Hey, just trust me!” That statement is worthless. Either the other party already trusted you based on your past actions or they did not trust you and your request won’t change that. Trust is not spoken, it is demonstrated. Trust cannot be requested, it must be earned.

A Matter of Trust

Bernard Madoff scammed over 5,000 investors out of 65 billion dollars. Like any crime that you read or hear about, it’s concerning to each of us. My reaction deepened as I spoke with an old friend whose aging parents had invested their entire retirement savings with Madoff. I more deeply felt the real-life implications of broken trust as my friend’s parents must consider selling their house, change a lifestyle they had worked years to earn and feel the angst of an uncertain final chapter in their lives.

Trust is the basis for all successful leaders and all successful relationships for that matter. You cannot buy trust, but it is free. Trust is priceless yet can be earned over time. Have you ever tried to request someone’s trust? Maybe it was a team member, customer or a colleague. You may have wanted a decision to be made in your favor. To overcome some initial disagreement and expedite the decision making process, you might resort to “Hey, just trust me!” That statement is worthless. Either the other party already trusted you based on your past actions or they did not trust you and your request won’t change that. Trust is not spoken, it is demonstrated. Trust cannot be requested, it must be earned.

Trust is the wheel that makes relationships go ‘round. Losing trust is not just like getting a flat tire; it’s like losing the whole wheel! So, we need to earn and nurture our team’s trust every day – whether a team at home or work. A trusting team:

• Is more open to change
• Delivers better service
• Focuses on finding win-win solutions
• Has lower turnover
• Shares unfiltered information to help the team be successful
• Quickly forgives their leader if s/he makes a mistake.

Trust is also complex. There are complete books dedicated to trust that do not even address all of its facets. So, let’s boil it down to this simple Trust Test:

1. Do you serve your team’s bests interests?
(Not your own interests)

2. Do you communicate all the information they need to be successful?
(Don’t make assumptions about what you think “they can handle”. Leaders who nderestimate the intelligence of their teams generally overestimate their own.)

3. Do you keep your commitments?
(Leaders must watch their words because even a casual comment can be interpreted as a commitment)

Notice these simple questions are geared toward how trustworthy you are vs. how much you trust your team. No passing or failing here - we can all improve our trust building behaviors. Today’s winners are bold enough to be honest with themselves make necessary changes. Now more than ever, your team’s success may come down to a matter of trust.


I would love to learn from you! Please share your insights about trust. Like I did with favorite quotations, I will feedback your comments (with your permission, of course) in a future newsletter.

Until then, I trust you will make it a great week!

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Article Tags: aging parents, bernard madoff, bests, billion dollars, broken trust, colleague, complete books, decision making process, disagreement, facets, flat tire, informat, old friend, retirement savings, successful relationships, team member, test 1, trusting team, turnover, wheel



Related Forum Posts
Re: Essential Leadership skills - Vigilance Trust An ability to DELEGATE
Re: Bad credit guaranteed home loan? - Lending money to people with bad credit was one of the biggest things that put our economy under and many lenders out of business. I'd say if you have this opportunity take it now before it goes away. Trust me, if there are any of these programs left (and don't expect a low interest rate if your credit is bad) they won't be around for ever. At ANY interest rate.
Re: How do you earn trust with an online business? - Add VALUE to your target market. How? Well depends. If your business can start by Educating the target market about how your product or Service can add value to their lives. This can be done via Video (hot right now), basic text, audio etc. I've had a lot of success with Video and am using it primarily as a lead generation tool. If done right your Content can add Value and add to your bottom line at the same time while building Trust.
Re: Do Your Prospects / Customers Trust You? - This is so true. In the software business, if you don't earn their trust in the first few days they start implementing it, they tend to just give up on using it at all.....even if they may have lost a lot of money. With software, silly glitches can have a huge bearing on your newer clients. Especially if they are brand new to software in general. The more established users understand that when you are constantly building and developing the software, there are going to be glitches along the way. Trust is a must!
Women's buying patterns - I'd like to know more about women's buying psychology - what makes them tick? - are they looking for an "experience"? If so, are there important parts of the experience that must exist? - how do you break past Trust barrier? - If you are selling a service what kind of support are women looking for? - do women buy a sampling first to "check out the waters" before they commit to a larger purchase? or do they jump in with both feet?


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