This article proposes that our usual conception of trust is that other people are in control of it. That through their behavior, it is they that either allow or inhibit our ability to trust them. That makes trusting very fragile. It goes on to suggest that learning to trust ourselves is the secret. Having more choice about how and whom we trust is a route to becoming a trusted leader.
They say that you need to love yourself before you can really love someone else. If that’s true, then what is it about loving yourself that makes it so?
Gemma was an experienced management consultant and an exceptionally talented executive coach. She was flattered when a fellow coach trainer wanted to talk to her about possibly joining her in building a spectacular coaching business. The idea was to create over two years, a business model for developing executive coaches, and then to franchise it so that in five years, they would have 600 coaches in 30 countries. The more they discussed it, the more motivated she became. They agreed that, because she did not have large amounts of money to invest, that her investment would be her time and expertise in creating and building the business, its systems and procedures, and in recruiting and training their first group of coaches. Her friend’s executive coaching business was based in Northern Italy and was already thriving and cash rich.
For more than two years, she dedicated herself to inventing the business, and would spend three weeks a month all expenses paid at her friend’s place. She not only trained a group of six very talented and committed coaches, but coached a portfolio of clients in her friend’s business, and really covered all her costs and more by doing so. At the end of the two years they had developed the business model and were ready to register the new business. And it was at this point that she started getting warning signals.
She had over the two years reduced her own business contracts, and had actually turned down over fifty thousand euros-worth of work. Her friend began criticizing her work, accusing her of faults in her coaching methods, and in her selling of new work. As they were creating their budget, she chose to draw up what she considered was her equivalent cash contribution based on their initial agreement. They had agreed she would count her days at 40% or her normal day rate in her own business. She deducted her expenses, even though she had earned considerably more for her friend’s business by coaching her clients. When it came to discussing her potential shareholding and its estimated cash value in the new business, the sledgehammer struck.
Her friend said to her, “I’m sorry, are you expecting me to give you that amount of money to invest in my business?”
“Well not really, I’m expecting you to pay me! First, the new business is not yours, it’s ours, and secondly, this was our original agreement. I even deducted a higher monthly amount for my expenses than you had estimated. So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is,” her friend retorted, “you seem to think that I will give you a shareholding in the new business without any cash contribution by you – I don’t know what makes you think I’d agree to such a thing!”
There was never any written, legal contract. How many other people have trusted someone so completely and found themselves in this kind of trouble?
How does loving yourself play out in this scenario?
Following the initial shock and a certain level of murderous fury, Gemma took a deep breath, and a long, hard look at her own part in what had happened. She remembered thinking several times during the two years that she had stepped into this with no guarantees, and it felt a little unwise. But then each time, she told herself, “Look, it could all turn out not to be feasible anyway. At least we will have tried, and it’s great experience that I might not have had otherwise. And I trust my friend completely.”
It was hard not to think of herself as naïve and more than a bit stupid. But after reviewing and throwing out all her excuses, reasons and justifications, she knew she had one thing going for her; a solid, clear sense of her own honesty and integrity. “I went into it with my eyes open, and I did not have any doubts. Everything I did was up front and honest – and my now ex-friend saw an opportunity and went for it. Unfortunately the new business really did need me, so it won’t happen now.”
Does loving yourself allow you that same, grounded sense of your own honesty and integrity? The ability to be rocked by something as big as an outright betrayal that costs you so much, and yet be strong and stable enough to recognize your own perhaps naïve, trusting contributions, maybe mistakes and misjudgments. The ability to admit there were warning signs that you played down or disbelieved and think of it as a lesson in life, even if it’s a painful one. It doesn’t mean that you avoid grief, it just means that the recovery is quicker and more permanent.
Cause and Effect Thinking
An interesting set of presuppositions attach themselves to trusting which can loosely be echoed by the notion of conditional love. “If you love me in … way or give me … then I will love you completely. But if you don’t, then how can I…?
The notion mentioned in the earlier article that trust needs to be earned and not freely given places the responsibility firmly in the behavior of the person to be trusted. Does that mean I can only trust you if you can show me you are trustworthy? So, the cause of being able to trust you is in the evidence you offer me, and the effect of your evidence is that I can give you my trust. You make me or allow me to trust you. But if you do one thing to threaten it, I will likely withdraw my trust. The implication is that my ability to trust is not in my control, but yours.
By seeing it this way, we are treating trust or trusting like a belief. My trust in you is a belief that you are capable of doing something that I expect you to do, that you will be honest with me and care enough about me that you will not harm me in any way. So trusting you is the acting out of that belief, as if it were true. And it remains a belief, because I don’t have absolute certainty, otherwise it would be knowledge and not belief.
Now, unless someone pushes or physically overpowers you, in real terms they cannot MAKE you do anything. Which suggests that our reactions or responses to other people’s behavior or actions come from inside ourselves. If you become angry with someone as a reaction to something they do or say, the ‘becoming angry’ is done by you.
Regardless of how easy or difficult it is to manage, your reaction tends to be generated by your interpretation of the other’s intention. Your loss of trust in someone is your choice of action, created by your interpretation of their intentions.
Becoming a Trusted Leader
What would happen to trusting if you could realize the process is ultimately in your own hands. That you can build your own set of indicators that someone is or can act competently, honestly, with integrity and that you can become vulnerable to them without harm.
You could learn to sharpen your ability to detect and trust your intuitions, your BS filter. And what if, as a leader, you could build a set of skills that would enable you, if someone acted to threaten your trusting, to make it your business to find out about their intentions, so that your response is based on more complete information instead of guessing or assuming? Would this not be a more emotionally intelligent approach?
If, like Gemma in the story, you felt self sufficient, knowing that you act from being fiercely honest, with integrity and genuine concern for others, would it not be easier and more natural to allow yourself that vulnerability and to begin by trusting. And perhaps if your trust were betrayed, you would have no need to transfer that loss of trust to every other situation. That you could think of and continue to treat every situation and person as unique. This is a level of maturity that is quite rare, but if it were yours, how would others see you? Would they find it easy to perceive you as someone they can trust?
Walking The Talk
If trusting requires that you allow yourself to be vulnerable, this becomes more doable if you genuinely know that whatever happens you will be fine, or you will recover quickly. Yes it may call for courage and an ability to take risks. But it may mean that rather than expect other people to prove they are trustworthy, you can start by showing them that you trust them, and perhaps set a powerful and convincing precedent.
Gemma chose to limit the amount of energy she was prepared to give to feeling angry, cheated and to expressing resentment. She was sure enough of her own integrity to let it go, learn some valuable lessons and move on. For sure she had improved considerably the quality of her coaching over those two years.
