The Trustworthy Leader: Leveraging the Power of Trust to Transform Your Organization

The Trustworthy Leader: Leveraging the Power of Trust to Transform Your Organization

How do leaders from the best workplaces build trust in their organizations?

For 20 years, the Great Place to Work® Institute has been compiling annual rankings of the best companies to work for in 38 countries.  In the United States, the Institute produces The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America.  One of the key characteristics of any great workplace, as touched on in Michael Burchell and Jennifer Robin’s bestselling book, The Great Workplace: How to Build It, How to Keep It, and Why it Matters, is trust.  

In The Trustworthy Leader: Leveraging the Power of Trust to Transform Your Organization author Amy Lyman, co-founder of the Great Place to Work® Institute, (Wiley; 978-0-470-59628-9; January 2012; $27.95) reveals the benefits organizations enjoy when trustworthy behavior is practiced consistently by their leaders.  Drawing from examples from the The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America, Lyman explains that being trustworthy means that leaders' behaviors are rooted in their commitment to the value of trust and not simply in an imitation of the practices of others. Lyman identifies six elements that reflect a leader's trustworthiness: honor, inclusion, engaging followers, sharing information, developing others, and moving through uncertainty to pursue opportunities. 

The Trustworthy Leader demonstrates that trust is not a panacea: a successful organization needs a sense of purpose, clearly defined products and services that meet a need, and strategies and processes for getting products and services to market. But when this occurs within the context of trust and trustworthy behavior, the organization can be exponentially more successful. Trust is of increasing importance, particularly in the ongoing crisis with respect to leaders' lapses in ethical behavior; a paucity of role models for emerging leaders; general questions about employees' ability to balance work commitments with personal commitments; and the economic pressures and distractions brought on by those proposing short term gain without attention to long term cost.

By building a positive, trustworthy workplace in any company, everyone benefits — individuals, organizations, families, and communities.  Being trustworthy offers leaders a strategy that is likely to bring them greater positive recognition; greater acclaim as leaders; greater success in business as marked by revenue growth, innovation and reputation; and greater acclaim among employees as a person of integrity and honor.  As co-founder of the Great Place to Work® Institute, Lyman brings a unique perspective to the different ways trust shapes an organization and shares trust-building tools designed to maximize greater recognition, greater workplace satisfaction, and greater success in business as marked by revenue growth, innovation, and reputation.