I read a fantastic leadership article on the power of trust to improve working relationships in any business or team.  Chris Brady and I have taught a principle for years called, “Slow to go fast.”   We meant that you have to slow down and build the relationship before you can accomplish any great task.  My personal attitude is that I want to be friends first and then team partners.  I am not interested in shallow non-trusting relationships.  I desire deep meaningful relationships with people who will go to bat for one another when the chips are down.  This has been one of the biggest blessings for Laurie and me – we have some of the deepest and trusting relationships with many super people.  Trust is earned by showing trust first and this article does a great job in describing the art of earning trust!  Read the article and evaluate how you are doing with this leadership essential – Trust.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Trust is an essential basis for a productive, satisfying and fun business environment. Suspicion corrodes working relationships and undermines people’s confidence in themselves and their colleagues. Leaders need to offer trust, since the only way to prove whether others are trustworthy or not is by experience. Organizational leaders have nearly all the power, so it’s usually up to them to set the ball rolling. Trust is always a gift. As a leader, you need to be the one who begins the giving process.

What does it take to initiate a process of trust? Courage, certainly, and the willingness to take a risk.  Employees, who have been denied trust, maybe for years, don’t find it easy to accept responsibility in an instant. You’ll need to help them rebuild their confidence in themselves. You’ll probably have to deal with more than few cynics as well: people who claim to approve the idea of trust, yet constantly find reasons why it shouldn’t be this person, in this circumstance, at this time.

Risks versus Rewards

There are always risks involved in offering trust. Some people—very few, in my experience—will consciously abuse your trust. If so, you may also need the courage and wisdom to refuse to allow the actions of a tiny minority to shape the way you deal with everyone. Others may stumble and betray your trust without intending to. You need to be willing to show them mercy and provide help, not instant condemnation. It’s easy to focus primarily on the negative possibilities: the people who will not live up to the trust placed in them. In reality, the potential for positive outcomes is high enough to tilt the balance of advantage that way.

The results of trust abused are obvious. You find yourself blamed for being “naive” and “too soft.” You suffer a loss of credibility and political standing. You may have to deal with a problem you didn’t expect, or try to reverse losses that might have been avoided by putting less trust in others.

But what are the risks on the other side: The risks of creating a culture marked by chronic lack of trust? Those risks include:

A culture of obsessive secrecy, so important information is not shared and unnecessary mistakes are common.

An organization where all significant decisions, (particularly financial ones), must be referred upwards, clogging senior management time and slowing progress to a snail's pace.

A “silo” organization, with little or no sharing of information between departments, so the wheel is regularly re-invented.

Internal competitiveness that swamps efforts at co-operation and takes attention away from competing in the marketplace.

Growing numbers of “in groups” and cliques that wreck communication and distract the organization through excessive political partisanship.

Resulting strong class consciousness between “insiders” and the rest.

A culture of protecting your butt first and getting results or serving the customer last.

Staffs that are paid to do jobs they don’t do fully, because their bosses don’t trust them, so do the work themselves instead.

Saving Time

Building trust takes time, but far less than is wasted by needing to check every significant piece of work and do more work you than makes any sense. Part of the deluge of work swamping leaders is due to lack of trust in their subordinates. Delegation no longer seems an option.

The more time leaders spend with their people, the more likely they’ll feel they can trust them. It’s human nature to be somewhat suspicious of those we don’t know very well. You can’t guarantee that giving your staff more time will always increase mutual feelings of trust, but it’s bound to help. A little time invested in this way can save a lot of time later, when staff truly does what they are supposed to do, and take much of the burden of routine work away from those in more senior positions.

There’s a bonus to creating trust. When your staff trusts you, they will look out for you. Many a leader has been saved from bad mistakes—and not a few political ambushes by rivals—because of timely warnings by alert subordinates.

Whom Do You Value?

Trusting someone is essential to valuing them. Imagine saying to someone, “I truly value your contribution to our team . . . but I don’t actually trust you.” There’s no value without trust. That goes for customers as much as employees. All those fine words and positive feelings about valuing the customer are destroyed in an instant by a single instance where the customer realizes he or she isn’t trusted. Exactly the same happens with employees. The message is quickly spread that nobody is really valued by the organization, save those in the charmed circle at the top.

