Trust in Leadership

Leaders in Alignment
Lynn Pregitzer (lpregitz) (Sep 23, 2010 10:07 PM) - Read by: 12Reply to MessageReply

I believe that there are three main attributes a leader must have to foster trust: alignment, alignment and alignment. Leaders must consistently align their personal values to their words, align their words with their actions, align their actions with company goals, and align the company goals to the company policies and company policies to the company mission.

Values --> Words --> Actions --> Goals --> Policies --> Mission

At Kaiser Permanente, the mantra at the company is "thrive!" As an integrated healthcare company, the first principle of thriving is to promote wellness in the community that it serves. As a role model, the president is frequently seen volunteering her own time to charity. She created a director level position for community benefit and also made it one of the employee measures for meritorious increases. This is an example of alignment in the simplest sense. The key to this is that she has been doing this consistently during her tenure of 3 years as President. Robbins and Judge (2011, pp396) describe this consistency as integrity. When someone exhibits this behavior consistency, we trust that this person will not compromise their values in complex and difficult situations.

It is unfortunate that trust levels cannot be benchmarked and measured. Leaders that disconnect their words from their behavior quickly lose trust. of the people, but surprisingly, many managers I’ve worked with are not aware when the trust level is running low. (Maybe they don't care.....) B. Nanus in The Leader’s Edge: The Seven Keys to Leadership in a Turbulent World, p102 said “Nothing is more noticeable…..than a discrepancy between what executives preach and what they expect their associates to practice.” In my experience, people at every level of the company are quick to point out misalignment in the above areas.