Self Trust™ and the 4 Cores of Credibility™
To be an effective leader you need credibility…. Many leaders have the title. but not the skill, or ability to deliver ….
Credibility boils down to 2 questions.
- First, Am I trust worthy to myself…. can I really trust myself.
- Second, Are my actions and bahaviors TRUSTWORTHY? am I someone who others can trust.
Covey’s work on trust is powerful for leaders.. He covers 4 “cores” that are key to building credibility.
The four cores of Leadership Credibility
- Integrity
- Intent
- Capabilities
- Results.
Character cores of Leadership Credibility .
Integrity and intent
Competency cores of Leadership Credibility.
Capabilities and Results.
All 4 aspects are required for effective credibility. A leader with integrity that does not produce results is not a credible leader. If you are not credible you are not trustworthy! Leaders are trusted to achieve.
Integrity (Character)
First Core is integrity. Most of the major violations of trust are violations of integrity. Covey shares that integrity is more than just honesty. In addition to honesty, integrity is made up of 3 primary virtues.
- Congruency is when one acts according to his values. It is when there is no gap between what one intends to do and what one actually does.
- Humility is the ability to look out for the good of others in addition to what is good for you. Covey says, “A humble person is more concerned about what is right than about being right, about acting on good ideas than having the ideas, about embracing new truth than defending an outdated position, about building the team than exalting self, about recognizing contribution than being recognized for it.”
Courage is the ability to do the right thing even when it may be difficult. It is when you do what you know is right regardless of the possible consequences.
Intent (Character)
The Second Core: Intent springs from our character. It is part of our value system. It is how we know we should act. Covey breaks intent down to three things.
Motive is why you do what you do. The best motive in building trust is genuinely caring about people. If you don’t care and have no desire to care, be honest and let people know you don’t care. If you don’t care but want to care, start doing caring things. Often, the feelings will follow the actions.
Agenda stems from our motive. The best agenda is honestly seeking what is good for others. Notice that your agenda is much more than wanting what is good for others, but seeking what is good for others.
Behavior is putting your agenda into practice. It is what we do based upon what we intend to do and what we are actively seeking. Behavior is where the rubber meets the road. Behavior is important because it is what people see and judge. Telling someone you love them is important, but showing them you love them is essential. Covey gives three suggestions to improve intent. First, examine and refine your motives. Second, declare your intent. Third, choose abundance.
Capabilities (Competency)
The Third Core—Capabilities Capabilities are “the talents, skills, knowledge, capacities and abilities that we have that enable us to perform with excellence.” To help think about the various dimensions of capabilities, Covey uses the acronym TASKS: Talents, Attitude, Skills, Knowledge, and Style.
Talents are the things we naturally do well. These are the things we usually love to do. Your attitude is how you see things. It is how we are inside. Skills are the things you have learned to do well. Covey does point out that it is easy to get so comfortable with our skills that we never fulfill our talents. He suggests that talent is a deeper well than skill. Knowledge is what you know and continue to learn. Style is your unique way of doing things. It involves your personality.
How to Increase Your Capabilities: First, follow your strengths and your passions. Second, remain relevant by continually in- creasing your knowledge and improving your skills. Third, know where you are going. The people you lead will follow if you know where you are going.
Results (Competency)
The Fourth Core: Results. People don’t trust people who don’t deliver results. Results are the deliverables. They are what you contribute to the company. You can’t hide from your results. He states, “… if the results aren’t there, neither is the credibility, neither is the trust. It’s just that simple; it’s just that harsh.”
There are three areas of results people look at to judge your credibility. First, your past results: what you have proven you can do. Second, your current results: what you are contributing right now. Third, your potential results: what people anticipate you will accomplish in the future.
How to improve your results: First, take responsibility for results, not activity. Second, expect to achieve your goals. Assume you will be successful. This assumption will translate into action. Third, finish strong. “Results are all about finishing. You are probably aware of the old adage; Beginners are many; finishers are few.”
Relationship Trust™ and the 13 Behaviors of High Trust™
Relationship trust is all about consistent behavior. People judge us on behavior not intent. People can’t see our heart but they can see our behavior.
Building trust accounts There are several keys to “trust ac- counts.” The fastest way to build a trust account is to stop making withdrawals. You also have to be aware that withdrawals are bigger than deposits, each trust account is unique, there are two ways of viewing a trust account (your way and their way), and what is a deposit in one person’s account may be a withdrawal from another person’s account.
1. Talk Straight
2. Demonstrate Respect
The principle behind demonstrating respect is the value of the individual. The behavior is acting out the Golden Rule. Almost every culture and religion recognizes the value of the Golden Rule. We should treat people the way we want to be treated. Our actions should show we care. They should be sincere. People will notice if an action is motivated by a lesser reason or an impure value. Respect is demonstrated in the “little” things we do daily.
3. Create Transparency
Tell the truth in a way that can be verified. Transparency is based on principles of honesty, openness, integrity and authenticity. It is based on doing things in the open where all can see.