Command-and-control executives display little or no trust towards anyone other then themselves and their chosen cronies. This exacerbates the “us” versus “them” attitudes that mistrust produces. Add to this the “audit mentality” that prevails in many businesses, and you have an attitude that those not found to be untrustworthy have simply been too clever to get caught (yet). The “audit mentality” usually defines most financial decision as significant and requires them to be referred to one of a handful of officers given the authority to spend money. If you can’t trust managers to spend a few hundred dollars wisely, what can you trust them to do?

Slow Down!

Speed and haste undermine trust. Many leaders don’t intend to suggest a lack of trust in their people, but that is how their actions are interpreted. There isn’t time to explain or coach, so they do the job themselves instead. With maybe only a few moments to make a decision, it seems obvious the leader should do it—there isn’t time to risk making a mistake. That isn’t how it will look to the staff, whether it’s true or not. Staff will believe the leader does the work herself because she doesn’t trust them to do it properly.  “She’s a control freak,” they’ll tell one another. “She makes every decision of any importance. Oh, she says it’s because of time pressures, but the real reason is she thinks we’re all dummies. She doesn’t even trust us to make the decisions that are crucial to our work.”

Don’t risk it. Even the “losses” caused by a few genuinely untrustworthy people, and the inevitable frailties of human nature, are minor compared with the damage leaders do when they choose to withhold their trust from the people who work for them. Too many organizations today are wasting money and resources by failing to use the full creative abilities and commitment of their people. Chronic mistrust soon shows on the bottom line.

It’s not just true that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. If you treat people as untrustworthy through assumed incompetence, low motivation or downright dishonesty, that’s exactly what you’ll get. When you treat employees as feckless dummies, all the good ones will leave, while the rest behave exactly as you seem to expect. A leader without the courage to trust people is as much use as any coward in a fire fight.

Assignment:  What do leaders that you follow consistently do or not do to earn/inspire trust and loyalty?

Here is the incredible "Last Lecture" from Randy Pausch a PHD from Carnegie-Mellon.  Randy has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and has only months to live.   The professors at Carnegie-Mellon have a tradition of giving a "Last Lecture" to their students.  The first eleven minutes is Randy's last lecture shared again on the Oprah show.  Some of the key points to think upon from this courageous man are:

1. Anything is possible to someone willing to dream.

2. If you don't get your dream - you still learn alot in the process.

3. Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.

4. People who care will push you.  It's only when they no longer care that you will not be pushed.

5. Brick walls are in your life for a reason - they let us prove how bad we want our dream.

6. You can spend your time in life complaining or playing the game hard.

7. Live your life properly and the dreams will come to you.

8. Tell the Truth.

9. Apologize (Properly) A. I'm Sorry  B. It's My Fault  C. How do I make it right?

10. Wait & people will show their good side.

11. People are way more important than things.

I have been doing research on the difference between self-responsibility and self-centeredness.  On one hand, a person must absolutely accept responsibility for the results produced in their life and be accountable for the outcomes—both good and bad.  On the other hand, a person cannot be focused entirely on self and forget to serve others or they will fall into self centeredness and lose influence.  One of the biggest turnoffs for people is to follow people or companies who are selfish.  If I were to pinpoint the lid on most people's leadership, it would boil down to one word—Self.  Until a person can reign in their selfish desires and motives, they will never lead to their full potential.  No matter how hard a person works, people will not follow them fully until they are convinced the person desires what is best for them.  The question boils down to: How do I focus on self-discipline while being other-people centered?  This is not something that can be answered in one article—but let’s start with this excellent article from Scott Campbell.  There are some thought provoking points on accountability and self-responsibility in this article.  I remember reading a story about Robert E. Lee: he was asked late in life by a young mother, what advice he could give to her to pass on to her baby boy?  His answer still resonates with me today, “Teach him to deny himself.”  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

My original copy of Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People still bears the scars from the time I hurled it in anger against the wall of what was then my office. The broken spine and loose pages bear witness to my lapse in self-control!

