Towards A Better Way Of Leading In A New World: A Q&A On Trust And Inspire With Stephen M. R. Covey

An organization is only as great as the people within it, and leaders are the very ones who can bring out the best in them. Unfortunately, despite the changes that would have pushed our models to evolve, Stephen M.R. Covey observed that our leadership styles have not. Leaders are still hung up on the “command and control” model, managing people as if they were things. So, he proposes a new model: “trust and inspire.” In this episode, he joins Patrick Veroneau to share more about this model from his book of the same name, Trust and Inspire: How Truly Great Leaders Unleash Greatness in Others. Having visited Patrick on the show last year, Stephen comes back to answer some of the questions from the audience about this better way of leading in a new world of work. How do you recover when trust is broken? How long does it take to lead this change? How do you start inspiring change among leaders? He gives his insights on these questions and more, so tune in to not miss out!

 

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Towards A Better Way Of Leading In A New World: A Q&A On Trust And Inspire With Stephen M. R. Covey

Thank you for joining me on another episode of Learning from Leaders. This episode is a recording of a LinkedIn audio interview that I did with Stephen M. R. Covey that has all Q&A to it. For those of you that might remember, I interviewed Stephen back in December about his book Trust and Inspire which had just been launched. This was an opportunity to circle back around because the paperback version of the book was released as well. There are some great questions in here from all over the world. It was a great audio event. I hope you have an opportunity to tune in to this and pull away some pearls. Let’s get into it.

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Welcome. We're going to get started. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me. I had an opportunity to go back and listen to the episode that we did regarding your book Trust and Inspire, which is now a bestseller. You discussed the difference between command and control versus trust and inspire. I was wondering if we could start from there. What is this model that you talk about in regard to command and control versus where we need to be with trust and inspire?

Patrick, first of all, it’s great to be with you again and with our audience. I’m excited to have this chance to reconnect. The basic premise is that the world has changed and yet our style of leadership has not, or at least it's not kept pace. We have all this change and disruption around us, and this new workplace of remote and hybrid work, and these younger generations of Millennials, Gen Z, and Alpha Generation, and completely different expectations of how they want to be led and engaged.

Too many of our organizations and our leaders are still operating with the old style of leadership, more traditional, old school, hierarchical, or command and control. You might call it a number of different things. That's not going to work in this new world of work. We need to move from command and control to what I'm calling trust and inspire. In command and control, the idea would be, “I manage people at things.” Trust and inspire, “I manage things but I lead people.” We need good management or even great management of things, systems, processes, structures, inventories, numbers, and businesses. We manage things, but we lead people.

Sometimes we get so good at managing things, we start to manage people as if they were things. If we keep doing that, at some point, we're going to end up with no people and a lot of things because they go elsewhere. People don't want to be managed. People want to be led. Manage things and lead people. Command and control is heavily focused on efficiency. Trust and inspire is on effectiveness. Be efficient with things and be effective with people. In command and control, the focus is on motivation. It's external and extrinsic, or the carrot and stick rewards.

Trust and inspire by contrast is about inspiration. It's internal, intrinsic, and inside of people. I'm trying to light the fire within. Once it’s flicked, that fire can burn on for months if not years. Whereas, if I'm only operating on traditional motivation, I better constantly provide more external stimuli, more carrots, and more sticks type of thing.

Command and control is a mechanistic view of the world. Trust and inspire is organic. I'm a gardener. I’m trying to create the conditions for the people to flourish and grow. Command and control focus on containing people or even controlling people. Trust and inspire is on releasing them and unleashing the capabilities of talent that is inside of people.

I think it's a better way to lead in a new world of work rather than trying to continue to view people as things. I view them as people. They are not just a means to an end but an end in and of themselves. I have two ends now. Get results in a way that grows people. That's what trust inspire is all about. It’s a better way to lead in a new world of work.

You're listening to Stephen M. R. Covey talking about his bestselling book, Trust and Inspire. Stephen, as we're talking, one of the challenges that I am hearing most often now is around remote and, "How do I inspire?" I was in a meeting with a global organization. They said, "We're meeting less often. It's difficult now to create an environment where we're connected and inspiring people when we're working more remotely." How do you address that?

First of all, there's truth to that. It's more difficult. It's like the Olympic metaphor of diving. Each dive has a degree of difficulty of the dive. Some dives are a lot harder than others. The degree of difficulty of the dive in a remote environment is higher. It's a higher degree of difficulty to connect and inspire. We have to be more intentional about it. More deliberate about what we're trying to do and why we're trying to do it.

It’s the principle of inspiring people. How do we inspire people? We inspire when we model the behavior that they would like to see. Try to model the behavior. We try to go first as leaders, then we become a model. We inspire others also when we trust them and we extend that trust to them. We're not only trustworthy as a leader but we're also the trustee. When we lead by extending that trust and being trusting of people, that will inspire.
 

Leaders inspire when we model the behavior that employees would like to see.

We're more intentional about it and more deliberate about it to be trusting of people. Finally, we inspire people when we connect with people through a sense of caring and belonging. In a remote environment or a hybrid environment, leaders have to be far more deliberate and explicit about showing people that they care. It could be as simple as saying, "I'm going to hang on for a few minutes after we do our Zoom call or our Teams call. I want to talk with you for a few minutes afterward.”

