Trust is a powerful thing. With it, we’ll do anything for a person. Without it, a simple question will be looked upon with doubt. This is especially true in leadership.
Recently, a study was released stating that trust in business leaders is as low as 18 percent and that governments have a dismal 13 percent trust rating. (via cnbc)
You can make all sorts of assumptions about why businesses and governments are failing, but it would be quite unwise to think trust doesn’t have a major impact in that. Trust breeds trust, and when that mutual trusts sprouts forth, the potential for greatness increases exponentially.
Last week, we discussed issues in Adventures as well as our personal empowerment strategies. Our results are indicative of the importance of trust within an organization. Several of the biggest issues we believed are affecting our organization were direct results of distrust, either of the organization or with peers. What’s hard to believe is that this is true even at Adventures, where we pride ourselves on being a high-grace, high-trust organization. Obviously it’s something we strive for but it’s nowhere near perfect.
On the other hand, when we wrote down our empowerment strategies, four out of six of us use extending trust as our primary means for empowering those around us. We all instinctually know that trust is paramount, even if we are each not thinking “I’m extending trust to my coworker right now.” when having a conversation with someone.
As you can see, much of the world lacks trust, and oftentimes for good reason. But it’s up to each of us to extend trust to everyone around us because trust is intoxicating, and as we do this, the entire world will be transformed. Movements don’t start with millions of people; it starts with you and me. Let’s start a trust revolution.
Who have you extended trust to recently? Who do you need to extend trust to?
