Choice #3 at the Soul of Leadership is Trust.
The trap here is Distrust. Negativity. Pessimism. These things drain your energy. They repel others. They slow you down, and they make your journey more difficult than it has to be.
Trust is the antidote. That’s what it’s called in business. In psychology, it’s called “Positivity”. In religion, it’s called “Faith”. Ted Lasso calls it “Believe”.
Trust is attractive. In other words, it attracts others. It will help you grow in numbers and accelerate forward more quickly. Steven Covey called it fast in his book “The Speed of Trust”. Patrick Lencioni says, “Trust is the foundation of all high-performing teams”. Jim Collins introduced the Trust Wager, saying that you have to start with trust. Because if you don’t, what you are starting with is distrust. And you will get back from the world what you offer to it.
In EOS®, it's the “Honest” in “Open and Honest”. It reminds us to “just say it”. To create the safe spaces where the things that need to be said can be said so that they can be resolved. The truth will set you free.
But how do you do this when it’s hard? When you’ve been burned before? When you’ve been living on the defensive. Holding your cards tight to your chest. Making yourself smaller than you actually are.
Well, for starters, you stack the deck in your favor. You start small with the “Trust but Verify” concept. In other words, you establish controls, measurements, and transparency so that you can watch and monitor your people. You use Rocks and Scorecards and an Issues List, and you open up the dialogue with your team.
In parallel, you begin to remove those people whom you cannot trust and replace them with people you can. In other words, you begin to be the architect of your company and your world. You talk about trust, reward trust, and create consequences when trust is violated.
When you start to trust, your positivity grows. You create opportunities for others to become trustworthy. You invite them in, and they respond. They elevate up into trust. You begin to see that the world is mostly a trusting place. A good place. And you are the cultivator of that goodness.
When this happens, you start to become more energized. More positive. You vibrate at a higher frequency, and your company’s culture starts to vibrate too. A client told me once, after exiting someone who was eroding trust, that she could notice the difference just by watching the way people walked across the office floor. There was a pep in their step.
I’ve been calling these choices, but as you are probably becoming aware, you can think of them as freedoms. Or energies. This choice of trust is a freedom from negativity. An energy source that brings more light and goodness into your world.
That energy will take you forward. And as you will see next week, you are going to use that energy to make some really tough choices. For many of us, the toughest choices of all. The types of choices that if you don’t make them constructively, they will hold you back and break you down.
That’s because next week we tackle the root cause of all despair. The Choice is Discipline vs. Pleasure.
Until then, welcome to the higher ground and enjoy your journey.
Big love,
Philip
