Question
The traditional leadership narrative focuses on one's talents, charisma, and moments of courage and instinct. However, real leadership is about creating the conditions for people
The traditional leadership narrative focuses on one's talents, charisma, and moments of courage and instinct. However, real leadership is about creating the conditions for people to fully realize their capacity and power. To build trust, leaders focus on authenticity, logic, and empathy. People tend to trust when they think they're interacting with the real you, have faith in your judgment and competence, and believe you care about them.
To develop or restore trust, leaders should identify which driver they're "wobbly" on and work on strengthening it. In 2017, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick visited the company's Bay Area headquarters, where they were skeptical about the company's potential redemption. However, Kalanick arrived humbled and introspective, acknowledging that the cultural values he had instilled in the company had been misused and distorted.
Empowerment leadership is a fundamental principle in leadership. Trust is the basis for almost everything we do as civilized people, and it's essential for leaders to create the conditions for their people to fully realize their capacity and power. This principle applies not only when leaders are in the trenches with their teams but also when they're not around and even when they've permanently moved on from the team.
In summary, building trust is crucial for leaders to create the conditions for their people to fully realize their capacity and power. Empowerment leadership is a fundamental principle that can be applied to various organizations, including those that have lost their way due to a lack of trust.
Trust is a foundational leadership capital that is built on three core drivers: authenticity, logic, and empathy. People trust a leader when they believe they are interacting with the real you (authenticity), have faith in your judgment and competence (logic), and feel that you care about them (empathy). When trust is lost, it can almost always be traced back to a breakdown in one of these three drivers. People often underestimate the impact of misinformation and stress on their trustworthiness. To build trust as a leader, it is essential to identify your trust wobble and address it.
To identify your wobble, think of a recent moment when you were not trusted as much as you wanted to be. Give the other person in your story the benefit of the doubt, and assume that you own it. Then, look at your pattern of wobbles across multiple incidents and identify which driver went wobbly on you. Sharing your analysis with a trusted partner can help test and refine your hypothesis.
Taking responsibility for a wobble reveals your humanity (authenticity) and analytic chops (logic) while communicating your commitment to the relationship (empathy).
Over the past decade, leaders have faced various trust issues, including empathy and logic. Empathy is a major barrier to empowerment leadership, as it signals a lack of concern for others. High-achieving leaders often struggle with empathy, as they may become impatient with others who aren't similarly motivated or take longer to understand something. The modern workplace often distracts them from demonstrating empathy by imposing 24-hour demands on their time and using various technologies that compete for attention.
To overcome empathy, leaders should focus on ensuring everyone else gets what they need in group settings. This can be achieved by taking radical responsibility for others, sharing the burden of moving the dialogue forward, and not disengaging until everyone understands. To improve their interactions and build trust, leaders should put away their phones more frequently and focus on building trust with others.
Logic is another challenge for leaders, as they may not always have confidence in the rigor of their ideas or their ability to deliver on them. To overcome logic, leaders should go back to data, root the case, and stop there. They should also learn from others and expand their knowledge, as this can provide authenticity and authentic feedback.
However, many logic wobblers may not have the problem of rigor, but rather the perception of wobbly logic rather than the reality of it. To avoid losing audience trust, leaders should flip the imaginary triangle upside and start with their main point at the top and work their way down, building a base of reinforcing evidence. This approach signals clarity of vision and full command of facts, allowing everyone to follow your logic.
Authenticity is crucial in today's workplace, as it allows people to access their true selves and experiences. However, withholding one's true self can lead to inauthenticity, which can hinder trust and leadership abilities. Diverse teams can outperform homogenous teams if not managed actively for differences among members, due to the common information effect. This effect occurs when people choose to bring their unique selves to the table, expanding the amount of information the team can access. This expansion of knowledge and its benefits rely on the courage of authenticity wobblers.
Suppressing our unique selves can suppress the most valuable parts of ourselves, making it harder for people to trust us as leaders. It is essential to care about authenticity, even if we don't see ourselves as different. All of us pay the price of inauthentic interactions, and all have a better chance of thriving in inclusive environments where authenticity can flourish. Gender bias and systemic racism are not just a woman's problem; it's a shared moral and organizational imperative to create workplaces where the burdens of being different are shouldered by all of us.
Creating spaces where authenticity can thrive is an urgent, achievable goal that requires less audacity than disrupting industries or growing complex organizations. If everyone takes responsibility for creating companies where difference can thrive and shows up authentically, their chances of achieving true inclusion and building high levels of trust start to look pretty good. Pay less attention to what people want to hear and more attention to what you need to say to them. Reveal your full humanity to the world, regardless of what critics say, and take exquisite care of people who are different from you, confident in the knowledge that their difference could unleash your potential and your organization's.
Empowerment leadership is not about getting others to trust you, but it also starts with building trust yourself. To be a truly empowering leader, one must take stock of their relationships with others and themselves, addressing authenticity problems, empathetic postures, and logic issues.
Uber faced trust wobbles when it began working with CEO Frances Kalanick. The company had empathy problems, focusing on growth at all costs, and unaddressed logic problems. Uber's war-room mentality undermining authenticity was another issue. Kalanick hired Eric Holder to lead an internal investigation into harassment and discrimination, and the company was on the verge of rolling out new driver-tipping functionality. However, Kalanick was forced out as CEO in June 2017, and replaced by Dara Khosrowshahi, a former Expedia CEO.
Trust, diversity, and team performance are essential for success. Diverse teams can underperform homogenous ones if not managed actively for inclusion. By creating conditions of trust that allow diverse team members to bring their unique perspectives and experiences, you can expand the amount of knowledge your team can access and create an unbeatable advantage.
Frances and Khosrowshahi led an effort to rebuild trust internally by rewriting the company's cultural values, strengthening relationships with regulators, and executing a logic-driven focus on the services and markets that were most defensible. Most of the work during this period was aimed at rebuilding trust at the employee level, such as removing the widespread practice of texting during meetings and upskilling thousands of managers.
Within a year, Uber was less wobbly, with indicators such as employee sentiment, brand health, and driver compensation heading in the right direction. Good people were deciding to stay with the company, more good people were joining, and an increasing number of Uber T-shirts could now be seen on city streets.
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