Quiet people are heard least, but often have the most to add.
The more quiet someone is, the more they listen. The more someone listens, the more they understand. The more they understand, the more value they can add.
Make sure you’re creating space for people to speak, to share their thoughts, to have ideas.
Alastair Campbell talks about a culture of “maximum openness for maximum trust” during his time at No 10. Whatever you think of his politics, he’s right. And it relies on creating safe spaces to be open in.
As leaders, we have to ask ourselves whether we’re enabling our people to be open with us.
From our side, are we being open enough about what we’re doing? About our priorities, our reasoning, our plans. Open enough for our teams to trust us in return? To trust that we have their backs when they need us to?
Trust goes both ways and so does openness. It’s vital to make sure we all contribute to a culture that enables everyone to feel supported and safe enough to tell the truth about anything they feel the need to. It’s not just good practice, it’s good humanity.
This post first appeared on my Linkedin profile.
“Trust has to be earned,” goes the old adage. But why? How different would the workplace be if we lived in the expectation that our people would do right by themselves, by their company, by us?
I can’t think of any moment in my career when not trusting people has worked out well for me. I can’t think at any moment when trusting people has gone badly.
Not blind trust. Another old adage still stands firm: “Trust in God, but lock your car.” I mean trust that people will do the right thing. Trust that they will do the work.
Trust is almost always repaid. And when it’s not, don’t let one person, one instance of broken trust, spoil it for everyone else. One untrustworthy person doesn’t make everyone untrustworthy.
This post first appeared on my Linkedin profile.
Agendas keep us on course and focused on the right things. Whether literal or metaphorical, they’re vital to success.
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