Organisational Trust
By Sultan Kermally
The biggest challenge facing any leader these days is to institutionalise trust in his or her organisation, be it a profit or not-for-profit organisation.
Trust has become a key issue because in the past two decades most organisations have been de-layered, re-engineered and restructured. These initiatives have created many human casualties and in some cases leaders have not managed the casualties with compassion and dignity.
In this century we are told by management pundits and gurus that globalisation is intensifying competitive pressures and that the internet is playing a significant role in removing barriers to do business. It is increasingly eroding the boundaries of national and international organisations and between large and SMEs (small and medium enterprises).
In such an environment corporate leaders have to have vision, direction, credibility to get best out of their staff. They also have to learn to connect people with people and people with technology to deliver their strategic objectives.
But why should employees trust such leaders now when they experienced the ruthlessness of such leaders when it came to making their colleagues redundant or 'to let them go', as the phrase goes?
These leaders have to transform themselves by showing examples and doing what they say they would do. If people are their greatest asset, then by their behaviour they have to convert hype into reality. They have to create environment where there is open communication and where each individual is valued. Their staff's efforts are recognised and rewarded.
Creating trust in an organisation is like creating trust in a family unit. Articulating values and vision, tolerance of mistakes, leading by examples, open communication, help where it is needed, providing coaching, counselling and mentoring and so on, play very important part.
Organisations consist of people and they are led by people. The 'do unto others...' principle should be the guiding tenet.
Leaders have to re-engineer themselves rather than their organisations in order to win trust. The ten commands of modern leaders should be:
- I shall value my staff
- I shall involve my staff in key decision-making process
- I shall respect my staff
- I shall reward my staff for their efforts
- I shall recognise my staff's achievements
- I shall listen to my staff
- I shall do what I say and lead by examples
- I shall tolerate mistakes in encouraging my staff to experiment
- I shall communicate and create climate for collaboration
- I shall encourage honest relationships within my organisation
A leader must be willing to learn and practice what she or she has learnt. As John F. Kennedy once said, 'Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other'.
A modern leader following the above ten commandments will be successful in institutionalising trust in his/her organisation. Such organisations will achieve superior performance because people will share knowledge, their ideas and their energy in order to outperform their competitors.
Institutionalising trust, therefore, has become the biggest challenge of modern day leader.