Part of transparency is sharing information. If ever in question, err on the side of disclosure. Rollin King, founder of Southwest Airlines states, “We adopted the philosophy that we wouldn’t hide anything, not any of our problems, from the employees.” That’s transparency.
4. Right Wrongs
5. Show Loyalty
Giving credit to others is the right thing to do. It will foster an environment where people are encouraged to be creative and innovative. It will increase trust and have a direct impact on the bottom line.
Second, speak about others as if they were present. Some people think it builds relationships to talk about others. The opposite is true. Talking about others behind their back will decrease trust with your current audience.
6. Deliver Results
7. Get Better
Covey suggest two ways to get better. First, seek feedback from those around you. Second, learn from your mistakes.
8. Confront Reality
9. Clarify Expectations
Failure to clarify expectations leaves people guessing. When results are delivered they fall short and are not valued.
10. Practice Accountability
Holding yourself accountable includes taking responsibility for bad results. It is often our natural response to blame others for failure. When we fail, we need to look in the mirror.
Holding others accountable allows performers to feel good about the job they are doing. It also in- creases trust by assuring performers that slackers and poor performers will not pull them down.
11. Listen First
12. Keep Commitments
There are implicit and explicit commitments, and violating either is a huge withdrawal from the trust account. Be aware of the commitment expectations. Some companies are strict with internal meeting times and others are more flexible. Also, remember family commitments are just as important if not more so than work commitments.
13. Extend Trust
The other behaviors help you become a trusted leader; this behavior helps you become a trusting leader. We should extend trust to those who have earned it. Be willing to extend trust to those who are still earning it. Be wise in extending trust to those who have not exemplified a character worth trusting.
Organizational Trust
The principle of organizational trust is based on alignment. “All organizations are perfectly aligned to get the level of trust they get.” If your organization is not reaping the trust benefits it desires, you need to look at your structures and your systems.
Symbols: Manifestation of Alignment. Symbols are more powerful than rhetoric. “Symbols include everything from 500-page policy manuals to top managers who park their expensive cars in re- served executive parking spaces, to newly appointed CEOs who refuse to accept a pay raise because it might send the wrong message to workers, to legends such as Howard Shultz responding in a caring way when the Starbucks employees were murdered…” Your symbols have to match your rhetoric, or trust and speed will go down and cost will go up.
The 7 Low-Trust Organizational Taxes™
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Redundancy: Redundancy is unnecessary duplication. A costly redundancy tax is often paid in excessive organizational hierarchy, layers of management and overlapping structures designed to ensure control.
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Bureaucracy: Bureaucracy includes complex and cumbersome rules, regulations, policies, procedures and processes. One estimate put the cost of complying with federal rules and regulations in the U.S. alone at $1.1 trillion more than 10 percent of the GDP.
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Politics: Office politics divide a culture against itself. The result is wasted time, talent, energy, and money. In addition, they poison company cultures, derail strategies and sabotage initiatives, relationships and careers.
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Disengagement: Disengagement occurs when people put in enough effort to avoid getting fired but don’t contribute their talent, creativity, energy or passion. Gallup’s research puts a price tag of $250 billion – $300 billion a year on the cost of disengagement.
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Turnover: Employee turnover represents a huge cost, and in low-trust companies, turnover is in excess of the industry standard – particularly of the people you least want to lose. Performers like to be trusted and they like to work in high-trust environments.
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Churn: Churn is the turnover of stakeholders other than employees. When trust inside and organization is low, it gets perpetuated in interactions in the marketplace, causing great turnover among customers, suppliers, distributors and investors. Studies indicate the cost of acquiring a new customer versus keeping an existing one is as much as 500 percent.
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Fraud: Fraud is flat out dishonesty, sabotage, obstruction, deception and disruption – and the cost is enormous. One study estimated that the average U.S. company lost 6 percent of its annual revenue to some sort of fraudulent activity.
The 7 High-Trust Organizational Dividends™
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Increased value: Watson Wyatt shows high-trust organizations outperform low-trust organizations in total return to shareholders by 286 percent.
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Accelerated growth: Research clearly shows customers buy more, buy more often, refer more and stay longer with companies they trust. And, these companies actually outperform with less cost.
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Enhanced innovation: High creativity and sustained innovation thrive in a culture of high trust. The benefits of innovation are clear – opportunity, revenue growth, and market share.
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Improved collaboration: High-trust environments foster the collaboration and teamwork required for success in the new global economy. Without trust, collaboration is mere coordination, or at best, cooperation.
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Stronger partnering: A Warwick Business School study shows that partnering relationships that are based on trust experience a dividend of up to 40 percent of the contract.
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Better execution: FranklinCovey’s execution quotient tool (xQ) has consistently shown a strong correlation between higher levels of organizational execution and higher levels of trust. In a 2006 study of grocery stores, top executing locations had significantly higher trust levels than lower executing locations in every dimension measured.
