Looking Ahead: The Future of Leadership Trust in 2022
Distance and disconnect has eroded the rituals with which trust is built upon within workplace relationships. Looking forward to 2022, there is a renewed opportunity for great leaders to reset this essential foundation.
Trust: It is proffered as an assumed condition in “good” team relationships and assumed absent in “bad” or toxic team dynamics. Yet what do we really understand about the conditions that create or destroy trust and how can we nurture it as teams reconnect in 2022?
The pandemic stretched the limits of our trust. Trusting medical experts. Trusting governments. Trusting employees work from home. Trusting that the world would keep turning and this would end.
Never before have we had to exercise our trust. But through this exercise some discovered that in fact, they did not trust their employer, employees, teams, neighbours, politicians or even themselves.
Trust may not have existed in the first place, or it may have been broken this year.
But if we are to move into 2022, trust must begin again.
The essential components of trust:
Leaders are often evaluated on whether they can or have created trust or not.
But less is done to explore HOW trust can be restored if lost and how leaders can proactively nurture the condition of trust - which will be essential to the reintegration of team.
Francis Frei, Harvard Professor and Culture Consultant, describes how 3 components have to be aligned for trust to be present:
authenticity
logic
empathy
“I am likely to earn your trust if you believe it’s the real me, I am grounded in logic, and that I am centred on you”. Frei
Authenticity - the component that requires us to be real.
Many years ago I attended a leadership workshop by poet and writer, David Whyte.
His opening line was – “to be a leader is to be vulnerable”.
Having expected to be soothed and restored by the magic of his poetry this was instead a hard jolt; in every fibre of my being I recognised the truth of it … that my teams (present and past), saw me for what I was and no amount of posturing and protection strategies changed that.
Instead of fear I felt liberated: I was who I was & now I could get on with the real work.
As the pandemic forced our humanity into the arena, the authenticity of our social, political, health and business leaders including you has been placed squarely under the spotlight.
How you authentically showed up has impacted on how your team trusts you & potentially each other. You must ask yourself if your direction was believable and compatible with who you are and who your teams believe you to be. And as you navigate reconnection are you communicating a plan or intention which others perceive to be sound or flawed? If the answer is flawed or unauthentic to the values of the business, its leaders, employees and audiences - then you risk trust erosion.
Logic - safeguarding us from the emotional response to decisions.
Decisions by their nature can’t go everyones way. Some decisions are inherently positive. And some are unfortunately negative. Leadership requires you to meet the emotional responses of both and help stakeholders to process and align with the plan.
Through logic, authentic leaders can find a way to align and express their words or decisions transparently. Personal bias will naturally trigger emotional responses to decision but logic allows you to own your leadership while nurturing a culture of trust even if the decision is not universally popular. Show up in 2022 and enhance trust by rooting your decision making in rational thinking - but communicate each direction in a human and authentic way.
Empathy - who can relate?
Same storm, different boat… right?
Nobody has been unaffected and as teams reconnect and rebuild in 2022 leaders must be cognisant of how lived experiences have transformed the individuals they lead or work with. To build trust we must meet people where they are today, not who they were 2 years ago. This has been a time of human transformation and reevaluation on a mass scale, showing empathy now for how individuals have come through this is essential.
Trusted connection at a human level across levels and teams requires understanding of each others perspectives. Psychologists Daniel Goleman, writer of the best-selling book, “Emotional Intelligence”, and Paul Ekman describe 3 types of empathy:
Cognitive - the ability to understand another’s perspective;
Emotional - sharing the feelings of another;
Compassionate - being moved to take action.
A study of successful leadership will see that all 3 types have resonance.
Empathy comes naturally to some but can be worked on by all. It is a deliberate act to consider the perspectives, feelings and outcomes of decisions and actions. Where empathy is not present or not authentic, trust can’t exist. Igniting a culture of deep trust in 2022 is dependent on your capability to leader with empathy.
2022: Trust the Process
Since March 2020 our trust muscles have been stretched beyond what we thought possible. Trusting political and medical advice, trusting remote working and global digitisation, trusting each other to keep each other safe - at a human level we have been living at the very edge of trust.
Passivity is no longer part of our programming and leaders must now tailor their performance for a workforce who tune into their trust responses deeply and make career decisions based on what their trust is telling them.
We have never had such a great opportunity to dissect trust building in our life time.
And the work begins by asking ourselves, as leaders, “How do I trust?”
If you can not trust yourself and those you lead, then how can they?
Trust the process. Do the work.
Annette Burns Young coaching will prepare you for the momentum trust can being to you and your team in 2022. Get in touch today. Let's work together
Executive Coach & Leadership Development Consultant
Integral Facilitator | Business Advisor & Director
With over 25 years of leading teams and business Annette Burns Young holds deep “in the field” experience of all aspects of organisational life—growth, change, crisis, and transformation. As a coach, facilitator and business advisor her work supports leaders, entrepreneurs and leadership teams through growth and transformation. Trained in areas of organisational systems, psychology, adult development, neuroscience, movement and mindfulness Annette is a Certified Professional Integral Coach, Certified Integral Facilitator, a NLP Master Practitioner, as well as a Certified Pilates and Movement Teacher. Working with international and multicultural teams Annette delivers the work through a myriad of mediums—from ‘in residence’ leadership retreats to globally attended Thought Leadership webinars.