Trust Me: developing a leadership style people will follow

Editorial Reviews. From the Inside Flap. Two leadership experts. Eight powerful principles.
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They don't push too much. They encourage members to do more, but know when it's too much. They roll up their sleeves. They show the members they aren't just the figurehead or decision maker. Members respect leaders more when they show the willingness to work alongside them.

They avoid phrases that cause resentment, reluctance and resistance. For instance, instead of saying you have to do something, effective leaders request or recommend that members do something. Giving Feedback Whether you recognize it or not, as a leader you are constantly providing feedback to your members. How you provide that feedback will often spell the difference between member success and failure.

Silence - When you give no response to your member's work you aren't maintaining the status quo, but are actually encouraging a decrease in both their performance and confidence over the long-term. They don't know if their actions are appropriate.

Trust Me: Developing a Leadership Style People Will Follow

Silence can create paranoia. Criticism - When trying to stop unwanted behavior or results you may criticize a member. This often hurts the relationship you have with them. Their confidence decreases, they may start to avoid you and other "good" behaviors of the member are affected. This can overpower all other feedback given. Advice - When you tell a member what behaviors or results you want and how to you would like them done, you improve the member's confidence and your relationship with them.


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Increased performance will be the result. Positive reinforcement - This takes the advice feedback one step further by identifying how much you would appreciate the member's assistance in reaching the desired behaviors or results. This kind of feedback will give you the best results by increasing the motivation, confidence and performance of your member.


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Advice and positive reinforcement should be the only types of feedback you give to a member. Try relating your feedback to the action, behavior or result you want, not to the personality of the member. Try to give feedback before the event in the form of advice, or afterwards in the form of positive reinforcement. Accepting Feedback Knowing how to accept feedback is another leadership skill that will teach you a lot about your leadership style.

Resist the temptation to resist the feedback. Don't explain, defend or deny.

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Listen silently to try to understand clearly what the other person is saying. You don't have to agree with the feedback you get, but be receptive to getting the feedback. Listening The ability to listen well is a cornerstone of good leadership. Before you speak, remember people are more receptive to your input if they feel you have a clear understanding of their situation. Watch for nonverbal clues. Most of the meaning of our messages is in the vocal and visual components. Sighs and slumped shoulders may mean depression. Animated expressions and gestures usually mean excitement.

These let your speaker know that you are listening and understanding what they have to say. Our desire to provide quick fix solutions to the problems of others puts up roadblocks. If you are developing arguments in your mind as the speaker talks you are probably missing much of the message. Use reflective listening skills. Before I showed up, Steve assumed that he had made all the right moves, had all the right skills, and was doing just great, thank you!

Now this devastating feedback from his team told him otherwise. He knew in his heart that he had the right stuff, so what was wrong? He did have many solid leadership attributes in place: He was committed and focused, had great integrity, and could endure difficulties. To them he seemed proud. His air of superiority kept others from feeling they could trust him. Trust is at the heart of any honest relationship.

Building teams, leading organizations, and working with shareholders and customers require open, honest relationships. A trusted style of leadership is what we offer in this book. This leadership style will change you; it will change the lives of others around you; it will change companies and organizations. Quality leadership is vitally important today, and many people work hard to improve their leadership skills. But all the training and technical skills, as important as they are, will not create an enduring, trusted leader. How do you become a trusted leader?

Is there a proven path that ensures you will be a leader others will follow? Long before this book was even a dream, when I Wayne first met Ron, I realized he was a talented leader who would be a good man to know. At the time of our first meeting, I was a senior executive in the wholesale distribution industry. Over the years I had led teams and found some level of success, but I knew I had not discovered the secret of moving from being a good leader to a great leader.

Ron and I became friends, and I eventually accepted another executive position with a different firm. This new company was growing, and as we added additional executives to the team, we invited Ron to come help us with leadership training. Ron used the same approach with us as he did with Steve. My test results devastated me. Full of dismay and discouragement, I, like Steve, ended up in a face-to-face meeting with Ron. I had thought I was an effective leader. Now, staring at my leadership-style scores, I was learning that I was a minor-leaguer at best.

Difficult truths confronted me. If my leadership style did not change, my progress and the likelihood of future success were in jeopardy. As a leader I was defined by my competitiveness, perfectionism, and avoidance of unpleasant reality. My team members saw me as combative and individualistic.

Trust Me: Developing a Leadership Style People Will Follow by Wayne A. Hastings

I showed little need for affiliation with the team. I was not trusted. With kindness and obvious professionalism, Ron made me aware of my need for the incredible principles this book presents. Welch knew that to push GE to new heights, he had to turn everything upside down. So that's just what he did.

The Way of Trust

He developed the whole idea of a "boundaryless organization. He wanted his team turned loose, and he promised to listen to ideas from anyone in the company.

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Everyone from the lowest line workers to senior managers got his attention — if they had something to say or a new idea that might make the company better. It wasn't just talk, and it didn't take his team long to figure that out. Welch stayed true to his passions and what he knew was right. As a result, GE became an incredibly successful company under his management.

His team was always willing to follow his lead, because the people within it knew that he always kept his word. What does this mean for you? If you give yourself to your team and show them the way, then, most likely, they'll follow you anywhere. We've seen just how powerful it can be to lead by example.

But what happens when you don't follow this rule? How does your team feel when you tell them to do one thing, and then you do the exact opposite? As we said earlier, if this ever happened to you, then it shouldn't be hard to remember how angry and disappointed you were. When leaders don't "practice what they preach," it can be almost impossible for a team to work together successfully. How can anyone trust a leader who talks about one thing, but does another? Consider what might have happened if Gandhi had, even one time, been in a physical fight with his opposition.

His important message of nonviolent protest would probably have been much harder to believe after that. His followers would have looked at him with suspicion and distrust. The chances of them getting into physical arguments or committing acts of violence probably would have increased dramatically. Do you think that Alexander the Great's soldiers would have fought so hard for him if he had sat on top of a hill, safe from the battle? He would have been just another average general in our history books, instead of the example of a successful leader that we know today. And so it is with your team.

If you say one thing and do another, they likely won't follow you enthusiastically. Everything you tell them after that may meet with suspicion and doubt. They may not trust that you're doing the right thing, or that you know what you're talking about. They may no longer believe in you. Good leaders push their people forward with excitement, inspiration, trust, and vision.

If you lead a team that doesn't trust you, productivity will drop.