TLP272: The Four Elements of Trust

The Leadership Podcast

Sandra Sucher is a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School and an internationally recognized researcher on the subject of trust. Sandra shares her research findings about trust, and why leaders are often working against their natural instincts once they’ve been promoted. Trust is not just one thing we have to develop, it’s four things.

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Key Takeaways

[3:55] There are six different kinds of apologies that you can make.

[7:25] It’s so hard to apologize when you know your intentions were good.

[8:20] The four elements of trust are:

1. Competence
2. Motives
3. Means
4. Impact

[10:55] Jim tends to see a lot of people failing at competence when trying to build trust.

[14:55] The very behaviors that make you trustworthy can also begin to disappear when you become a leader. Sandra dives deeper into this and what research has shown.

[16:25] Just by being the leader, you can stop caring about your peers and turn inward and act selfishly. Absolute power corrupts absolutely is a true statement.

[17:35] We’re asking a lot from our leaders. We are almost asking them to act against their natural instincts.

[21:00] Sandra answers the questions on whether “selfless leaders” are truly trustworthy.

[23:35] We don’t always have to like a person in order for us to trust someone.

[25:35] If you just look at survey results in the Net Promoter Score system, you’re missing a wide variety of details and information your customers are telling you.

[26:55] With the increase in AI and the use of technology to determine if someone is trustworthy, Sandra explores whether we should rely on the data or rely on our gut instead.

[32:05] Here are three questions you should be asking your employees:

1. How has your COVID-19 been?
2. How have we done as a business?
3. What’s one challenge that you face in this new world that we can help you with?

[35:25] We tend to focus on whether a leader is trustworthy, but there’s more of an emphasis today on whether a company can be trusted.

[40:45] Trust is a relationship that’s running in the background at all times. You will always have opportunities to earn it and to lose it.

[41:15] Listener challenge: Take a long-term perspective on building trust. It takes time, but work at it bit by bit.

Quotable Quotes

• “Trust is built from the inside out. It’s impossible to be trusted by people outside of your firm if you’re not trusted inside the firm.”
• “Leaders have to work harder to regain their empathy.”
• “You can build trust either at the brand level and the company level. Hopefully, it’s both.”
• “All companies are being evaluated on whether they’re trustworthy right now. There’s no moment that’s ‘trust free’.”

Resources Mentioned

• Sponsored by: Darley.com
• Connect with Sandra: hbs.edu/faculty and Sandra on LinkedIn
• Sandra’s book: The Power of Trust: How Companies Build It, Lose It, Regain It
• Vincenzo (TV series)

• The Future of Trust