A Thought on Trust And Leadership

“If you aspire to be a highly effective leader, people must trust your judgement and ethics and have confidence in your leadership abilities, believing that you are worthy of authority. In the absence of trust and confidence, nothing else follows. The first task of every aspiring leader, therefore, is to earn the trust of those they seek to lead.“

Leanne S (2009) Say it like Obama. The power of speaking with purpose and vision. McGraw-Hill, New York. ISBN 978 –07– 165589 –1. Page 21

How to foster ethical behavior

Start with yourself. You are always communicating.

  • Set a high standard by your own example.
  • Emphasise the future rather than the past.
  • Look for and treat causes rather than symptoms.
  • Admit your mistakes and learn from them.
  • Accept responsibility; don’t pass the buck.
  • Consider long-run as well as short-run results.
  • Seek solutions that benefit everyone involved.
  • Use legal and ethical means to achieve legal and ethical ends.
  • Respect the dignity of every individual.
  • Try to understand others and make yourself understood by them.

Working out loud…..opportunities for an introvert in social media? (Nowhere to hide in the COVID induced online work spaces)

My present enthusiasms include doing (again, it is simply that good) the Harold Jarche course on personal knowledge management, PKM in 40 days , and reconnecting the concept of working out loud.

This is challenging, as the introvert in me screams for this process to be internalised, and screams for a completing of the work before it is shared.  Small talk stresses me out, so the thought of working out load is scary.  It’s easier for me to talk about the complete picture, not the work in progress.  Working with people and in groups drains the energy from me.  I sense a loss of control over my thoughts…I am just not good at thinking out load. And this is really challenging in the digitally-connected, online work environment that COVID-19 has imposed on us – you can’t really take time out and hope to keep up – you either engage in every moment or you lose the sense of things (and you don’t know who is actually looking at you!) The introvert in me didn’t anticipate that.

So, working out loud in the social media might offer some great opportunities…I can put my ideas out in the hope that others can help improve them without…well, without having to be social.  Really? Well, it is really a different way to been social than the (team meeting, or face-to-face, or the social gathering) online meetings.

With social media, I can control the level of interaction and the pace of engagement.  I can create the space I need to recharge the batteries.

I guess I can still be social…work out load…and not raise my anxiety too much. Thus create some time and space for ideas to develop.

This will be (fun) (interesting) (scary) …..sort of like throwing caution to the wind….being vulnerable….learning….

Learning? ……… Acceptable risk

For greater effect – communicate your strategy in 6 sentences

Who says your strategy needs to be heavily documented?  Try doing  it in 6 sentences for greater effect.

Here is a little gem I recently rediscovered and one of the many notebooks that are a key part of my reflective and reflexive practice. The source is Jay Conrad Levinson, and my notes say it comes from something he wrote in in Entrepreneur, that was then quoted in Communication Briefings,  Volume 14 number 2, page four, December 1994 

I have tried to find the original source, but it appears not to be anywhere on the Internet, so I suspect it was from a print newsletter.  Given that it was 1994 that is not surprising.  Levinson was known as a guru of Guerrilla Marketing – and his work can be found here: https://strategiesforinfluence.com/jay-conrad-levinson-guerrilla-marketing/

The gem I rediscovered is about bringing clarity, precision, conciseness and parsimony to your stated strategies.  Levinson used an example from advertising to explain this.

To make sure your advertising as a clear purpose, state your strategy in six sentences.

  • Prime purpose. “The purpose of rainbow tours ads is to get people to call and write for a free video brochure.”
  • Prime benefit. “We will stress the unique and exciting places our customers can visit.”
  • Secondary benefits. “We will also stress the convenience and economy of our tours and the skill of our tour guides.”
  • Target audience. “We will aim our ads at adventurous male and female singles and couples, 21 to 34, who can afford our tours.”
  • Audience reaction. “We expect our audience to call or write to request our video brochure.”
  • Company personality. “Our ads will reflect our innovation, excitement, conscientiousness – and our warm, caring attitude toward all customers.” 

I will own up to not being guilty of actually having followed these rules since 1994. I lost the idea in my notebook. And, continuing with the honesty, when I look back over the last 25 years I have probably been guilty of a common organisational sin – that I’ve been over-planned and under-delivered.

A great deal of thought needs to go into your strategy if you are to capture it in 6 sentences. It’s not an easy task, and certainly not as easy as writing the long, verbose omnibuses that often masquerade as a strategy. It requires a depth of understanding that can be challenging, particularly in our seemingly time poor work environments.

But I can’t help think of how much more effective I might have been if I had used a 6-sentence strategy approach to my work?