Here’s today’s challenge: trust someone. Yesterday we touched on the importance of trusting relationships to innovative organizations – now let’s make it happen. So whatever your job is, think about who you can trust today. Try it out and let us know how it goes. Need a little inspiration? Check out this discussion on trust from Chris Green at Forbes.
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Trusting and Trustworthiness. We too often talk about “trust” as if it were a singular thing; it’s not. Trust is a relationship established between a trustor and a trustee. It takes two to tango, and two to trust (this is true not only of interpersonal trust, but of trust between people and institutions).
The role of the trustor is to take risks; the role of the trustee is to be trustworthy. When each is good enough at their roles, a state of trust results. If either party falls down on the job, trust will disappear.
Finally, trust involves a frequent exchange of the two roles; if one party seeks only to be trusted but never to trust, the other eventually will stop taking all the risks and shut down the relationship.
This simple distinction is key to leadership development. Simply analyzing a state of trust doesn’t enable anyone to do anything. Leaders must be taught both how to trust, and how to be trusted