The Trust Tree: Fostering Integrity and Intent in Leadership

Music. Welcome to the Manager Lab, where we delve into the increasingly dynamic world of talent management.

In each episode, we will unravel key insights, break down the most relevant books and articles, and provide actionable tips to optimize your approach in developing and retaining top talent. Stay tuned for a deep dive into the art, science, and strategy of unlocking your team's full potential. Let's enter the Manager Lab. In the fall of 1995, on I-64, right outside of Beckley, West Virginia, my life changed.

I was listening to an audio book on the seven habits of highly effective people, and I heard the concept of proactivity, and it fundamentally shifted my way of thinking about the current situation I was in. I was in academia, being really heavily recruited by the pharmaceutical industry. And that concept allowed me to make a life-altering decision about my career. And of course, the rest of my life changed because of that.

And so from that point on, And really before that, I was a big fan of Stephen Covey. He wrote The Seven Habits. He went on to write many, many more books. Well, his son grew up in the business as well and kind of followed in his father's footsteps.

And that's really the subject of this particular podcast. And that is the book that he wrote, Stephen M. R. Covey, so the son now, wrote a book called The Speed of Trust. And it's been one of my favorite books ever since. And I'll do a deeper dive into the speed of trust because there's a lot of things to unpack.

But today I'm just gonna talk about the principles from the trust tree because it's probably one of the most important tools a leader and a manager can have is how to develop trust with their employees. Now, the trust tree is made up of four different, what you would say, core values, maybe. There's the character ethic, which are the unseen parts of trust, the root system, if you will. It's made up of integrity and intent.

Integrity and intent. Can't see those very well, but they're there and they make a big difference, arguably the most difference. And then there's the more visible core values, the competence ethic, which deals with capabilities and results. So the whole idea behind the trust tree is that we trust people and people trust us based on these four kind of core principles, if you will. Integrity, we do what we say we're going to do.

We live a very principled life and we walk our talk. Then there's intent. My motives are pure. They are to help you. They are to make you a better person, a better worker, a better friend, a better spouse. Those are all the motives are central to intent. And then the competence ethic, the things that we can see and trust each other. I trust you because you're capable, your capabilities, right?

I wouldn't trust you perhaps to have, you know, to perform surgery on me because that's a different capability, but we trust people based on what they can do, their capabilities, and then ultimately what results they can get in our relationships, right, in our organizations, what have you. We trust people on the capabilities and the results.

Now, we're going to talk about the competence ethic in our next cast. We're only going to focus on the character ethic in this podcast. So, again, it's made up of integrity and intent. Let's look at integrity a little bit more deeply. Integrity defined is deep honesty and truthfulness. it is who we really really are when you strip everything away, it's who we really are. It includes congruence. I'll explain that a little bit more. Humility and courage.

Congruence is to really live in harmony with your deepest core values and your beliefs. You walk your talk. We've often heard that phrase. What does it really mean? Well, I know that deep down inside, creativity is just a part of my soul. And if I'm working on something that allows me to be creative. I'm so much more engaged. And when I don't have creativity, I struggle. And so I know that.

And so before taking on a project, I will try to explore how much creativity there is so that I can live in congruence with my core value of creativity. So that's part of what integrity is. The other one is humility, to stand firmly in your principles, especially in the face of opposition. You're more concerned with what's right than being right. That's the real key. You're more concerned with what's right, the right thing to do, versus being right on the surface, right?

So that's humility. Very hard. Easier said than done. I get it. I practice humility all the time because it's so hard to master. And then finally, integrity is made up of courage as well, to act according to principles. You do the right thing, especially when it's hard to do. You always do the right thing. Now, a couple of things that, again, Dr. Covey says, these are things that we can work on if we want to build our integrity. Number one, make and keep commitments to yourself.

Now, that might sound a little superficial and silly, but the easiest person in the world to break commitments to is ourselves. So treat commitments to yourself as you would treat commitments to any other important person in your life. Make them, keep them, and then repeat. See if you can do that or catch yourself when it's so easy to break the commitment to yourself, right? Trigger there and try to act differently in that moment.

Number two, stand for something. Write a mission statement or a personal credo, an expression of what you stand for, then live by it. When I was a full-time coach in my entrepreneurial days, my mission statement was this. I engage those who will walk with me because there had to be a willingness there. So I engage those who will walk with me into new rooms seeking windows never opened.

I wrote that mission statement. I lived by it. The whole idea was to introduce people to new concepts, to open their eyes to new concepts in their business, in their life, in their world. And it really worked quite well. And I'm proud of that, living by that mission statement. And then finally, the author here suggests being open, exercising this humility we talked about, challenging the way you see the world. Are your own viewpoints totally accurate and complete?

Do you seriously consider other viewpoints? I mean, we live in an extraordinarily polarized world right now, especially politically. It's very easy to stay in your lane, stay in your camp, and just throw stones and criticize. Do we really want to understand another person? If we really live by integrity, then we do.

The second thing we'll talk about today is intent. And intent is your fundamental motives or agenda and the behavior that follows. So let's talk about motive. of motive. Is that something that inspires the greatest trust, I believe, in other people? And that is if they can feel that you genuinely care for them. About people, about your values, about the quality of what you do. When you genuinely care about something, that sends a signal of my intent is positive and people trust you more.

What is your agenda? Let's talk a little bit about that. The agenda that inspires the greatest trust is seeking mutual benefit. So, you know, to harbor back to the seven habits, that's the old habit four, seek a win-win solution, right? Seeking mutual benefit, genuinely wanting what's best for everyone involved, especially others, taking out selfishness, right?

The behavior is the next thing, and that is your behavior best creates credibility because it's acting, not just thinking or saying something. It's acting in everyone's best interest. So the three things that Covey talks about here, examining your motives, asking yourself the five whys. Well, why did I do this? What was the real intent? Why did I do that? And then why did I do that? You know, keep going backwards until you can actually get to the very self-interest of it all.

The second thing is choose abundance. Ask yourself, do I really believe that there are enough rewards, enough credit, enough recognition, enough benefits that everyone, everyone's interests can be served? You know, this is the old abundance mentality versus scarcity mentality. That there's not enough and therefore I have to be selfish and hoard things? Or do you believe in the abundance mentality that there's enough for everyone and all of us can win? I believe that.

And then finally, the author here suggests that we declare our intent. Choose the intent that will serve everyone the best and then tell people that that's what's going on. state it, signal it, clarify it, discuss it, especially when your intent may be unclear. Like there's a very tough business decision that has to be made. Make sure that you declare your intent, share the why behind the what whenever possible. So those are the two values of the character ethic.

And then the next cast, we'll pick up on the competence ethic. Hope you enjoyed this. It was good to walk down memory lane there. Thanks for indulging me there. And until the next time we meet in the manager lab, do good work. Music.