Everyone else leaves and you stay on with one of your direct reports, one of your team members, or one of your colleagues. You say, “I just want to check in and see how you're doing, how things are going, and how your family is doing." I'm trying to show people that I care about them as human beings because people feel when they're caring. Maya Angelou said, "People will forget what you said or what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." I'm trying to show caring. I'm also trying to connect with people through a sense of belonging.

With everyone on my team, I try to have them feel like they belong to something. In that, you find a sense of identity. If you feel that, then assume it. You're trying to create that sense of belonging for everyone. That helps people connect more deliberately and that inspires them. I'll add one last piece. You also are trying to connect people to purpose, meaning, and contribution because meaning inspires purpose and inspires them.

If I connect to those that I'm working with, to why the work we're doing matters, to the contribution we're making, and to the purpose of what it's all about, that can inspire people. All of this in a remote setting requires that we are far more deliberate and intentional about connecting with people through a sense of caring and belonging and then explicitly connecting people to purpose. Meaning the contribution to tap into what's inside of them. That's the idea. It’s the same principles but with a far greater need to be intentional and deliberate about what we're doing and why we're doing it.

I love that analogy too about the diving and the degree of difficulty. I would fully agree with that. It has become more difficult. For those of you that just joined, I'm on the line here with Stephen Covey. He’s talking about his new book, Trust and Inspire. If anybody has questions that they would like to ask Stephen or observations about his book, set yourself up. Request to be brought online and I'm happy to do that. I know Stephen is looking forward to being able to answer questions that you might have. Please do that.

Patrick, while people are coming in with some questions, can I add something?

Please do.

I'm going to be in New York City with Chief Executive Audience, Executive Magazine. The whole summit is all about what you described, remote work, hybrid work, intentionally flexible work, and trying to figure out the different business models and the different working models for it. I'm being invited to be part of this. I don't have the solution with how you set up all remote workforce or all onsite or some hybrid. There's a variety of different models there.

My focus on it is how you approach leadership. Are you doing it through the lens of control or the lens of trust and inspire? I could be all remote and still have people feel like they're being controlled and micromanaged even from a distance. There are tools out there or the so-called productivity software that looks and feels like employee surveillance software. Your people say, "I don't trust you." Also, you could be completely on-site, and yet people might not feel trusted. They might feel like they're being micromanaged.

Whether it's all remote or all on-site or some hybrid, those are just structures. Those are forms. What matters is the paradigm of the style of leadership by trusting and inspiring people, or you are still trying to operate out of the old model of micromanagement command and control. That's not going to work in this new world of work where people have completely different expectations of how they want to be led and how they want to be engaged. People have choices and options.

They'll go elsewhere if they feel like they're being managed like a thing. People don't want to be managed. People want to be led. They want to be trusted. They want to be inspired. That underlying paradigm precedes any discussion about how you set up the workplace. That's important, but what's more important is the underlying paradigm and philosophy behind it.

That’s a great distinction. Mark, you're on the line now. You're open to asking a question to Stephen now if you want.

Thank you, Patrick. Stephen, I love your work. I saw you at the Microsoft Partner Conference many years ago and I've been following you ever since. Thank you for what you do. This is my question to you. When trust is broken and damage is done in a situation where maybe you are under commander and control, how do you recover from something like that?

Great question, Mark. I bet it's one that most of us if not all of us have. It frequently can be broken for whatever reason. Here's the key principle. First of all, let me say this. I believe that in most situations, perhaps not all, it's possible to restore it, to regain it, and to reestablish it but it's not easy. It may not be possible in every situation, depending upon the nature of the loss of trust.

A violation of trust that's on the character side, it’s harder to restore that violation of trust on the competence side. If someone was egregious and intentional and violated integrity or was self-serving, that's harder to restore than someone falling short because they didn't perform or deliver on something. It depends on the nature of the loss of trust. It depends upon the willingness of both parties and also the nature of the relationship. Is it transactional if people just moved on, or is it still an ongoing relationship?

Having said and acknowledged that, it may not be possible in every situation. I believe in most situations, it can be restored if people are willing to behave their way back into it. Here's the key principle, you can't talk your way out of a problem that you behaved your way into. If we have lost people’s trust through our behavior, words alone won't get it back. They're necessary but they're insufficient. The only way to get it back is we got to behave our way back into trust just like we behave your way out of it. If people are willing to behave their way back into trust, it's possible in most situations to do just that.

Trust And Inspire: The only way to get trust back is to behave our way back into trust, just like we behave our way out of it.

What do you have to do to behave your way back? First, you got to confront the reality that you lost people's trust. You got to own it and confront that, "We lost it." You can't be in denial. Second, you got to take responsibility for it. I call this practicing accountability and acknowledging, "I lost trust. I own this." It's hard to restore trust with another person if you're blaming everybody else for it and saying, "We lost trust but it's not my fault. It's their fault."

That doesn't give people confidence that you're taking responsibility for this. When you say, “You lost trust. I'm responsible. I own this. I'm going to do something about it.” The next behavior is, “I need to right the wrong.” That might include apologizing. It might include making restitution or a legal concept to make whole. I'm trying to do the best I can to right the wrong. I then try to clarify expectations going forward of what I'm going to try to do to reestablish or regain their trust. I can tell them, “What I'm going to do to regain that trust? I'm going to make a commitment and I'm going to keep it. If I tell you I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. I'm going to talk straight to you. I'm going to be transparent,” and so forth.

