An integral path to leadership…
by David J Bilinsky
I’ve never questioned
the answers given
To find the faith that’s
been lost within
‘cause where I lay my
trust in others
Where it lies the
ground is thin
Writer and vocalist
Sarah McLachlan
Trust is an ethereal quantity – it can be as strong as a rock and yet vanish in an instant. Once gone, it can take a long time to restore – and for some, it may never be fully capable of restoration. Trust is closely related to integrity and leadership. Covey defines leadership as “[C]ommunicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they see it in themselves.” In a law firm setting, it is obvious that trust, integrity, and leadership are three qualities that any managing partner worth his or her salt would strive to acquire and demonstrate, particularly if they wish to empower and inspire their people to perform at the top of their potential for the betterment of the firm as a whole.
But how exactly do you communicate trust to people? How do you develop and demonstrate your integrity and leadership skills? How is it that there are certain leaders – Sir Winston Churchill for example, who could seemingly inspire people to follow him into hell itself – while others have difficulty just getting people to follow them to lunch? Here are a number of suggestions put forward in this regard1 to build trust, integrity, and leadership in your firm:
Spend Time With Your Team:
Building leadership and trust is a “hands-on” activity. You have to get out and share what your people are doing. Some managers think they can manage from behind a closed door – and for a rare few that may be true. For the vast majority of us however, we have to show that our deeds match our words – and that means being out of the office, listening, discussing, sharing, and communicating. Team building is all about shared experiences – and if you as a leader are not there to take part in the sharing, then the team will get the message fairly shortly that either the requested activity is not high on your radar screen or that you really are not committed to the task.
Listen to Your People Without Judgment or Critique:
Listening is an under-rated component of building trust. The (mis)conception of a leader is that they must be busy “doing stuff.” In fact the opposite is trust – a captain’s role is to watch and listen and not to adjust the trim of the sail but only to offer a suggestion that the trim might need checking – which should be enough for the crew to take ownership of the problem and to work out the solution for themselves.
Permit Others to Influence Your Decisions Rather Than Dismissing Their Opinions:
The fastest way to communicate distrust to those immediately next to you is by not allowing them to have any influence over your actions – notwithstanding that they are closer to the action and you presumably hired them for their judgment.
Reveal and Share Revelant Information With Your People:
Silo-ism, privacy, hording, or withholding of information – all of these are signs of a person who holds information as a way to control power. At the heart of this behaviour is fear – that the leader would have less influence if the information were widely known. In fact the opposite is true – the greater the sharing of information with your team, the greater the team feels inspired and informed that in fact they are taking the correct action and that you, as leader, are helping them achieve the right results.
Be Willing to Depend on Your People Rather Than Keeping Total Control in Your Hands:
Once your team realizes that you are feeding them all the relevant information, then they come to the conclusion that you are depending on them to exercise their judgment based on that information and come forward with their best suggestions. This is synergy – where the actions of the team are much stronger and better than any one person acting alone. The act of placing trust in them is reflected back many times over – and results in a stronger and more resilient team – and in better decisions overall.
Give the Complex a Common Sense Edge:
Your job as leader is to keep the dialogue focused on the needs of your organization and to quietly but rigorously subject all possible solutions to the acid test of how this advances your strategic goals and objectives. If a suggestion passes the acid test – by all means encourage your team to move forward with all due dispatch. However, if it does not, then you have an educational opportunity on your hands…where you can discuss the proposed solution in private with the person and have them think through how it does not meet the needs of the organization. Your role is to show how their opinion is valued and they are encouraged to come back with a better suggestion in the future. The idea is to affirm the trust and commitment of the person while quietly demonstrating how they could do it better the next time.
Teach Your People:
One of the strongest messages that any leader can make is to not just model the behaviour that you wish, but rather to take the time to teach it to others and in turn, encourage those you teach to become teachers. All of us learn faster and better when a mentor helps guide our development. Your job as leader is to be a mentor and in turn, to allow others you have mentored to grow from your experiences and evolve to become mentors themselves. Do not be so focused by the “here and now” that you lose touch with the longer-term objectives and growth of your people and your organization.
Ask Your People to Help You Identify Obstacles to Their Success and Then Remove Those Obstacles Quickly:
One of the perks of leadership is the ability to take action – quickly. Accordingly, when one of your team comes forward with something that is preventing him or her from achieving their goals – then you can achieve star-quality by taking immediate steps to remove that obstacle. Moreover, you will find that you have made a deposit in the “goodwill” side of the ledger that can pay dividends for years to come – by earning the respect and thanks of someone on your team.
By laying down fertile ground for the ideas, energy and commitment of your team, you have allowed their trust in you to sprout, take root and grow. Along the way, you have demonstrated your integrity and stand to reap the benefits of building a strong and capable team under your leadership.
David J. Bilinsky is the Practice Management Advisor at the Law Society of B.C. E-mail: daveb@lsbc.org. The views expressed herein are strictly those of the author and may not be shared by the author’s employer, the Law Society of B.C.
1Based on: Chapman, K. (2003). The leader’s code: a people-sense guide to leadership. New York: iUniverse. Inc.
This article originally appeared in the June 2006 issue of BarTalk and is reproduced here with permission of both the author and the Canadian Bar Association, British Columbia Branch. |