Day #687 - Belief

And Opportunity

A few years ago I carried out some research into ‘belief’. Specifically it looked at how people ‘believe’ in their leaders, and in the Organisations that they work for, as well as what that belief gives us - whether it makes us happier, more effective, agile, or resilient.

It was clear in that work that there is a taxonomy: people hold a form of belief in brands, which acts as a kind of container for their expectations of how they will be treated, but they hold their belief in individual leaders a little differently, seeing it quite closely aligned to the opportunity and support that they are given.

This is interesting as it differs from trust, which is deemed a more emotional engagement. Belief is possibly easier to ‘earn’, through our direct leadership actions. Again, people were pretty clear that ‘opportunity’ was the thing that they desired most strongly, and leaders who gave them opportunities were most likely to hold their strong belief.

Use your sixty seconds today to consider opportunity, and how you trade in it: are you deliberate in creating opportunities for your team - and if so, is that all the time, or just when you are not busy?

Do you ever stop to pause and consider who gets this opportunity: in separate work on ‘voice’, we see that some people are silenced by circumstance and may not ask for it.