Trust and Inspire: How Truly Great Leaders Unleash Greatness in Others - by Stephen Covey
Date read: 2022-05-15How strongly I recommend it: 5/10
(See my list of 150+ books, for more.)
Go to the Amazon page for details and reviews.
A follow-up from Leading with Trust, this book spends way too much time trying to convince you to replace the Command & Control style of leadership with a Trust & Inspire style, but does very little in providing actionable & practical advice on how to do this. Good for someone who doesn't believe in a servant leadership stlye, but not very effective for someone wanting to learn more about how to be a Trust & Inspire Leader.
Contents:
- COMMAND & CONTROL VS TRUST & INSPIRE
- BECOMING A TRUST & INSPIRE LEADER
- OVERCOMING THE 5 COMMON BARRIERS TO BECOMING A TRUST & INSPIRE LEADER
- THE NEW WAY TO LEAD IN A NEW WORLD
My Notes
Trust & Inspire is the new way to lead. Its goal is to unleash people’s talent and potential—to truly empower and inspire them—rather than try to contain and control them. It’s about trusting people to do the right thing and inspiring them to make meaningful contributions.
A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader; a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.
The truth is, we all want to be trusted. To be trusted is the most inspiring form of human motivation. People who trust those they lead bring out the very best in them—and in all of us.
When we inspire other people, we breathe new life, purpose, and passion into them and us. We offer a new perspective, not only of their work and world but also of them as humans. Because we genuinely see greatness within them, they begin to see possibilities for themselves they hadn’t previously considered—or even seen. They look beyond artificial limitations. Inspiring others is among the most important of our life’s works.
These mega changes we are experiencing are a result of what I call the “Five Emerging Forces.” These forces of change are sweeping through our world and impacting our work and our lives in unprecedented ways. We might try to avoid or ignore them, but they will not ignore us:
All organizations today have two epic imperatives to achieve. First is the ability to create a high-trust culture that can attract, retain, engage, and inspire the best people—and thus win the ongoing war for talent. In other words, win in the workplace. Second is the ability to collaborate and innovate successfully enough to stay highly relevant in a changing, disruptive world. In other words, win in the marketplace.
Command & Control leaders operate under a paradigm of position and power. Trust & Inspire leaders operate under a paradigm of people and potential.
Remember this: with people, fast is slow and slow is fast.
Here’s the problem: those with a Command & Control mindset typically manage people the same way they manage things. The constant focus on efficiency often leads to managers treating people the same way they would treat a machine.
Operating with a Trust & Inspire mindset means you manage things and you lead people. You’re efficient with things, systems, and processes (a great manager), but you’re also effective with people (a great leader).
We have to move from extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation, focusing on the upper echelons of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: belonging, esteem, and self-actualization—and Maslow’s later addition, self-transcendence. The idea is to unleash the inherent “drive” that is inside people instead of trying to drive people ourselves. As Pink put it, “Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives.”
Extrinsic motivation offers short-term success, but it has proven to be deficient, or even detrimental, in the long run. Why? It can create crippling dependencies. It’s conditioning, not developing. Behaviorism, not autonomy. That’s why carrot-and-stick is often referred to as “the great jackass theory of motivation.”
“Nothing fails like success.” I have long loved this phrase, but if it doesn’t make sense, let me explain. That thought is often attributed to historian Arnold Toynbee, who chronicled the rise and fall of civilizations. He posited that when societies face challenges, they respond with creativity and innovation in finding successful solutions to those challenges. But over time, the nature of the challenge inevitably changes, yet societies too often respond to the new challenge with their old approach. Their once-successful response simply doesn’t work in addressing the new challenge—hence the expression “Nothing fails like success.”
As I work with leaders everywhere, I consistently get asked, “How do we retain our Millennials?” The simple answer is to trust them. Borrowing the expression I’ve already given, I like to put it this way: Millennials don’t want to be managed, they want to be led. They want to be inspired. They want to be trusted.
Engaged employees plan to stay for what they can give; disengaged employees plan to stay for what they can get.
People under Command & Control don’t really collaborate, because collaboration requires risk, trust, and transparency. Instead, they coordinate; at best, they might be able to cooperate. In contrast, Trust & Inspire fosters conditions that allow people to move to a much higher level of true, creative collaboration where they voluntarily give and share.
Although we know these things and we even say these things, we are not yet doing these things. If we were, it would be the norm and not the exception to experience leaders and organizations that operated in those ways.
Authoritarian Command & Control operates out of fear: what I can do to you; Enlightened Command & Control operates out of transactional fairness and exchange: what I can do for you (and you for me); by contrast, Trust & Inspire operates out of inspiration and purpose: what I can do with you.
Always assume positive intent. Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different.
