Member-only story
Leading with Trust
Trust is the foundation of modern leadership. Frances Frei and Anne Morriss describe three drivers for trust: logic, authenticity and empathy.
Leadership builds on trust. Unless, of course, your name is Caligula, you’re a Roman emperor and you’ve deliberately chosen the motto “Oderint, dum metuant!” (in English: “Let them hate me as long as they fear me”). The resulting obedience may be satisfying for some sovereigns, but fear and pressure are certainly not conducive to the creative peak performance we need more than ever in knowledge work in our organizations at the beginning of the 21st century. Knowledge work presupposes voluntariness (cf. Peter F. Drucker, Management’s New Paradigm, 1998). However, we follow voluntarily and wholeheartedly only whom we trust.
Trust is also one of the most essential forms of capital a leader has. Building trust, however, often requires thinking about leadership from a new perspective. The traditional leadership narrative is all about you: your vision and strategy; your ability to make the tough calls and rally the troops; your talents, your charisma…