6 Ways that Good People Build Trust, and Become Leaders That Others Follow
What type of leader do you want to be? One core identifying feature of admired leaders is how many people follow them to their next role. And trust is the core tool to improve that metric.
Welcome to the Scarlet Ink newsletter. I'm Dave Anderson, an ex-Amazon Tech Director and GM. Each week I write a newsletter article on tech industry careers, and specific leadership advice.
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I’m currently listening to The Ecstasy of Gold by Ennio Morricone while doing my edits before publishing. It was the main theme song for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. If you’re looking for good writing music, I’d put that on the list.
Eckhart, a friend of mine (ex-coworker) reached out recently. They were considering leaving their company, to take up a new role at another company. The role sounded exciting, but they were being cautious. We had a quick Zoom call to discuss.
After some socializing, Eckhart started things off. “Ok Dave. My new role would report up to Muneer. I believe you worked with him in the past? What are your thoughts?”
I had indeed worked with Muneer. I had to think about my answer for a bit.
“Muneer is very competent.” I said. “He’s skilled on the tech side, and makes good decisions. However, transparently, I couldn’t work for him. Due to various things over the years, I don’t trust him. I wouldn’t be able to enjoy a position reporting to him. But that’s just my personal impression. You may have a different experience.”
I noticed Eckhart nodding along. “I heard the same thing from a couple of other people. It sounds like everyone has the same impression.”
I nodded. With personality disagreements, you can’t be sure if other people get the same impression.
Eckhart shrugged. “I’m going to turn them down. The job sounds cool, but no one I spoke to would be willing to work for Eckhart. That’s a terrible sign.”
I’m sure we all know people who seem competent, but aren’t the type of person you want to work with.
What’s the difference between that one person can inspire dozens of people to change teams (or even companies) to follow them, and another person with a reputation which scares away potential new hires?
I think the summary of the difference comes down to trust.
Trust is your currency you build through your actions and your words.
We promote those we trust, and we don’t promote those we don’t trust.
We give the biggest and most risky projects to those we trust, and the low risk / low importance projects to those we don’t trust.
We give the benefit of the doubt to those we trust, and we assume the worst of those we don’t.
Ok, I’ve spent enough time emphasizing the importance of doing this well. Let’s get to some methods.
One - Admit mistakes openly, publicly, and clearly.
We all make mistakes. Importantly, we all act in ways contrary to what we say we value. If you shrug and think to yourself, “We all make mistakes”, you’re missing a large opportunity.
Because acting contrary to your values is memorable. It’s the type of thing that people will remember, long after they’ve forgotten what you say your values are. The person who claims to be patient, but yelled at someone. The person who says they value being timely to meetings, but shows up late. You know what we call them? Hypocrites. It’s not a great way to be trusted.
One of the first things I tell people on my teams is that I love it when someone disagrees with me. I explain that I want their advice, their input, and I insist that I’ll never be upset if someone disagrees with me. I worry deeply that people will keep their disagreements to themselves.
One time, I remember shutting down a member of my team accidentally. I’m sure I was tired, in a rush, and I felt their idea was a bad one. I didn’t think before acting.
Natasha said, “What if we blah blah.” (bad idea explained)
I shook my head. “No, that wouldn’t work. We don’t have time in our schedule.” I said. And then I moved on. No further explanation. No consideration of her thoughts. Just a simple rejection.
She didn’t act particularly put out, and I didn’t think anything more of it. But later in the day, Natasha’s manager pointed out that I hadn’t been receptive to Natasha’s admittedly bad idea.
"I know her idea was bad. But she rarely speaks up in meetings. And if you want people’s feedback, you’ll need to do better.”
As a side note, I truly like that this manager was willing to confront me like this. It’s just outstanding.
I absolutely agreed. Later in the day, we had another team meeting, including Natasha. I spoke up quickly before we got into our agenda.
“I wanted to start by apologizing to Natasha. I felt like I was in a hurry and stressed about various things, but that doesn’t excuse my behavior. Dismissing your idea without consideration wasn’t appropriate. I do want to hear your thoughts. I’d like to revisit your proposal now if you’re ok with it.”
I’m sure it felt a bit awkward for Natasha, but I think it was important for everyone involved to understand that my previous behavior wasn’t something I wanted emulated.
We didn’t accept that proposal, but we spent a few minutes on it discussing the merits, and concerns. And those few minutes were an appropriate investment in considering the inputs from a team member.
If you can’t act perfectly the first time, this is a great way to turn around a bad situation. An honest apology can do wonders to fix and reinforce what you value. It not only improves your trust levels by being open and honest about your mistakes, but it helps reinforce the values you hold close.