THE 13 BEHAVIORS
of HIGH TRUST LEADERS
Character Behaviors
Behavior Principles Opposite Counterfeit 1. Talk Straight –
Be honest. Tell the truth & leave the right impression. Let people know where you stand. Use simple language. Call things what they are. Demonstrate integrity. Don’t manipulate people or distort facts. Don’t spin the truth. Don’t leave false impressions
Based on the principles of:
integrity, honesty, and straightforwardness
To lie or to deceive
Beating around the bush, withholding information, double talk (speaking with a “forked tongue”), flattery, positioning, posturing, and the granddaddy of them all: “spinning” communication in order to manipulate the thoughts, feelings, or actions of others. 2. Demonstrate Respect –
Genuinely care for others. Show you care. Respect the dignity of every person and every role. Treat everyone with respect, especially those who can’t do anything for you.
Based on the principles of:
respect, fairness, kindness, love and civility
Not respect other people
Fake respect or concern, or, most insidious of all, to show respect and concern for some (those who can do something for you), but not for all (those who can’t). 3. Create Transparency –
Tell the truth in a way people can verify. Get real and be genuine. Be open and authentic. Err on the side of disclosure. Don’t have hidden agendas. Don’t hide information.
Based on the principles of:
honesty, openness, integrity, and authenticity Hide, cover, obscure, or make dark. It includes hoarding, withholding, having secrets, and failing to disclose. It includes hidden agendas, hidden meanings, hidden objectives.
Illusion. It’s pretending, “seeming” rather than “being,” Making things appear different than they really are. 4. Right Wrongs –
Make things right when you’re wrong. Apologize quickly. Make restitution where possible. Practice “service recoveries.” Demonstrate personal humility. Don’t cover things up. Don’t let pride get in the way of doing the right thing. Based on the principles of:
humility, integrity, and restitution Deny or justify wrongs, to rationalize wrongful behavior, or to fail to admit mistakes until you’re forced to do so. It involves ego and pride. It’s being humbled by circumstance instead of by conscience.
Cover up. It’s trying to hide a mistake, as opposed to repairing it. 5. Show Loyalty –
Give credit freely. Acknowledge the contributions of others. Speak about people as if they were present. Represent others who aren’t there to speak for themselves. Don’t bad mouth others behind their backs. Don’t disclose others’ private information
Based on the principles of:
integrity, loyalty, gratitude, and recognition
Take the credit yourself
To be two-faced: to appear to give credit to someone when they’re with you, but then downplay their contribution and take all the credit yourself when they’re not there.
Competence Behaviors
Behavior Principles Opposite Counterfeit 6. Deliver Results –
Establish a track record of results. Get the right things done. Make things happen. Accomplish what you’re hired to do. Be on time and within budget. Don’t over promise and under deliver. Don’t make excuses for not delivering
Based on the principles of:
responsibility, accountability, and performance
Performing poorly or failing to deliver
Delivering activities instead of results.
7. Get Better –
Continuously improve. Increase your capabilities. Be a constant learner. Develop feedback systems—both formal and informal. Act on the feedback you receive. Thank people for feedback. Don’t consider yourself above feedback. Don’t assume today’s knowledge and skills will be sufficient for tomorrow’s challenges.
Based on the principles of:
continuous improvement, learning, and change
Entropy, deterioration, resting on your laurels, or becoming irrelevant. First is represented by the “eternal student—the person who is always learning but never producing. The second is represented by author Frank Herbert’s observation: “The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.” It’s trying to force fit everything into whatever you’re good at doing. It’s the manifestation of psychologist Abraham Maslow’s thought: “He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail.”
8. Confront Reality –
Address the tough stuff directly. Acknowledge the unsaid. Lead out courageously in conversation. Remove the “sword from their hands.” Don’t skirt the real issues.
Based on the principles of:
courage, responsibility, awareness and respect
Ignore it, to act as though it doesn’t exist
To give it lip service—to act as though you’re confronting reality, when you’re really not. It’s busy work without real work.
9. Clarify Expectations –
Disclose and reveal expectations. Discuss them. Validate them. Renegotiate them if needed and possible. Don’t violate expectations. Don’t assume that expectations are clear or shared.
Based on the principles of:
clarity, responsibility, and accountability
Leave expectations undefined—to assume they’re already known, or to fail to disclose them so there is no shared vision of the desired outcomes. Create “smoke and mirrors”—to give lip service to clarifying expectations, but fail to pin down the specifics (results, deadlines, or dollars and cents) that facilitate meaningful accountability. Or it’s going with the ebb and flow of situational expectations that change based on people’s memories or interpretations, or what is expedient or convenient at the time. 10. Practice Accountability
Hold yourself and others accountable. Take responsibility for results. Be clear on how you’ll communicate how you’re doing—and how others are doing. Don’t avoid or shirk responsibility. Don’t blame others or point fingers when things go wrong.
Based on the principles of:
accountability, responsibility, stewardship, and ownership
Not take responsibility, to not own up, but rather to say, “It’s not my fault.”
Point fingers and blame others—to say, “It’s their fault.”
Character & Competence Behaviors
Behavior Principles Opposite Counterfeit 11. Listen First –
Listen before you speak. Understand. Diagnose. Listen with your ears—and your eyes and heart. Find out what the most important behaviors are to the people you’re working with. Don’t assume you know what matters most to others. Don’t presume you have all the answers—or all the questions.
Based on the principles of:
understanding, respect and mutual benefit
Speak first and listen last—or not to listen at all. It’s focusing on getting out your agenda without considering whether others may have information, ideas, or perspectives that could influence what you have to say
Pretend listening. It’s spending “listening” time thinking about your reply and just waiting for your turn to speak. Or it’s listening without understanding 12. Keep Commitments –
Say what you’re going to do. Then do what you say you’re going to do. Make commitments carefully and keep them. Make keeping commitments the symbol of your honor. Don’t break confidences. Don’t attempt to “PR” your way out of a broken commitment.
Based on the principles of:
integrity, performance, courage, and humility
To break commitments or violate promises—is, without question, the quickest way to destroy trust.
Make commitments that are so vague or elusive so that nobody can pin you down, or, even worse, to be so afraid of breaking commitments that you don’t even make any in the first place 13. Extend Trust –
Demonstrate a propensity to trust. Extend trust abundantly to those who have earned your trust. Extend conditionally to those who are earning your trust. Learn how to appropriately extend trust to others based on the situation, risk, and credibility (character and competence) of the people involved. But have a propensity to trust. Don’t withhold trust when there is risk involved.
Based on the principles of:
Empowerment, reciprocity, and a fundamental belief that most people are capable of being trusted, want to be trusted and will flourish when trust is extended to them.
Withhold trust
Extending “false trust.” It’s giving people the responsibility, but not the authority or resources, to get a task done. The second is extending “fake trust” — acting like you trust someone when you really don’t. In other words, you entrust someone with a job, but at the end of the day, you “snoopervise”, hover over or “big brother” the person, or perhaps even do his job for him.
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