The most important step is I need to now keep the commitments that I made. I need to do what I said I was going to do. If you do those things, own it, take responsibility, right the wrong, tell them what you're going to do going forward to regain it, and do what you say you're going to do, I believe in most situations, it is possible to behave your way back into trust just like you behave your way out of it.

I can flip that around. If someone has lost trust in you, they need to behave their way back into trust with you like they behaved the way out of it. In that sense, I believe restoring trust is doable if people are willing to behave their way back into it. It's got to be behavior, not just words. You can behave your way into it, but you can behave your way out of it.

That's a great point.

Stephen, thank you so much. You can't talk your way out of a behavioral change. That’s brilliant. I appreciate that perspective.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mark. Stephen, David is on the line. He got a question as well. David, if you want to ask a question, go ahead.

This is very serendipitous. I came across this in my feed, which is a great conversation. Thank you for your time. I love command and control. I will say that in the conversation, command and control is dead. There needs to have a funeral for it. My question to you is you talk about trust and integrity. On both sides of that coin, what factors would you say the behaviors of showing vulnerability and ego have around the facts of trust?

David, I think they are huge. In this new book, Trust and Inspire, I start with what I call the three stewardship moving from command and control to trust and inspire. The very first stewardship is modeling. At the heart of modeling is being authentic and vulnerable. People want that in their leaders. They want a leader who's authentic, meaning real. They want a leader who is vulnerable, meaning they let people see into them. I love the word intimacy but spell it this way “into me see.” I let people see into me because by doing that, I'm being vulnerable.
 

People want a leader who is authentic, meaning real, and they want a leader who is vulnerable, meaning they let people see.

It takes strength to do that. It takes courage to do that. The very act of doing that invites people to reciprocate. It shows how real and authentic you are. You're a human being. You're not trying to put on a front. You're authentic, real, and even vulnerable. I'm not asking you to go to the extreme. As Brené Brown says, “Vulnerability without boundaries is not vulnerability." There might be some appropriate boundaries.

You're trying to be not only authentic but even vulnerable with people modeling that they can do the same with you. Also, you're not waiting on them. You're going first. What that does is it says to people, “This is a real person. This is a growing and developing leader, and they're inviting us to be the same with them.” It’s interesting, David, I was with a head hunter who’s a partner of an executive search firm that brings in technology executives and senior leaders like CIOs and CTOs, the best of the best, and the highest level.

Here's what this person told me, “When I hire technology executives, here's what I've learned. I have to have that technical competence. That's a table stake, but what I've learned is that the differentiator is leadership.” What I've learned in leadership is it's all about authenticity and vulnerability. If a leader comes in and tries to be perfect and present themselves and says, “I've arrived and I'm this powerful strong leader,” and they don't show any signs of vulnerability or any indication of openness and real authenticity, I tend not to hire that leader because people won't follow them. They're not real.

I've learned a leader that shows that appropriate authenticity and even vulnerability, has the courage to be vulnerable and the strength to be vulnerable, that's a real person and people will follow them. They better have the technology skills but I'm especially looking for how open they are, how vulnerable they are, and how real they are. That's the leader that people will follow. You have identified one of the key things that I highlighted. There are a lot of things we need to model as a trust and inspire leader.

Trust And Inspire: A leader that shows appropriate authenticity and even vulnerability is a real person, and people will follow them.
 

I highlighted three pairings of behavioral virtues, the combination of authenticity and vulnerability, the combination of humility and courage, and then the combination of empathy and performance. Each of those attributes is valuable in and of itself, but the combination of humility and courage, authenticity and vulnerability, empathy and performance takes it to a whole other level. That's what people are drawn to now. That's the model that's needed now to inspire people but also to create the culture that's going to create the trust that's needed to be fast, innovative, and creative that we need now.

I think you're right, Stephen, in regard to the vulnerability piece. From a leadership standpoint, I want a leader that can say, “I'm sorry. I was wrong. I don't maybe have the answer right now.” I at least want that in their wheelhouse. I don't feel comfortable if they were to come in and say that every day. That doesn't inspire confidence in me anymore, but to know that they have that builds so much trust in individuals because it gives me permission to be able to say to you when I don't have the answer as well.

It does. That's why there are boundaries. If you put it every day that, “I don't know anything,” then that's not going to inspire confidence. If you say, "That's a good question on that. I don't know. I'm going to learn about it and I'll get back to you on it," and you do that appropriately, it says you're real. It also says, “That's why I have you. That's why I have others that are experts if I need that.” That is a balance. It’s humility and courage, and being authentic like, “This is who I am, but I'm also real and vulnerable.”

Stephen, we have people starting to queue up here. This is great. Michael, you are on next. If you want to ask your question to Stephen, feel free. Go ahead.

Stephen, this is Michael from Vienna, Austria.

Hi, Michael.

We have met several times. My question is this. In your Trust and Inspire book, you make it sound quite easy to be a champion of change from command and control into trust and inspire but always, time is a factor. In your experience, how much time should one take to lead this change?

