Trust is ONE key to good collaboration, especially in times of crisis. We feel how important it is to have a good team spirit and a willingness to endure that is often driven by people's trust in their leader. A leader creates the atmosphere to enable productive work and maintain the flow as and when different ‘upcoming’ emotions arise that impacts a thriving working environment. As much as trusting others is at stake, trusting ourselves is as vital and also seems to be the starting point that enables others. Self-trust builds the foundation for strong and healthy relationships and opens the doors to others.

I want to tell the story of a leader I coached. My coaching assignment was to help the executive develop inner strength and assertiveness. The real coaching contract actually became a coaching journey on self-trust and trusting.

In this coach practitioner's blog, my focus lies on sharing practice insights, not academic expertise. To learn how to self-trust stronger and turn this awareness into trusting others, made a leader an enabler of change: which is key for today's VUCA leadership in order to make them all fit for the NEW NOW.

Trust is complex – getting to grips with it needs us work on ourselves

Everybody has a good sense of what it means to trust and being trusted.

In a team where a felt sense of trust is strong, clearly, we can feel safe, somehow accepted, energized, even when the going gets tough. Having this "envelope of trust" enables a team to stick together and endure, stay engaged and committed; all crucial characteristics of a successful team required in the NEW NOW. Trust is the ultimate liquid running through the veins of teamwork and a fast responding team. But: What is the basis of trust in the leader of that team?

According to The Dictionary “To trust” means to rely upon or place confidence in someone or something. It is further referred to as “the willingness to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations about another person’s behaviour”.

Nota bene: to nail down a definition of “trust” is not easy. The definition of this elementary human belief depends on the social function it serves. In different social studies, various focal points shape its definition: in psychology, trust is “believing a trusted person is doing what is expected, viewed as a first state of psycho-social development and builds feelings of security & optimism”. In sociology, trust is defined with respect to its role and position in social systems, as a social construct and attribute it defines the relationship between social actors. To keep matters related to coaching, I will stick to ‘the Dictionary’ definition mentioned above. For further studies refer to “What is Trust? A Conceptual Analysis and an Interdisciplinary Model, D. Harrison McKnight, Florida State University, Norman L. Chervany University of Minnesota; 2000. 

How then does trust in others relate to self-trust? Self-trust is defined as “putting great faith in oneself or one's abilities”. Synonyms for the term is assurance, confidence, self-assuredness and even self-esteem. Self-trust entails “the firm reliance on the integrity of yourself”.

What can we self-rely on? What are our own compass?

The first concept on Self-Reliance was published in 1841 by US American Philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. In his work “Self-Reliance” it says

“Trust Thyself: Every heart vibrates to that iron string” and continues to, in his own way, define what this is
“to believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, which is true for all men — that is genius.”

Self-reliance amongst other aspects, he argues, leads to individual ways to avoid conformity imposed upon by others. To trust yourself and rely upon it, even with pressure to conform, we need to get to our ‘private heart’ and intuitively sense what is true to us.

But how?

Brené Brown argues, self-trust is “one of the first casualties when we fail or experience disappointment or setbacks”. She carries on to say that when we stumble and make a mistake we question “our ability to depend on ourselves to follow through on what we know is important”. So, what is that “TRUE-NESS” about us as a human being?

We all know how failing or stumbling will cause uncertainty about what is important to us. In some ways, we need to know how we can build ‘solid’ clarity about what, or even who, we really and deeply are all about. For example, in “The Trillion Dollar Coach” as Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle say, Bill Campbell, The Silicon Valley’s Coach, defined trust as “keeping your word, showing loyalty and Integrity”.

This, he explains, means to have the honesty to yourself about your talents, abilities, skills, power and diligence to accomplish what you promise” to others.

• Having honesty to yourself is the first requirement, a person-focused element for self-trust (and often one, or a combination, becomes the casualties during setback).

• The second one entails that reciprocal element: to show loyalty and integrity in order to accomplish what we promise; an integral element which links self-trust to assuring others to rely upon/place confidence on the individual, the leader (and team member).

A challenging concept, especially in light of today’s fast changing world.

It calls into question of how a leader can maintain their integrity and promises with so many uncontrollable facets? In the book, “Team of Teams” General Stanley McChrystal explains this key element of interaction and system view: in order to conquer Al Quaida in 2004, he needed a new way of leading the troops: traditional answers to the disruptive attacks were no longer working, the enemy continued to strike successfully “out of the book” fights. Instead of allowing defeat, McChrystal decided to accomplish what he promised and made a shift from the ‘traditional’ command to a ‘fit for the new now’ network approach. This meant he “had to perform a mental transition from “heroic leader to humble gardener (of the better suited team of teams’ ecosystem) - which was not a comfortable one”. Becoming an “Eyes on, hands off” enabler of a whole ecosystem made him build full transparency, faster responses, and eventually victory.

