Leadership Trust – Set Yourself Apart Through Your Character

Are you having a hard time setting yourself apart as a leader? Are your people jaded by all the scandals and unethical behavior of financial institutions, corporations, and government? Are you getting caught up in their skepticism? Leadership trust is what it’s all about. The people who are entrusted with acting in the best interests of customers, employees and shareholders have dropped the ball again and again. It’s no wonder your people are leery of their leaders these days. How you handle this makes all the difference in the world.

Building trust in your organization’s leadership starts with character. You cannot expect your people to conform to high moral standards if your standards are not equally high. Showing your people true moral character builds credibility, one of the most important building blocks of trust. Your character, of course, comes directly from your values and principles. If you naturally value relationships as well as results you are well on your way to learning how to inspire trust in them.

Let’s go a bit further. You see, character without conduct will not sustain the trust you are attempting to build. Think of your conduct as the medium that reveals your character. Your own conduct must support your character and be consistent with the climate you are attempting to build within your organization. Are you transparent with information, honest with your people about their performance, willing to mentor and develop each one in the way that will work best for them? If so, you have the potential to inspire trust, but there’s still more to consider.

Your enforcement of company policies created to promote character and uphold your standards of conduct demonstrates an organizational commitment and a people commitment. How will you respond the first time you are tested? An employee violates a company policy in a company vehicle, a team member accepts a gift from a vendor, or another is accused of having a conflict of interest. These are all serious situations that demand you practice what you preach. If you really want to build trust with your people, you’ll make the tough decision, regardless of the consequences.

It’s almost like people expect bad behavior, greed, and mistrust from business and government, alike, in this day and age. As a leader, you’ve got to fly in the face of this and build a culture of trust to be successful. That journey begins with character. Hold high moral standards and show those standards to your people on a daily basis. Make sure your conduct exemplifies your character. As you build credibility, your enforcement of character-centered policies becomes more meaningful and starts to create the climate you’re striving for – the climate that promotes leadership trust.

With people looking to you for answers and wanting to trust in your leadership abilities, you need that edge that only comes from understanding of how our minds can drive us towards unlimited success or paralyze us with fear. Your FREE e-book, “The Human Condition”, gives you an insight into why some succeed and some run from success.

Seth Czerepak is a Personal Achievement Expert, the Vice President of VQ Success and creator of the behavioral transformation strategy Value Driven Transcendence, a powerful combination of Axiology Science, Human Needs Psychology and NLP.