I had come across Covey’s book in the early 1990’s, a time when my life seemed to be unraveling. I was angry much of the time, unhappy with my career, my marriage, and much of life in general. I had recently begun counseling to try to untangle this web of misery and was beginning to touch on some very painful events from my childhood. For the very first time in my life, I was beginning to acknowledge the impact of what had happened to me as a child.

And then I read Habit # 1 of Covey’s book: Be Proactive.

Essentially, Covey seemed to be saying, “You are as happy as you are choosing to be. You are responsible for the current state of your life.” When I read that I reacted in anger. And Covey went hurtling.

I was furious at him. I remember thinking, “What does this highly successful, affluent consultant who jet-sets around the world, whose clients are Fortune 500 companies, know about suffering? He’s had an easy ride and knows nothing of what prolonged childhood trauma can do to you. How dare he tell me that I am responsible for my current level of misery!”

But I couldn’t stop reading his book. He had struck a nerve, gotten under my skin.

When I returned to Habit # 1, I went on to read (for the first time) the story of the Jewish psychiatrist, Victor Frankl. Frankl, as some of you likely know, is the father of ‘Logotherapy,’ an approach to therapy that emerged out of his own experience as a survivor of the Nazi death camps of World War II.

While I might dismiss Covey’s experience as lacking credibility for his claims, I could not dismiss Frankl’s experience. Here was a man who had suffered in ways I could not imagine. Thus, when I read the words of Frankl as quoted by Covey, they struck the core of my soul:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

These words came from a survivor of the most horrific atrocity of the 20th century, a man who had lost his own family and friends to the horrors of Nazi brutality.

These words I could not dismiss.

I began to realize that what Covey was saying was not a denial of my pain and trauma but rather, a way out of it!

The “pill” of assuming personal responsibility for my life was a hard one for me to swallow, but I realized that unless I accepted at a deep level that I was responsible for how I had responded to what had happened to me, I would forever be a captive of my past. But if I could accept that I had chosen my response, I was now free to choose a different one.

Hope began to dawn inside me. I started to believe that if I was responsible and able to choose my attitude, to choose my own way, I could choose a new and better path for my life. One that would result in greater happiness, greater inner freedom, and better decisions for my future.

This was my awakening to the importance—and the freedom—of self-leadership.

Since then my conviction has only grown that self-leadership is the foundation of a deeply satisfying, truly successful life.

I define “self-leadership” as the capacity and commitment both to take full responsibility for one’s own responses to life and to create a life that is personally meaningful and fruitful. It is the antithesis of shifting responsibility for one’s degree of happiness and satisfaction to others or circumstances.*

It is by no means easy to exercise self-leadership. From personal experience, I know how easy it is to become stuck in blame. I know the seductiveness of victimhood. For many of us, self-leadership runs against the natural tendency of our thoughts and feelings. Furthermore, self-leadership is, to some degree, counter-cultural. Our culture tends to be blame-oriented. I spill coffee on myself so I sue the company that brewed it. Practicing self-leadership can seem like swimming upstream. What’s more, life’s circumstances frequently are difficult to change—whether it’s a career that doesn’t fit, a marriage that isn’t working, financial difficulties, cynical colleagues, a tyrannical boss, a downturn in the economy, or a myriad other tough times.

It’s important to acknowledge and anticipate that self-leadership isn’t easy.

But it is vital to inner freedom and outer success.

When we fail to exercise self-leadership, we give our power away to others and/or circumstances. The failure to exercise self-leadership tends to enshrine the status-quo. It leaves success and positive change to chance and the desires, dictates, and decisions of others. It can foment feelings of bitterness, anger and disappointment (trust me, I know!). The price we pay when we fail to exercise self-leadership is huge.

So, how can we increase our practice of self-leadership? How can we cultivate it as a habit of mind? Here are five suggestions.

First, accept at a deep level that you are responsible for your past and present responses to what life has brought your way. Don’t deny the past or present and their impact on you. But accept that you had a role in adopting whatever negative beliefs, attitudes, and self-concepts that may have become imbedded in your life as a result of your past and present responses to life’s hardships. Give up the very understandable and natural desire to blame others for your difficulties or negative emotions. Choose to accept that your outlook and emotional responses to life’s challenges were/are your own choice.

