How to Inspire Trust
I’m, by nature, a trusting person. When I meet someone new, I start with trust. As I start interacting with the person, I have ways to figure out whether I can trust the person.
I prefer to this it this way, which Ronald Reagan defined as:
“Trust, but verify.”
I don’t think I ever considered doing it the other way. My approach, therefore, reflects who I am. The other way is to not trust anybody, by definition, until the person has demonstrated that you can trust them.
It’s asking yourself whether you will take a leap of faith or not.
Starting from no trust is an energy sucker for me. It wears me out. However, this could also lead to a blind spot when working with a team. Occasionally, it’s naive to believe in the good of people. But… I believe nobody gets up in the morning thinking, today, I’m going to suck and ensure trust levels with those close to me will go down.
Reality often kicks in quickly and shows its ugly teeth when we start to interact with the world around us. Usually, our good intentions for the day fly soon out the door, either because of our own fault or because of something we can’t influence. It does happen that our behavior does not match up with our intentions, and that impacts trust.
