Are you earning trust their way or yours? (#315)
The Confident Leader
BOOST YOUR LEADERSHIP IN UNCERTAIN TIMES
Vince, a CTO, kept watching new relationships with talented peers start hot and quietly go cold. He could never figure out what changed.
He didn’t think he was doing anything wrong that he could name, which was exactly what made it maddening.
“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” – Theodore Roosevelt
This Week’s Edition
This week, why the trust you’re building lands with half your people and bounces off the rest.
Clarify Your Thinking
For Vince, a good relationship meant proving he was competent. Because that was the only door he offered, he lost 50% of the time.
Typically, we build trust the way we like to receive it.
Vince valued competency, so he led with competency. Showed he could do the work and assumed the trust would follow.
“Once they see what I can do, they’ll trust me.”
Half the people you meet need competency first.
The other half is wired the opposite way. They need sincerity first. They need to know you’re a good person, that you have their interest at heart, before they care what you know or what you can do.
Lead with your resume to the sincerity group, and you risk it not landing. Not because they doubt your skill. Because you skipped the door they needed you to walk through.
Initiating a trusting relationship is an intentional choice: which one to lead with, based on what they need, not what you value.
Old Thinking: I build trust by leading with what I value most.
New Thinking: I build trust by leading with what the other person needs first.
Thoughts Lead to Actions
Here’s the cost of not being intentional in your trust-building.
Half the room quietly closes the door, and you never find out why. They don’t build trust the way you naturally show up.
You may spend all your competency capital on people who needed to know who you are first.
So stop leading with your default and start reading theirs. Everyone needs both, in a different order.
Sincerity. Do they believe you’re a good person who has their back?
Competency. Do they believe you can deliver?
The whole game is knowing which one they need first.
Here are the Power Questions to read it:
1. When this person sizes someone up, do they ask, “can they do it?” or “are they a quality person?”
2. Which one do I always lead with?
3. Where has a strong start gone cold, and did I ever offer the other door?
4. Have I proven I’m a good person to them, or only that I’m good at my job?
5. If I led with the opposite of my default this week, who comes to mind first?
Vince picked the peer who’d gone coldest and led by being a real person, not the resume. It felt exposed, leading with the soft thing he’d always skipped.
Possibly, for the first time, he was offering the door the other person had been waiting on.
You don’t need a new skill to be trusted. You need to read the room and choose.
Boost Your Performance
Want a simple read on which kind of trust someone needs from you first? This week’s video breaks it down.
What’s Your Opinion?
Do you lead with sincerity or competency, and has it ever cost you someone who needed the other?
I’d love to hear your answer: robin.pou@robinpou.com
If you are going to be a leader, you might as well be a good one. Don’t let doubt count you out. Have a confident week!
Robin Pou, Chief Advisor and Strategist
We live to make bad leadership extinct so forward this newsletter to others who strive to be confident leaders.
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What is “The Confident Leader”?
During the Covid-19 Pandemic, I began a video series called “Panic or Plan?” It was designed to equip leaders to navigate the doubt they experienced and to rise in the confidence they needed to lead during turbulent times. It took off. I then started this newsletter to equip leaders in the same fashion each week for the doubt that crashes across the bow of their leaderSHIP.
