“Do you trust me? Do you
really trust me?” As leader’s we want
the answer to be a solid yes don’t we. We
want the people underneath us to be able to trust us. So, whether spoken aloud or through our
actions, we ask this silly little question continually. “Do you trust me?” Yet, I wonder how often the people we lead
ask us the same question. I wonder how
often we aren’t asked, in the course of a given week, “Do you trust me?” Further, I wonder what our posture to their
question articulates. Do we really trust
our people? It’s into this conversation
that chapter 3 of Leadership From the Inside Out speaks a word this
week, and frames our view from the Open Road.
Drawing upon the infamous example of the Presidential
administration of Richard Nixon, Michaelson illuminates the destruction that
can happen when a leader has limited, or no, trust in his people. For Nixon, it cost him his second term in
office and public disgrace. Nixon is not
remembered for his first term in office.
Nor is he remembered for the positive results of this first term. Rather, Nixon is, and most likely always will
be, remembered for the embarrassment that was Watergate. You see Nixon’s complete distrust of his
people created in him a spirit of paranoia.
Paranoia crippled him to the point that it over-rode his moral and
ethical judgment, and when confronted with the dastardly deeds that Nixon had
authorized, on his watch, he further covered them up rather than face the real
issue. Ultimately, as previously stated,
this cost him the presidency shortly into his second term in office.
I too have journeyed into the land of distrust. I have led, albeit unwillingly, from a
posture that silently affirmed to my people that I did not trust them. You see distrust rears its ugly head every
time I give one of my people a job to do and then immediately go behind their
back and do the very thing myself. Thus
conveying to them that I didn’t really need their help in the first place. Worse yet, I can do a better job than you do,
so just let me do it myself. Or, how
about when I delegate a task but do not give a thorough enough explanation in
order for them to complete the given task.
Then, worse yet, when they fail at the task I wonder aloud why they
failed. As painful an admission as this
is, I’ve had both of these experiences happen to me. Now, I must admit that I did not willfully do
this. Yet, nevertheless, through my
silent language this is exactly what I did.
And, when the way I had handled myself was brought to my attention, I
had a choice to make. Was I going to
deal with my unintended leadership mistake, or, as Nixon did, was I going to
cover it up. I chose wisely during this
time and met these concerns head on. I dealt
with the unintended damage that was created.
Yet, I can’t help but wonder now, several years later, as I am forced to
look back upon these events, if there may have been a way to avoid this
ugliness to begin with. I wonder what would have happened had I given full specific
instructions on what needed to be done, leaving the how up to them, and
trusting in their knowledge to get it accomplished. I wonder further what would have happened if
I left them to the task and did not micro-manage the details, or worse yet
perform the task myself. I wonder what
kind of work environment would have been created if I did these two simple
things. Most probably, I would have recognized the competence of my employees
and would have accomplished far more. Above
that however, I would have created an environment where teamwork was paramount
to performance. This environment would
have led to happy healthy employee morale, instead of poor morale and deficient
productivity.
You see, in looking back, coming face to face with the ugliness
that we have created, we have a choice, much like Nixon did. We have the choice to further cover up our
actions and seeming stupidity, or we have the choice to address the chink in
our leadership. Nixon’s “desire to cling
to power as a way to deal with his insecurity ultimately left him blind to his
own vulnerabilities and thus unable to control himself.”[1] Would
that we do not make this same mistake but rather address the issue before it is
too late.
For a fuller treatment of this particular issue see: http://leadershipunleashed.typepad.com/leadership/distrust/
For today, this is my view from the Open Road
[1] Granberg-Michaelson,
Wesley.
Leadership From Inside Out. New York, NY: The Crossroads Publishing
Company, 2004. Pg 29
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