It’s good to hear from you again, Michael, my friend. Everything is moving so fast today. It's a different world. The pace, the amount, and the type have changed. It's unprecedented and disruption is only going to continue. We have to also move fast. That's why there's a speed to how we can lead out with this. I can give an example. I was in your part of the world in Metzingen, Germany in February for a meeting with Hugo Boss, a big global fashion retailer. I was with their great CEO. He'd been in place not quite two years at Hugo Boss at the time. He shared with me this experience. He came in as a brand new leader at Hugo Boss a couple of years ago.

He comes in and he's new to the organization. The organization is new to him. With his top leadership team, he meets with them and says, “Team, we have this vision and this plan that we want to accomplish. You don't know me as well and I don't know you. We can spend the next year filling each other out, trying to learn whether we trust each other, whether I can trust you, or whether you can trust me. We can do that and we'll spend a year. That's one option.”

“Another option is from day one, we can start with trusting each other. Accelerate the entire process of putting in place our strategy and vision, and bringing this about. That's what I present to you. Let's spend a year getting to know each other, and decide whether we can trust each other, but I believe we'll waste a year, or let's start from day one. I choose the latter. I want to say this to you, I trust you. I don't need to wait. I'm asking you to please trust me back. I think we can create together a culture of trust faster than what we might have thought.”

This was remarkable. It was refreshing and disarming. Have they had that in place before? No, it was new. They came in and people responded to this. They liked being trusted. From day one, he started a culture of trust. He didn't wait on saying, "This has to take us a year or two or years to build it." He said, "We can do this fast if we're willing to not only be trustworthy but also to be trusting with each other.”

He let out. He went first. Someone needs to go first. The leader goes first. He was not only trustworthy but he was trusting. Long story made short, he shared with me, “We got a five-year plan in place. We're two years into it and guess what? We are two years ahead of plan. We're way ahead of where we thought we'd be at this point because we have trust operating. We are moving fast.” I think we're going to accelerate the change that we're seeking if we lead out and go first. That's the idea behind Trust and Inspire. There's a speed to this and what it does to people. It's more relevant. It taps into people's greatest sense of purpose, meaning, and contribution. Also, it unleashes the greatest talent that's inside people.

I'm not naive. I recognize it's not easy. When you extend the trust like this, you need to do it in a smart way. You build the agreement together, a stewardship agreement with expectations, with accountability to those expectations. It's a smart trust, but look at what happens when you lead this way. When you go first, you accelerate the whole process of leading the change.

 

When leaders go first, they accelerate the whole process of leading the change.

 

Great insight. Also, how does it work from the bottom up?

It can work similarly. Top-down is amazing because when you're seeing this and modeling it from the top, you can accelerate the process of change. I also think you can do it from the bottom up. You may not impact the entire organization but you could have a similar impact on your team and your work unit by going first. Maybe you're the leader of a team. You model that on your team.

You go first with your team. You extend trust. You'll be trusting of your team, then you can begin to be able to highly trust the team. Your team can start to interact with other teams. You can lead out with them and extend the trust with them. Trust them first and begin to impact them, and begin to have this spread out. At some point, it begins to spread up. It will take you longer to ultimately impact the same number of people, but you can have a similar impact fast with those within your circle of influence. Fast right away and be able to have maybe more impact than you would have thought.

As you see this impact in not only your team but then the team that your team interacts with and the teams that they interact with, it begins to ripple out. You’ll see it as a ripple effect, where a drop of water comes down, and the ripples and waves. They start with each of us. They move to our relationships, our team, the teams our teams interact with, our unit, our division, our department, then those other departments we interact with, and we ripple out. It is harder. It will take us longer to ultimately input the same number of people, but let's not underestimate our ability to still end up where we want to end up ideally if we get enough of a critical mass operating this way. It starts with one, and each of us can be that one.

Thomas, you're up next.

Thanks, Patrick. Nice to meet you, Stephen. I haven't met you before but your father’s book inspired me years ago, The Seven Habits among other books. I live in Melbourne, Australia and I worked for the COVID response for 22 months for the Australian government. It was an interesting time. You talked before about hybrid and working-from-home trust issues. I worked in the office for five days out of the 22 months. There's difficulty for leadership to connect to the people. There were 5,000 people that was in the team I worked with and for.

It was interesting. The boss used to get on the team’s meetings. It might have been 100 people listening. At the end of the session, he talked for twenty minutes about the daily stuff, then he'd open up for questions. They were always zero questions and everyone had their cameras off. They were all on mute. I remember talking to him a couple of times. He said to me, “Tom, what do you think of my presentation?” I was honest. I said, “Surely over 100 people, one person would ask a question.”

The difficulty that he had wasn't that no one trusted him. Everyone wanted to ask a question but they weren't empowered. I'm wondering what your thoughts were on that, and how he could have done better. He is a very senior person in the organization and was a global leader. He flew from England to Australia to help out but couldn't get that trust.

That's interesting. I think it is very telling that there would be no questions because the reality is you know people have questions. They're asking them offline and they're asking them of each other and to each other. They probably felt some level of fear to ask the boss the questions. They might have felt that fear and may have felt that this leader's style is one of more traditional, hierarchical, maybe top-down telling rather than showing, directing, and telling people what to do rather than modeling and showing. They might not have felt safe. It’s obvious they didn't because they had some questions.