So, to be a trusted Leader it relies on a Leader having self-trust: knowing thyself as a person in today’s NEW NOW:

1. The clarity and honesty about who you are as a leader (in your private heart), and

2. A reflection and possibly a shift to accomplish what you promise.

The Case study: Coaching for self-trust
came from Knowing thyself  

Chris, an APAC leader of a technical component operations in China, searched for my support to improve his leadership of innovation and change. With his headquarters in Hong Kong and Europe, Chris felt torn and needed to change the company’s response to match China’s fast paced environment and decided to look for innovative market responses and accordingly adjust his team leadership approach.My assignment by HR was to coach Chris on assertiveness, as a 360°-survey had clearly indicated this to be his weakness. And so, at our discovery session on values and preferences we confirmed his ‘strengths’ profile with strong futurist vision, high respect, a tendency to be reserved and get easily frustrated, high entrepreneurship, honesty, good communication and strong relationship building. And then, we agreed to build his assertiveness and leadership competence to initiate digital transformation within APAC. It was important to connect ‘this’ behavioral change to his goals and vision to get his buy-in to coaching.  

Chris valued technological progress and innovation, and the purpose for digital transformation was key to him right now He enthusiastically shared stories of former product development successes and how his former teams shaped innovative responses. Chris held a strong vision for the company, and he wanted to leave a legacy behind when he would leave China. I asked how Chris had engaged the team so far to build this vision. He replied that he had not done so. He was too afraid they could not cope with the transformation (“I think some might be afraid to lose their job”).

In our first coaching session together, I asked which challenge could stand in the way of reaching the goal: he said the lack of trust by headquarter. Whenever updating on China’s technological progress, Chris said colleagues and top leaders ignored his input and didn’t listen. Chris believed this to be a sign of distrust and was angry. Listening to his motivations and when he shared, I felt a need to challenge him on how his feelings influenced his perceptions of reality, especially as he had never asked for feedback directly. Was it really true? He didn’t know. Noticing that this piqued enough of his awareness that I then requested him to observe when and how his anger got triggered, he agreed.

As our coaching continued, I became curious as I saw a cognitive dissonance between his beliefs, values and behavior. We went on to explore what trust meant for him. He defined it as willingness and openness to share views, have honest conversations and to shape team collective, intelligent answers. Whenever opinions were openly discussed, even controversial ones, he felt that their trust was strong. In business, trust was endangered whenever information was confidential and developments uncertain. Chris trusted a person who said both good and negative aspects, i.e. share worry or very personal observations.

I then asked him, “Why did he expect his team to trust him, while he himself could not trust them?” I asked what held him back? He pondered and said that he believed they needed him as a smart leader, with direction and guidance on what to do. With this digital transformation, he was uncertain, didn’t have the answers and therefore did not confide.

I asked him – with a big pause - what they could trust in him as their leader?

He replied: My honesty, my loyalty and my openness to their ideas.

I paused and let it sink in.

He unveiled his ‘big’ gap of self-trust in his leadership to his team . And so I gently asked, “What then could he rely on in them?” Chris responded with, “A reliable, loyal team, willing to learn”.

At the end of our session, he concluded that this was a better starting point to embrace the change he was looking for. Sometimes as the coach, we need to be flexible and discover the real coaching contract that loosely aligns with the assignment.

Collecting the pieces

Over the next sessions, Chris was pondering on why he did not open up and rely on this good team. He observed that some did see each other as competitors, sometimes discussions were about being right and wrong. Chris said, some colleagues shied away in management meetings and only talked honestly in 1:1. I stayed curious. He admitted that, in official settings, he often discussed matters with the “more outspoken” members and was quick at voicing own answers.

How was this building trust, in his view- and challenged by himself – by giving quick answers? He smiled. “The truth is I might want to control the flow of answers, I don’t wait long enough, or encourage them to give and explore ideas.” After a while, he said he also did not listen well”.

I got intrigued and asked about an occasion when he listened patiently and got a brilliant reply. Chris chuckled and referred to a conversation with his 4-year old son. They were walking in the streets, in order to understand his observations, Chris had to listen with all senses and patience. Only then it was possible for Chris to understand his meanings or learn what he saw or imagined.