This first step tends to be much more a process than an event. Especially if, like me, you have had years and years of practice in blaming others and circumstances for your pain and disappointments. So, commit to the process of learning to accept responsibility for your responses to life and the consequences those choices have created.

Second, start monitoring your self-talk and assumptions in specific situations. Watch to see when you are saying things to yourself (or others) like, “Well, if only they would…” or, “There’s nothing you can do when…” or, “You make me so…” These types of statements, verbalized or thought, lead away from the vista of self-leadership toward the murky bog of blame and reactivity.

Third, when faced with a difficult situation, consciously ask yourself, “What would it mean to exercise self-leadership right now?” If, for example, your boss has been berating you in front of others on a regular basis, ask yourself, “What would it mean for me to exercise self-leadership in this situation?” There are numerous possible answers that could be right for you: choosing to confront your boss at a separate time when you are calm, transferring to a different department, reminding yourself of the pressure that your boss is under and deciding not to take it personally. By asking the question you create the space to be proactive rather than reactive. If you have the time, journal your answers or, if you prefer, talk it through with someone to gain clarity about the best response for you.

Until self-leadership becomes a habit of mind, we will often need to pause and consciously shift to a self-leadership stance. Posing and answering this question forces us to look at circumstances and decisions from a self-leadership perspective.

Fourth, deepen your own self-awareness. The more you know about your deepest needs and values, your talents and strengths, as well as your stressors and blind spots, the more you can make choices that result in greater satisfaction and effectiveness. Self-awareness allows you to play to your strengths in exercising self-leadership. It allows you to better get your needs met, manage your stress, and compensate for your weaknesses. It helps you create circumstances that work for you, not against you.**

Fifth, dream of the future you want to have. While taking action is the ultimate expression of self-leadership, visualizing the future we want to have (whether that is a matter of responding differently in your current circumstances or changing the circumstances themselves) is a key for increasing our motivation for action. Furthermore, it actually increases the likelihood that we will do what we are visualizing. Athletes have used the power of positive visualization for years to increase their levels of performance by visualizing themselves excelling. Recent studies have demonstrated that visualization actually creates the patterns in our brains in advance that we will use during the actual performance.

Most of us already visualize regularly. It’s just that usually we envision things going poorly. Why not use the power of this mental process in a positive way? Exercise self-leadership over your imagination by using positive visualization to increase your likelihood of success.

These five suggestions should get you started on the road to self-leadership.

As I have moved more and more (though not perfectly) towards the regular practice of self-leadership, I have seen several positive results in my life. I am much happier about my present and immensely hopeful about my future. I have actually achieved more in the last decade than I ever would have imagined possible. And, most importantly, I am creating the life I want, rather than merely enduring what life had given.

Self-leadership isn’t easy. But it is vital. It is the foundation of personal and professional success. It is the portal to inner freedom. My bruised copy of Covey’s Seven Habits stands as a reminder to me of these truths.

* I want to emphasize that this is hugely different from denying the impact of our past or the real challenges and difficulties of current circumstances. Self-leadership is a perspective that allows you to acknowledge but not be trapped by the past or the present. It is the portal to inner freedom and the foundation for outer effectiveness.

** Models of personality type (Temperament, Interaction Styles, Psychological Type) are useful as tools to deepen our self-awareness. They give us insights into key dimensions of our psychological make-up, talents, unique stressors, and characteristic behaviors.

Laurie and I had the honor of speaking to the greatest team of leaders in the world called the Team.  We have never spoken to a group that is more attentive and hungry to learn.  The Team has a goal to reach millions of people and to make a difference in other people’s lives.  Over twenty thousand people gathered to learn leadership from Chris and Terri Brady, Randy and Val Haugen, Mark and Tami Crawford, Tim and Amy Marks, Billy and Peggy Florence and more.  I am convinced the Team will reach and surpass its goals and make a global difference.  Did you attend St. Louis?  What was your magic moment from the weekend?  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Update:  The easiest way to refer people to this site is to have them search - Orrin Woodward Leadership.