You can't quickly fix that because it comes a little bit from who the person is. At the same time, it's also something that is learnable that we are not our leadership style. That style might have worked in a different environment where people were looking for this authoritarian type of strong leader. Not anymore. You need a leader that's authentic, real, open, and vulnerable. They probably need to model it by going first.

Maybe one way of doing that might have been to structure these calls a little bit differently by saying, “Let me present a few ideas, and then on this Teams calls or Zoom calls or whatever it is, why don't we take part of our session here? Here's a way of maybe breaking the ice where there's some fear to be the one to ask the question. Why don't we get into some small team groups and come up with questions? Let's get into groups then I want to take the number one question from each group or something like that.

I'm inviting the questions and it's okay to ask the question because I'm going to ask each group to give me your top question. I'm modeling, asking them, opening it up, and making it safe for people to bring up the tough issue. The key thing, how I hear a question would be how I respond to it. If I shoot the messenger, then I don't want to bring up the next question. How you receive feedback determines whether you're going to receive more feedback going forward.

Trust And Inspire: How you receive feedback determines whether you're going to receive more feedback going forward.

 

If you listen, understand, and show empathy towards it, then try to approach it with thoughts around that and maybe even put it back to the group, "These are my thoughts. What do you think? What can we do about this?" These are all style issues. My main message in Trust and Inspire is that we are not our style. We can rescript ourselves. Maybe we've been commanding and control our whole life. Maybe that has worked for us but that's not going to be what's going to be very effective going forward in this new world of work with these younger generations, but we are not our style.

Often, that's the native tongue that people grew up with. Whereas, trust and inspire is that choir tongue. When the pressure is on, people go back to their native tongue. Becoming self-aware of this, trying to model it, and maybe doing it in the little things maybe seems frightening to someone. If they can recognize we are not our style, we can shift our style. We can change and recognize that there's a better way to lead that's going to tap into people better. It's going to tap into the potential and talent of people. It's going to build more trust with people or remodel the behavior.

We extend trust to people. One way to trust them is to say, “What's your opinion?” You inspire by showing that you care for them and about them. It’s that sense of caring and belonging. Also, when you try to connect people to purpose, meaning, and contribution, that can inspire them. Maybe that's a complete leadership shift for a person. I believe people are capable of such a shift.

I'll give you one example. This was a person that is a Baby Boomer or maybe even a traditionalist. It was Ralph Stayer. He was the founder of Johnsonville Sausage, which is one of the leading sausage makers in the United States. They operate globally as well. He was very much command and control. Johnsonville was still one of the biggest sausage makers but he began to see that they were not as innovative and not as creative. People are not as engaged in the culture, even though the results were still pretty good.

He started to see some slipping. He started to see the engagement going down. He realized that his leadership style was getting in the way. It was the problem. He was the problem or his style was the problem. It was very much command and control. People weren't growing. They weren't getting better and he started to recognize this. He became self-aware that he was the problem. That took a lot of guts, courage, and humility.

He said, “I need to shift my style and lead in a different way to stay relevant and to bring out the best in our people.” He began to work on this. He become self-aware about it and chose differently. He began to believe in people, trust them, and extend that to them. He changed the whole purpose of the organization to being this. The new purpose was this, “The people exist to build the organization, but at Johnsonville, our organization exists to build our people.” He shifted it completely around “It's all about you” and building that.

Here they are, a business that most people would say, “How do you inspire people when you're just making sausage?” The joke that no one wants to see how the sausages make. These are the people that make the sausage and yet, they built an extraordinary culture. They're getting great results and they do it through the leadership style. It was a leader that completely re-scripted himself. He was very much in the old model. He recognized that he was getting in the way, then he re-scripted and created a new style to stay relevant in a changing world. That gives us all hope that we can do this. We are not our style. We can rescript our style.

Thank you, Stephen. I 100% agree. It takes a lot of guts for that sausage guy to do that as a Baby Boomer. Not all of us are dinosaurs forever, so that's a great story.

Stephen, when you said that, I thought back to the behaviors that get you into the challenge, and it's behaviors that get you out of the challenge. I hear that often that the crickets at a meeting are probably because the behaviors created an environment where nobody wanted to speak up. Behavior changing is what's going to get people to want to speak up, so it fits.

Do you remember the story that Alan Mulally tells, who is the former CEO of Ford? I'll make a long story short. He gets in as the brand-new CEO. They had their executive team meeting a week in on the job. They put up all the slides of how everything is going, 323 slides go up, and every slide is green. Green means everything is good. A yellow slide means there are some concerns. A red slide means everything is bad.

In the second week on the job, every slide of over 300 slides is all green. In the third week, every slide is all green. Everyone was saying, “We're doing great.” After three weeks, he then says, “Team, we've had three straight weeks where every slide had been green, and yet we're going to lose $17 billion. Something is going on and we're not addressing it. Let's get real with each other. Let's speak the truth. Let's be transparent and open. We can't manage a secret. I invite you to speak the truth."

There was permission there.

