No other aspect of effective leadership is more apparent than the loss of trust through bad behaviour. Building and sustaining trust is critical to accomplishing tasks, achieving goals and creating a performance driven culture. This is true for any enterprise, whether for-profit or not-for-profit. In this way, trust is an operational and collaborative imperative. A lack of trust in any organization leads to below-average safety, quality, and overall low performance.
Influential leaders (leaders who lead through influence and do not necessarily identify with a particular title) are acutely aware that trust and collaboration are inseparable. Trust and collaboration share the same purpose, and without trust any collaboration becomes a farce. After all, people – not processes, policies, strategies, tools or methods – make up the collaboration, and trust is critical in motivating people to do the actual work.
Influential leaders also know that trust begins and ends with their own behaviour. Research shows our behaviour is in fact the physically manifestation of our emotional human energy. Trust can only be developed within a flow of positive human energy and so it follows that only positive behaviours have the power to create trust. Your propensity for positive behaviours is directly linked to your skill level of Positive Presence.
Technical mastery, intelligence, personal and professional drive, past accomplishments, and vision are admirable and necessary leadership qualities, but they alone do not inspire long-term trust and collaboration. These qualities must be complemented by interpersonal and behavioural competencies.
A leader’s high degree of credibility is the sum of both behavioural and technical skills, and this credibility is what sustains trust. Trust, in turn, leads people to support the concept of collaboration at first and then, ultimately, to fully participate in or pursue collaborations. Trust is the ultimate starting point that makes everything else work. When trust is operating at its best, then the collective intelligence and talent of people can come together in a network of performance capacity that drives goal achievement to the highest levels.
Catherine is the President and CEO of CORPORATE HARMONY, providing virtual solutions for leadership development and organizational culture change. Her leadership and coaching experience as a Project Manager in an ever-changing, fast moving technological organization with unrelenting demands drove her to the realization that a positive mindset and strength-building behaviors are essential for today’s complex and chaotic organizational systems. CORPORATE HARMONY’s virtual platform of programs, coaching and performance measurement, is an innovative online technology of tested proprietary content. The world-class content of CORPORATE HARMONY’s Positive Presence Program develops the skill of ‘Positive Presence’ and the necessary ‘Positive Presence Behaviour Competencies’ for maintaining a positive and energized mindset and increased performance in today’s complex work environment, and leading to a culture of collaboration and connection. Catherine’s vision for Corporate Harmony is to bring the skill of “Positive Presence” to the corporate world as it becomes more complex, ambiguous and chaotic. Catherine is uniquely positioned to impact organizations’ productivity and long term success, with her powerful vision of eliminating bad stress from every workplace around the globe, bringing purpose into the people equation to promote healthy, productive and meaningful work cultures and turn the tide on the neglect of mental health on a global scale. Catherine is author of the book: “CORPORATE HARMONY – The Performance Link for Today’s Modern Organization” Catherine can be reached at: Catherine.Osborne@corporateharmony.ca or go to ‘contact us’ on our website www.corporateharmony.ca. Catherine is available for consultation, and can be reached by 519-695-3407.