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Heightened loyalty: High-trust companies elicit far greater loyalty from their primary stakeholders than low-trust companies. Employees, customers, suppliers, distributors and investors stay longer.
Market Trust
Market Trust is based on the principle of reputation. When you see certain company logos, you have positive feelings based on experi- ence. Other company logos con- jure up negative feeling based on personal experience and/or repu- tation.
“Brand” Matters on Every Level. It is easy for us to see that corporations depend heavily on their brand name. However, other entities such as schools, governments and individuals rely heavily on reputation.The Speed of Trust in Building (Or Destroying) Reputation
In the global market, trust can be built or destroyed at incredible speed. In a 2005 study conducted by Harris Interactive which ranks the 60 most recognizable companies in America, Johnson & Johnson ranked first for the seventh straight year. However, Google ranked third. Google has only been in business seven years. Of course trust can also be destroyed at warp speed. WorldCom was 59th on the list and Enron was 60th.
To increase market trust, apply the 4 cores and the 13 behaviors at the organizational level. Also put on your trust glasses and ask the following questions about your organization:
1. Does my brand have integrity? 2. Does my brand demonstrate good intent? 3. Does my brand demonstrate capabilities? 4. Is my brand associated with results?Societal Trust
Societal Trust is based on the principle of contribution. During the 1992 L.A. riots sparked by the Rodney King trial many neighborhoods were burned and looted. Amazingly, all McDonald’s remained untouched. When asked why, the people in the community responded by saying they would not want to harm a company that gives so much back to the community. They received a huge trust dividend base on their contribution to society.
Fish Discover Water Last
Fish discover water last because water “just is.” They are surrounded by it. They don’t come to see the importance of water until it is polluted or nonexistent. Humans often discover the essential nature of trust only when it is polluted or nonexistent.
The Principle of Contribution
Contribution is the intent to create value instead of destroying it. It is when we give back instead of take. Many high profile individuals have given back huge amounts of money and time. Bill and Melinda Gates started a charitable foundation. Two weeks later Warren Buffett donated $30.7 billion dollars to the Gates’ foundation. Oprah Winfrey created the “Angel Network” and has been instrumental in building schools in eleven different countries. Buckminster Fuller used to pay his company’s bills, then give away any additional funds. He said, “If you devote your time and attention to the highest advantage of others, the Universe will sup- port you, always and only in the nick of time.”
Businesses are seeing the value in giving back to society. This includes giving money but also in- corporates a spirit of societal benefit into the very fabric of the business.
The idea of corporate social responsibility is nothing new. It was originally the framework of the free enterprise system. Adam Smith, father of the free enterprise, stated that for a society to be prosperous people had to com- pete for their own self-interest within the framework of intentional virtue. When companies try to make a profit at any cost, trust is lost and the company will eventually fail.
Global citizenship is an economic necessity and an individual choice. One must see the value of contribution then make a concerted effort to contribute.Extending Smart Trust™
There is a trust spectrum and a trust matrix. The trust spectrum is divided into three sections. On the far left you have distrust or suspicion. In the center you have smart trust which is characterized by judgment. On the far right hand side you have gullibility or blind trust.
The Trust Matrix (pictured at the right) describes four quadrants of trust. The vertical axis is a meas- ure of one’s propensity to trust. The horizontal axis is a measure of degree of analysis.
Zone 1 is characterized by gullibility. This is a person with a high propensity to trust combined with low analysis.
Zone 2 is characterized by judgment. This is one with a high propensity to trust combined with a high degree of analysis. This is the ideal quadrant.
Zone 3 is characterized by indecision. This is one with a low propensity of trust coupled with a low degree of analysis. Zone three is the worst zone. It is high risk and low reward.
Zone 4 is characterized by a low propensity to trust coupled with a high degree of analysis. This zone will decrease trust and speed. It limits collaboration and team- work. At the end of the day you are left with a single point of view (yours) which may be skewed.
Many competent managers never become leaders because they never learn to extend trust. They live in the suspicion quadrant. Many of them pay lip service to the concept of extending trust, however they continue to micromanage. “They don’t give others the stewardships (responsibility with a trust) that engage genuine ownership and accountability, bring out people’s greatest resourcefulness, and create the environment that generates high-trust dividends.
The number one responsibility of all leaders is to inspire trust.Restoring Trust When it Has Been Lost
Some say trust can never be restored. While it is best never to break trust, trust can be restored— and often even enhanced.
It is harder to overcome a loss of trust based on a violation of character than competence. Let’s look at building trust in each of the five Waves.
Societal Trust— can and often is restored. After the Enron and WorldCom scandals a study showed an employee’s trust in management to be 44 percent. A few years later it was 51 percent.
Market Trust—sometimes when you violate trust with a customer, you lose that customer forever. Other times the incident, when handled correctly, actually builds trust.
Organizational Trust— Covey uses himself as an example of restoring organizational trust. When he took over at the Covey Leadership center, he questioned the educational department’s ability to deliver profits. He violated some of the 13 behaviors, including not talking about others behind their back. More accurate numbers