Next meeting, the first slide out of the gate, Mark Fields puts up a red slide. Alan Mulally sees it and he begins to clap. He says, "Mark, that's great visibility. Let's talk about what's happening. Let's brainstorm together on how we can help." Mark Fields puts up the red slide and they began to shift the culture because suddenly, these meetings became real. People started to put up red slides and yellow slides.

In the book written about Alan Mulally, American Icon, he said, “The day the culture began to change at Ford was the day that Mark Fields put up the red slide.” I will add, and in which Alan Mulally responded with, “That's great visibility, Mark. Tell us what's happening and let's brainstorm how we can help.” Instead of shooting Mark down or saying, “Mark, can't you manage your business?” How he responded to it and how he invited people to do it got the culture going to where it became real.

Tom, you are on. If you want to ask a question, please go ahead.

Thank you. It's a real pleasure to be online. Stephen, I have to say your dad's work has been and still is massively inspiring to me. I'm going back to the Seven Habits at the moment for the umpteenth time and getting a lot out of that. I'm a massive fan of your work as well on trust, which has also been quite instrumental in helping me to change myself. I'm looking at this question and this topic that you raised in your work on trust and inspiring people intrinsically and thinking about the setup that we've got here as well.

It's reasonable to assume that everybody here at least has some desire or inclination to improve their ability to inspire others and to build trust. What would you say in relation to leaders who don't look at that and don't have a desire to go that way, who have more of a desire to use command and control approach? How can they be convinced to change? Is it simply the case of waiting until things go wrong or until they realize that things are suboptimal in the performance or the company's performance? Is there another way of inspiring change within these leaders so they have the desire to trust and inspire them?

That’s a pretty insightful question, Tom. First of all, thank you for the comments about my father and also my work. I would say one approach is that you can play the pain approach, “Maybe we're doing good now but is this going to work going forward with these new generations or these younger generations?" You start to look at the data that maybe you're getting results but what's the level of engagement on our team? How much level of retention is on our team? Are we losing our people or our talent?

That can work. I'm not against it. To see that increasingly, we're going to become less relevant but still, that might be lagging always in that. Pain does work and it helps bring about change. Another way is if people gain the inspiration approach. People can maybe see that they can become the catalyst to bring this about. Maybe they had their own experience. Maybe there's a trust and inspire leader in their life or they begin to reflect upon it. Has there been someone in their life who believed in them or who had confidence in them?

Maybe they believed in them more than they believed in themselves. I like to do these in my sessions on Trust and Inspire. I ask people, would each of you identify a person in your life who believed in you more than you believed in yourself, who had confidence in you more than you had in yourself, who took a chance on you, and maybe gave you an opportunity? Maybe you didn't feel ready for it but they said, “No, you got this. I got your back. You can do this.”

They gave you an opportunity. Maybe it was a coach, a mentor, or a leader. Maybe it was a family member, a parent, a grandparent, aunt, or uncle. Maybe it’s someone in the community who believed in you, who had confidence in you, who in effect trusted and inspired you. What did that do to you? How did you respond to such leadership? How did you see yourself differently because of that? How did you feel, perform, and respond to it?

I find that most people have had a central leader. When you tap into that and what that did for them, maybe say, “What if you could become this leader to another or for another just like someone has been for you?” I find that tends to tap into conscience, not in bad circumstances. It’s humbling people to say, “I got to make the change,” but the conscience is, “I've seen this, I've experienced this, and I responded better to that. Maybe others might respond well too.”

When someone trusted me and what that did for me, maybe others would feel the same from me if I could do that for them. I find that if I can try to paint a picture, tap into their own experience, and give them a sense of what's possible, being humbled by conscience and not waiting to be humbled by circumstance, that often can accelerate the need to move to a better place. That's what happened with Ralph Stayer.

He was starting to be humbled by conscience or by circumstance. This is the Johnsonville Sausage guy. They still were performing well enough that he could have stayed with the old model. He started to realize that his people weren't growing enough. That tapped into how we had leaders that helped him grow and he wanted to be that leader. I think it's inside of most people, even the command and control leaders. They may have had a lot of trust and inspire model or mentor at some point to maybe be inspired that they could become that for someone else. That could sometimes accelerate that process.

I think it's a combination of a lot of ways of saying, “We can become that.” People can see that by becoming trust and inspire, you don't give up control. A lot of people think and say, “This sounds dangerous or risky to me. We got to make sure we get the result.” They can learn that they'll get better results and you don't give up control. You just have a different control. It's through the agreement that you build together around the trust that you're extending where people can govern themselves against the agreement you build, but there's still control.

It's in the agreement of expectations and accountability, not in you micromanaging them. They get a sense of the result and you still have control. It's just done in a different way or a different kind of control through agreement versus through me hovering over. It's a better way to lead. People suddenly are more willing to take that risk to try a new way of leading and maybe test it and try it, and help them evolve and shift their style.

It's a combination of all of the above. Sometimes it's the circumstance. Sometimes it’s their conscience, and sometimes it's their own experience or their own inspiration. If you're going to inspire another, the key to that is to first be inspired yourself. Light the fire within yourself. Tap into your own sense of purpose, meaning, and contribution so you can help light it into somebody else.

 

If you're going to inspire another, the key is to first be inspired yourself. Light the fire within yourself, tap into your own sense of purpose and meaning, so you can help light it into somebody else. 