You know your own heart and your intent—but does your style match it? The reality is that most of us judge ourselves by our intent and others by their behavior. The problem is that others do the same—they judge themselves by their intent and they judge us by our behavior. If we want to avoid the pitfall of our style not matching our intent, we need to do reality checks now and then. We need to take a look in the mirror and ask ourselves, “Is what I intended coming through?”
It’s fine to be detail-oriented, but it’s vital to always keep the focus on efficiency with things and on effectiveness with people. Sure, Trust & Inspire leaders might sometimes micromanage processes and procedures, but they never micromanage people. Remember, people don’t want to be managed; they want to be led.
The overarching framework for this book consists of 3 Stewardships that work together and build off each other. The 3 Stewardships of a Trust & Inspire leader are:
Each of us can become a Trust & Inspire leader through understanding and acting on the following fundamental beliefs: People have greatness inside them… so my job as a leader is to unleash their potential, not control them. People are whole people… so my job as a leader is to inspire, not merely motivate. There is enough for everyone… so my job as a leader is to elevate caring above competing. Leadership is stewardship… so my job as a leader is to put service above self-interest. Enduring influence is created from the inside out… so my job as a leader is to go first.
The pattern is a simple, iterative, virtuous, upward cycle: see the potential, communicate the potential, develop the potential, and then unleash the potential. See, communicate, develop, unleash.
For people to reach their highest potential, we must see and treat them as whole individuals. Trust & Inspire leaders focus on the four aspects that make up the whole person—body, heart, mind, and spirit. In other words, they recognize and address physical/ economic needs (body), emotional/ social needs (heart), mental/ intellectual needs (mind), and spiritual/ meaning needs (spirit). It’s important to note that sequence matters. For example, you cannot help a student meet their mental needs if their physical or emotional needs have not been met first.
In contrast, Command & Control leaders—either unaware or uncaring of the difference between inspiration and motivation—plow forward to try to “move” people. They employ different tactics and tricks, incentive programs, reward systems, spiffs. Many such leaders get decent results from this in the short term, so they think people are satisfied. They believe that motivation is all it takes—that people don’t want more, that they don’t yearn for a greater sense of purpose, meaning, and contribution.
While an abundance mindset is all about caring for others, a scarcity mindset is about caring for yourself and competing with others. Scarcity convinces you that there’s only so much to go around, and if someone else gets it, you get less. That means you need to compete, and others do, too. But when you have an abundance mindset, you believe there is plenty—enough for everyone—and that you can all share things like respect, trust, prestige, recognition, profits, and decision making.
Albert Schweitzer said, “Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it’s the only thing.” You may not consider yourself to be an example—but like it or not, if you are breathing, you’re modeling.
“Leadership is not a popularity contest; it’s a credibility contest.” It’s better to be trusted than to be liked.
People close their ears to advice and open their eyes to example. So the best way to become a Trust & Inspire leader is to model the behavior that you would like to see. We must walk the walk before people will listen to our talk.
A great sequence and pattern for intentional modeling is found in following the Greek philosophy of influence, best represented by Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Ethos is your personal credibility—how people view you, whether they believe what you say. Pathos is about feelings and relationships. It’s being emotionally in tune with others and their needs. Logos is about logic—whether you are rational in the work you do with people.
Too often, leaders make the mistake of starting with Logos—the rational work they’re trying to help others accomplish—before they focus on their credibility and relationships with people. Doing so comes across as “telling” rather than “showing,” as directive rather than instructive. Like the Greeks, we’ve learned that when it comes to people, it’s more effective to start the opposite way, focusing first on credibility and relationships. Doing so comes across as “showing.”
A humble person is more concerned about what is right than about being right, about acting on good ideas than having the ideas, and about recognizing contribution than being recognized for making it.
Declaring your intent involves opening your agenda, giving the why behind the what. It is a great practice in using vulnerability to operationalize authenticity.
There were many factors behind this transformation, but Doug told me that a huge part of their success came from his practice of what he called “declaring himself,” which included declaring his intent. He told me that whenever he met with new people he worked with at Campbell’s—typically employees but sometimes even partners or customers—he always tried to start off by “declaring himself.” That meant he told them who he was, what mattered to him, and how he approached leadership and work. He told them about his goals for the company and for the relationship. He explained not only his what but especially his why.
Listen or model empathy first. When people feel understood first, we can get a lot more done together and we can get it done faster. So the key to influence is to first be influenced. Then others respond openly, creatively, and productively.
Leadership is getting results in a way that inspires trust. How we do what we do matters enormously. But it also matters that we deliver. It’s not either/ or—it’s and.
It is possible to have two trustworthy people working together and to have no trust between them… if neither person is willing to extend trust to the other.
In my experience, our most significant challenge is not a lack of trustworthy people—the biggest challenge is trustworthy people who do not extend trust to other trustworthy people.
