Day #110

Trust Me

Throughout this week on Social Leadership Daily we will be exploring Trust, drawing upon my 2018/19 Landscape of Trust research work. In that research, people overwhelmingly describe that Trust is important in leadership, although when asked to write short stories about ‘how trust works’, and even ‘what trust is’, descriptions vary widely.

Some people describe trust operating in reciprocal ways: i take one step forward with you, and you reciprocate with a step back towards me, perhaps we share short personal stories, or find shared experiences. For others, trust works more like belief: i meet you and just ‘believe’ i can trust you. This can be influenced by where you stand in my broader social network (degrees of trust) and also by factors such as uniforms, position, or even gender.

Use your sixty seconds today to ask yourself the simple question, ‘What does ‘trust’ mean to me’?

There is probably an obvious and intuitive answer, but don’t be afraid to look deeper. A surprisingly large number of people in the research said they had never really thought about it before: they just knew it.

If you wish to follow this week’s work in more detail, you can download the ‘Trust Guidebook’ for free, here. It asks 72 questions about what trust in Social Leadership.