A combination of all of those things can maybe help people, but we're all on a journey. None of us have arrived. We're all moving on the journey from command and control to trust and inspire to stay more relevant in our new world of work. Not just to stay relevant, which is the pain but also to tap out and to bring out the best in people as the gain. That is the most inspiring side of it. I think there's a greater impact when we focus on the gain side or the inspiration side than the pain side or the fear side.

Thank you, Stephen. I appreciate that. I love what you say about self-governance. I think that once people are empowered and enabled to govern themselves, they can achieve far more than anybody could tell them to achieve simply because they will figure things out that nobody else can figure out from their vantage point. I've seen that in my own work when I've been trusted by bosses and leaders as well. I've seen how I've been able to flourish and other people flourish from the other side of the equation as well. Thank you so much for that. Please keep up the great work.

Thank you, Tom. I agree completely with what you said.

Tom, thanks for that question. A challenge that we all probably have run into is that leader that thinks they've got it all figured out and they're not willing to change. Stephen, I think of a quote that says, "In times of change, learners inherit the earth, and the learned find themselves perfectly suited for a world that no longer exists." I think we are in that place now, where you talk about command and control as the learned approach, which is one of many dysfunctional ways of leading that just doesn't work. Some will have to feel the pain of poor leadership behaviors before they recognize that they do need to change.

That's the reality, Patrick. For some, they're going to have to feel the pain, but the pain will come because increasing command and control is less relevant. As one of our callers, David, said, “Command and control is dead.” It really is. What has happened was people have evolved from an authoritarian command and control to a more enlightened command and control. Command and control goes up right there but it's different in between, not different in time. It buys up some time maybe but not enough. It is becoming a world that no longer exists.

What would they call that? Command and control light.

In the Trust and Inspire book, I call it you’re moving from authoritarian command and control to enlightened command and control, which is a kinder and gentle form of command and control. We haven't crossed the chasm of trust and inspire, which is self-governance. It’s different, whereas moving within command and control is all different in degree.

It's a better version. Authoritarian command and control operates on fear. That's what it can do to you. They focus on the sticks. Command and control operates on the premise of fairness and transactional exchange or what I can do for you. That's heavily focused on the carrots but it's still motivation. Trust and inspire operates on the premise of inspiration and partnership. It's what I can do with you. You're tapping into inspiration as opposed to motivation. It’s just different in kind.

Trust And Inspire: Command and control operates on the premise of fairness and transactional exchange—what I can do for you. Trust and inspire operates on the premise of inspiration and partnership—what I can do with you.

 

Stephen, we don't have any other questions and we're coming close to the end of the hour here. There was one thing that I recalled from our interview before that was profound to me in terms of trust. It was the concept of our need to give trust. We are so focused on making sure that we earn trust but you talked about the importance of giving trust. I was wondering if you could end on the significance of that.

This is extraordinarily significant. It's why there's a reason that this is the second stewardship. Modeling is the first. Trusting is the second. Inspiring is the third. On trusting, this is big. Here's what's interesting, Patrick. You could have two trustworthy people working together and yet, no trust between them, even though they're both trustworthy. Neither person is willing to give trust to the other.

If trust is the outcome we want, a high-trust relationship, a high-trust team, and a high-trust culture, we need to be trustworthy and we earn that. That's our credibility. That's our modeling but that's not enough to merely be trustworthy. As leaders, we also need to be trustees. We give that. I get asked all the time, "Stephen, is trust earned or given?” My response is yes, both. We got to earn it but we also got to give it.

I find that in the equation of trustworthiness times trustee equals trust, the bigger gap in most organizations, as I work all around the world, is not that people aren't trustworthy. Sometimes, that's the case. It's more often that as leaders, we're not trusting enough. We're not giving that trust enough. I'm not asking you to blindly give it. That wouldn't be smart, but a smart trust with good judgment, expectations, and accountability. I call that building the agreement together around the trust you're extending so that you can create a self-governing approach with expectations and accountability.

If we can pay the price to do that well, to be trusting, a smart trust with expectations and accountability, people will not only perform better and get the job done and unleash their creativity but they also will grow and develop. They like that and that keeps them there. They also reciprocate and return the trust. They give it right back to you. The result is a virtuous upward spiral of trust and confidence, and creating more trust and confidence.

We'll tap into the best in our people. We'll bring out the best in them. We'll keep them and we'll perform better. Every measure goes in the right direction, and trusting is what unleashes that. The greater gap of what's missing in having trust in our organization today is not the lack of trustworthiness. It's more often the lack of not trusting.

That's a great point. We're going to be able to get one more question in here. Beth jumped on the line. Beth, if you'd like to ask a question, feel free.

This has been such an inspiring conversation. Thank you to both of you and also the speakers. Following on from what Tom was saying before, that was going to be my question. In terms of healthcare, I've always worked in private and corporate. I've transitioned into healthcare and there's a command and control. We've got a lot of people with an awful lot of experience and these new generations of doctors and nurses coming in.

They want more flexibility and remote working. It's not necessarily that they're not trusted. It's just the setup of the organization that it's not always possible to allow that to happen because of the nature of the work. In that instance, how can we try and attract and retain our people because it's becoming difficult to do so? It's not paying the best because it's public service a lot of time. How can we utilize trust as a superpower in that environment?