When this sank in, he nodded and said “Now I understand! My team can surprise me too”. Chris came up with a new clarity and sparked out “In a digital transformation, nobody knows all the answers”. He then went on to share that he knew what he wanted for the future of the company and his team would find the ways to develop ideas and build bottom-up answers. Yes, he could trust the team’s positive response. He needed to give permission to himself and allow himself to trust that he as a leader and person was strong in his abilities and a loyal team that he could openly lean into. . Listening well to his team and headquarter colleagues (and stop telling people) would also create the shift to a new way of collaborating and combining the management answers to form innovative responses. In the past, leaders could know all the answers, in today’s NEW NOW a management team has to build them together as they emerge.

He accepted to

1. Defer from quick conclusions, ask for feedback and practice 3D listening in team and headquarter talks,

2. Start opening eyes to all team’s strong points, trusting them to jump in and share ideas and views, and

3. Practice patience and co-creating the vision for the company.

By cutting out his impatience, there could be open conversations. By holding an envelope of trust, he and the management team will work out the new way.

Reflecting on the outcome

When we started off, Chris was a calm, confident leader searching for innovation leadership answers through assertion. When we stopped to query what this actually meant, underlying all of this was a sunk-in conviction that he and his team could make the transformation. From “Me to We” was a journey with various loops on different aspects of making good team collaboration great; relying first on the capabilities as a leader (self-trust), then (re) finding the skills by listening well and sensitively opening his mind and management meeting space to the others.

Like General Mc Chrystal, Chris learnt to develop a new response as leader to enable a change where answers were an unknown. By learning to trust himself more consciously, he in turn felt the reciprocated safety and security from his team, and altogether they would find all the necessary answers for the digital transformation. Just like the conductor of an orchestra would lean in to inspire the musicians to play a new concert(see bonbon), Chris could become calm, focused and re-assured. He was a more assertive leader all along.

My Learning and Reflections as the coach

As I wrote this blog, I was able to ‘STOP’ and reflect further on my practice and recognize my patterns of operandi as an innovation leadership coach.

• I really observed that building self-trust needs a holistic process approach. It's not a one-off thing. It's something that will probably be an element over a longer course of time. With each client, you have a different focus in this complex dynamic. Here it wasn't about trust in others only, but  trust integral to the connected elements. I couldn’t see it coming at first, but with each different little spark during this process of coaching, trust as a building leadership competence was interwoven. As a coach, I became a collector of those sparks. To bring them into a line of perspective for the overarching agenda I built an enriched and evolving learning space for my client to grasp such a big topic as trust.

• I also needed to be careful about my own sensing. I had to absorb Chris with my ears, eyes, body and understand my client with my mind, heart and  gut.At the same time I needed that ‘objective’ distance, when I intuitively felt the need to challenge or pause. It's a holistic thing, not just cognitive. It needed my calm presence, obviously, and my own trust that we would come to the answers. I also needed to stay away from my know-how about innovation (“my educator” had to stay quiet). The needed learning was more about self-growth, not cognitive knowledge gain (some of my coaching sessions can entail education, on practical examples, i.e. PIXAR developed “Braintrust” sessions where key stakeholder and decision maker or a “stuck” project get together and rumble with the challenge at hand). Chris needed my calm and attentive igniter of change, by educating him, otherwise I would have hindered the growth as a leader.

And as my bonbon to you as we end, please enjoy: Trusting the Ensemble! Thanks for reading.

References
Brown, Brené (2018) “Dare to Lead”, Vermilion, Penguin Random House UK
Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1908) “The Essay on Self-Reliance”, The Roycrofters, Elbert Rubbelt, NY
McChrystal LLC, General Stanley (2015) “Team of Teams”, Penguin Random House UK
McKnight, Harrison (2000) “What is Trust? A Conceptual Analysis and an Interdisciplinary Model, Florida State University
Schmidt, Eric, Rosenberg, Jonathan and Eagle, Alan (2019) “Trillion Dollar Coach” Bill Campbell, Alphabet Inc, NY

To connect with Dagmar Boettger via linkedin.com

Dagmar worked in (Strat) HR Management and People Development for 20 years in Germany, France, Hong Kong and China, with Global MNC and SME. Her fields were Performance Management, Leadership Development and Change. Before starting her firm, she developed the competency model for her employer and shaped change architectures for 5 change management projects. Her focus now is to support companies translate the effects of exponential change. She helps shape better innovation capabilities and establish leadership of innovation. By building company readiness and innovation competencies in teams and (top) leaders, new growth becomes possible. She uses coaching to shift mindsets and strengthen leadership impact.