Trustworthiness x Trusting = Trust Trust is only achieved when someone is willing to extend it to the other—to be trusting. The sense of satisfaction, the results, the speed with which things get done really come into play when you begin to extend trust to others.
Clarify expectations is based on the principles of clarity, responsibility, and accountability. The opposite of clarifying expectations is to leave expectations undefined and assume they’re already known or to fail to disclose them. As a result, there is no shared vision of desired outcomes.
The overarching responsibility of any Trust & Inspire leader is to grow people. By contrast, the Command & Control leader focuses on fixing people.
If you want to build a sustainable culture, you have to have a strong philosophy and then let people do with it what they will and be okay with that.”
“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
Similarly, consider the apocryphal parable of the three bricklayers. While working, the bricklayers were asked what they were doing. The first bricklayer responded, “I’m a bricklayer. I’m working hard laying bricks to feed my family.” The second bricklayer replied, “I’m a builder. I’m building a wall.” The third bricklayer said, “I’m a cathedral builder. I’m building a great cathedral to Almighty God.” Same work, three completely different perspectives. The first had a job, the second had a career, and the third had a calling. Indeed, purpose can turn a job into a calling.
The process of overlapping individual and organizational purposes is what I call “co-purposing.” For some people, their personal purpose will align abundantly with their organization’s purpose. For others, the two may only partially overlap. And yet for others, the two may not match at all. The key is that no matter how naturally it fits, everyone has a purpose, something inside them that drives them. Your job as a leader is to help others connect to it.
There are five important elements that should be included when creating a stewardship agreement. The first three help clarify expectations. The final two establish practicing accountability:
Our rule for clarity around accountability and consequences is simple: no guessing.
The false dichotomy leaders often face is believing that getting the job done and building the relationship are two separate tasks. They’re not. A Trust & Inspire leader embraces stewardship and accomplishes both—by seeing, communicating, developing, and unleashing tremendous individual human potential.
Strength in leadership comes not through force and control but through openness, authenticity, and trust.
"To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength."—CRISS JAMI, PHILOSOPHER AND POET
Rules and controls may help to keep people preoccupied, but they often give only the illusion of accountability. You’ll get people’s hands and backs, but not their hearts and minds.
The difference between a Command & Control leader and a Trust & Inspire leader, even if their actions are exactly the same, is that their behavior is interpreted completely differently, because it comes from a different place. To act decisively, or be firm, or be authoritative, or show “tough love” or discipline from an established Trust & Inspire style is completely different from attempting the same things when you’re perceived as Command & Control. Your mindset and intent make all the difference, and your track record tells people loud and clear how to interpret your behavior.
No matter your position in whatever situation you find yourself, you can lead by going first. I recognize that you can’t manage your boss. But you can lead your boss. You can be the catalyst for change. With the way our world is changing, waiting on others to start a change is simply not an option. Start where you are—whether that be with your team, your colleagues, your organization, your partner, your family, your friends, or even just yourself—working from the inside out to become a Trust & Inspire Leader.
Solution: A Trust & Inspire leader first models, then mentors. Mindset: I become the solution and help others become their best selves.
Remember, start with yourself and focus on being a model. Then move out to your relationships as you aspire to become a mentor. Rather than thinking, This can’t work here, instead choose to think, How can this work here? Then get to work! Start now.
Try to balance risk and return. In doing so, I find that most focus on trying to minimize the risk and less on maximizing the return. Rather than thinking about what might go wrong, imagine all that might go right when you have an empowered, engaged, even inspired team.
Solution: A Trust & Inspire leader doesn’t let the one tell them about the many. Mindset: I believe most people can and want to be trusted.
True excellence comes in helping others achieve their highest potential, regardless of whether their achievements are “better” than yours. Getting credit loses its importance when you change your mindset to one of contribution rather than accumulation.
A better way to think about a policy is this: if we didn’t already have this policy in place, would we create it today? If the answer is no, then let it go.
Because her style was Trust & Inspire, she had the credibility to say either, “I really want to discuss different options, and I need your input,” or, “I’ve already made the call on this particular item—can we discuss the best way to move forward?” Both options can be perfectly appropriate; what’s needed is clarity. As a Trust & Inspire leader, you can be authoritative without being authoritarian. There is power in being authentic.
People have greatness inside them… so my job as a leader is to unleash their potential, not control them. People are whole people… so my job as a leader is to inspire, not merely motivate. There is enough for everyone… so my job as a leader is to elevate caring above competing. Leadership is stewardship… so my job as a leader is to put service above self-interest. Enduring influence is created from the inside out… so my job as a leader is to go first.
When we model, people will think, I want to be like that person. When we trust, people will think, I want to deliver for that person. And when we inspire, people will think, I want to contribute with that person.