Thank you, Beth. That's a wonderful question. It's important in healthcare where there's also so much burnout now of doctors and nurses and alike because they're working harder than ever before. In some cases, they’re exhausted from it. Here's the thing, as you say, it may be that there are some situations where people have to be present on site. You can't have the level of flexibility they would like and all situations because of the nature of the service that they're providing.

At the same time, there's also maybe an opportunity to have some real open, authentic, and two-way ongoing dialogue of how to do this. A lot of healthcare organizations where the model has been heavy command and control are trying to evolve to a more trust and inspire model. The reality is how you practice medicine in healthcare might still need to be practiced in a similar way.

Involve people in the problem and the opportunity, and enroll them in it. Come up with the solutions together as opposed to looking at it from “I’m management and you're the caregiver.” Rather, “We are a team looking at this together. How can we extend the trust to you in a way that you feel trusted?” Also, tap into the flexibility, the possibilities, and the opportunities that they're seeking, “Let's come up with this together. We trust you to do that.” You're trying to tap into them doing meaningful work as healthcare providers because they're saving lives and healing people.

That can inspire people and yet oftentimes, people don't feel inspired. The work that we're doing is inspiring. Our style of command and control is getting in the way of our purpose, mission, and intent. We should be the most ignited people because we do such inspiring work. There are some leaders that are doing that through their leadership style.

I think our style is often getting in the way of our intent. If we can involve people in this or involve the caregivers by saying, “Help us figure this out.” In a way that still is going to provide the type of healthcare that's needed. It is going to meet you where you are at. It shows such trust in them that you would involve them in the problem and the opportunity.

“We create the solution together,” as opposed to us saying, “We're management. We'll give you the solution. Now let's build this together.” That very act of inviting them into this helps do this. I've seen healthcare organizations, hospital systems, and others build high-trust teams and high-trust cultures where suddenly, they're tapping into that fire within people. That can reignite the passion they felt maybe, and have that burn on and on.

None of this is easy. If it were easy, we'd all be doing it. Especially, as you say, in a very command and control heavy environment with a lot of compliance because it's a life and death circumstance. I'm saying that trust and inspire is even better in a life-and-death circumstance because you'll bring out the best capabilities, talents, and expertise of people. You still have guidelines. You still have a lot of the best practices that you know but you're just still tapping into people as capable of following guidelines. Also, we’re bringing their best thinking and ideas to do this better, and they're capable of doing that. We're tapping into that and we believe in it.
 

Trust and inspire is even better in a life-and-death circumstance because you'll bring out the best capabilities, talents, and expertise of people.

I don't think it's either-or. I think it's and. Trust and inspire is an and-approach to doing this. I'm still having compliance but also making this compelling and tapping into what's inside of people. Being authoritative without being authoritarian. Being strong without being forceful. It's a better way to lead. It's a better way to involve people in coming up with a solution together.

I love the model approach as well. It only takes one pace to start that ripple effect. We've done heaps of work around the importance of civility and kindness and the way it links. We are getting there. We're on the journey. It's a little bit trickier sometimes because of the link to the way, but that's helpful. Thank you, Stephen.

Thank you, Beth.

Thank you for your question, Beth. I would agree, Stephen, spending a lot of time in healthcare very much is a situation where it is going away from command and control and more to that trust and inspire. Thank you so much for your time and all the insights that you have provided to everybody that's tuning in to this, answering the questions, and providing so many pearls. As always, Stephen, I've fully enjoyed this opportunity to have a conversation with you and to listen to your responses to the challenges or questions that other people have. Thank you so much for that.

You are welcome, Patrick. I love talking with you. I love your approach to leadership and the things that you're doing. I think this is the leadership that's needed today, the model to trust and inspire. I invite your audience to join me, and me to join you, Patrick, with what you're doing to help become this leader for our world. Our world needs this. Our organizations do and our communities do. We need this kind of leadership. I believe that each of us can become this kind of leader, and help be a model who can become a mentor, and ultimately impact not only our organizations but even our world.

Well said. Thank you for that, Stephen. It’s so valuable. Wishing you all the best. Peace.

Thank you, Patrick. It’s great to be with you and with your audience. Thank you, everyone.

You as well. Take care.

 

Important Links

• Stephen M. R. Covey - LinkedIn
• Trust and Inspire
• The Seven Habits
• American Icon

 

About Stephen M. R. Covey

Stephen M. R. Covey is The New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Speed of Trust, which has been translated into 22 languages and has sold over 2 million copies worldwide. He is co-author of the #1 Amazon bestseller Smart Trust. 

Stephen brings to his writings the perspective of a practitioner, as he is the former President & CEO of the Covey Leadership Center, where he increased shareholder value by 67 times and grew the company to become the largest leadership development firm in the world. 

A Harvard MBA, Stephen co-founded and currently leads FranklinCovey’s Global Speed of Trust Practice. He serves on numerous boards, including the Government Leadership Advisory Council - Partnership for Public Service, and he has been recognized with the lifetime Achievement Award for “Top Thought Leaders in Trust” from the advocacy group, Trust Across America/Trust Around the World. 

Stephen is a highly-sought after international speaker, who has taught trust and leadership in 56 countries to business, government, military, education, healthcare, and NGO entities. 

 

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