Every change means leaving the comfort zone. This requires trust in people, decisions and in future. Trust that the journey will be successful. That even after the change you will feel at least as good as you do at the moment – or even better! And it needs a leadership style which allows people to break new ground without knowing if they will succeed. But what is behind this trust?
Trust is the fertilizer of every further development
Perhaps you are now thinking of the trust that managers (should) give you. The trust that comes from outside and gives you the feeling of being right. But this is only the mirror of what is going on in yourself. A mirror of your self-confidence. The true trust in a corporate culture is in every single person. No matter on what hierarchical level, in what position, with what education. Trust always begins inside you.
How do you lead yourself?
Let’s do an experiment together: Write down the professional situation in which you have gained trust in the last few weeks. Now compare this with situations in which you have missed trust. Then you create a comparable table for your own behaviour: Write down when you controlled other people or yourself. And compare this with the situations in which you trusted yourself or others.
However, before you get started, please be aware of what is meant by control. If you have written an email: Do you usually read it once again or perhaps several times? When you leave the office, do you check a second time to make sure that the monitor is turned off? Because you don’t trust yourself?! Or do you ask your employees to send you emails, presentations or documents before they are sent to the addressee? Do you conduct weekly 1:1 staff meetings in order to stay informed? Control begins in the small, be aware of it! Because control is the enemy of trust.
Take a look at both tables you have created. Do you see parallels? Be honest with yourself. Do not gloss over anything, but consider how much trust you have inside yourself? And what do you expect from others? Does it fit together?
Trust means to let control go
Mistrust and control are widespread in the corporate world. What society is criticing since many decades ago – authorities having long decision-making processes because of lots of controlling – has been perfected by industry in the meanwhile. In Lean Management, there is a rule that decisions must be made at the lowest possible level. But how is this possible when more and more control mechanisms are being introduced?
Boards of directors are building monstrous compliance departments to get rid of themselves responsibility. They have audits carried out on a massive scale that paralyse business operations and then wonder why productivity is not increasing enough. What is the result of all those control mechanisms? Probably the highest scandal density we have experienced so far. Manipulations on a grand scale. Despite compliance departments and despite audits. Dieselgate is only one good example.
But what does that mean for perseverance? When mistrust is planted, no one should be surprised that misstrust is harvested. But the game can be changed: what works with mistrust also works with trust. If trust is sown, the reward is also harvested. It only takes courage and persistence. Because your subconsciousness will always be excited when your trust failes. Clear signals are sent immediately:
“You see, I told you right away: Don’t trust him/her!
Be courageous, let those fear mechanisms go and live credible trust. You can be sure that you will be rewarded for it. I can tell you from my own experience that this change has an extraordinary strong leverage effect, which is difficult to describe!
Just help youself!
If you want to make a difference in your company, then trust. First of all yourself. And then trust people. You can practice it in your private environment if you want to feel safe. Or you can be courageous and try out in your job environment. Trust yourself that this is the right way to go. Trust your employees and colleagues and leaders. Observe how their behaviour changes step by step. Give credible trust! But be careful:
Trust does not mean not to care about people or things!
To live trust credibly, it only takes a few steps:
- (Self)awareness: observe yourself and get to know your own mistrust
- Courage: Be courageous and ignore the horror scenarios of your subconsciousness!
- Serenity: Stay calm and confident, even if something goes wrong. Nobody dies because of it!
- Enjoy: Celebrate and enjoy every success, no matter how small!
Trust yourself!
Forget about observing your leaders. Look for change within yourself. If you change, your environment changes automatically. Because we live closely connected to each other. The wing beat of a butterfly causes sometimes big changes. Use your personal sphere of influence and don’t wait for others.
You are in the driver’s seat!
Do what you do best: Change culture! Ask your intuition, your feeling, if you are uncertain. And trust yourself.
Take responsibility and start to trust!
Make it work and see you soon…
Greetings from Lake Constance
Yours
werte+mehr team
P.S.: You want to get more details?
