ANNOUNCEMENT: This blog post will conclude our series on trust and our guidebook, The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything. I am excited about our next 12-week series on Compassion. For this series, we will use the book, A Force for Good: The Dalai Lama’s Vision for Our World by Daniel Goleman. I’ve already started reading and boy is there some great stuff up ahead for us as Servant Leaders! As always, I SO appreciate your support and following my blogs. I am grateful! I am going to take a week break to get a jump start on our series, and I will see you back on October 28. I trust to see you again soon…

                                                                          “I bring you the gift of these four words: I believe in you.”
                                                                                  ~Blaise Pascal, French Physicist and Mathematician

Servant leaders understand that these four words are the most powerful on the planet: “I believe in you.” Covey’s book, The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything, reveals the last idea about trust in the last chapter, A Propensity to Trust.

Have you ever had someone who believed in you wholeheartedly? Especially when no one else did? How did that make you feel? What difference to that make in your life?

Servant Leaders understand that someone’s faith in you pays off, for them in whatever way that happens, but also for the way their belief in you shapes the trajectory of your life. People’s trust in you brings out the best- in you- and in them.

What does someone’s belief and trust in you mean? It means:
We can help them rise to the challenge.
We can help them to discover their unseen potential.
We can make contributions that benefit us all.

                                           “Even an overdose of trust that. At times, involves the risk of being deceived or
                                              disappointed is wiser, in the long run, than taking for granted that most people
                                                                                                                         are incompetent or insincere.”
                                                                                                                                                         ~Warren Bennis

Servant Leaders who extend the propensity to trust become models, mentors, and heroes. We are in a debt of gratitude when we think about how their trust has shaped our lives. Organizationally speaking, companies that choose to extend trust make for great places to work.

The same is true for the propensity to trust at home. Think about the difference parents make when they tell their children, “I Love you. I believe in you, I trust you.” Indeed, our first job as Servant Leaders is to inspire trust – at work and home.

When Servant Leaders extend the propensity to trust, here’s what happens;
Trust brings out the best in people.
Trust changes the dynamics of interaction.
People desire to live up to the trust that is extended to them.
People want to give back.
People run with the trust they were extended.

People respond well to trust and no matter who we are, we have unlimited opportunities to extend and inspire trust. Because, trust, you see, is reciprocal. The more you trust others, the more you, yourself are trusted in return. Lao Tzu puts it this way, “No trust given, no trust received.”

The truth is that we were born with the propensity to trust. Think about it. As children, we were innocent, vulnerable, and gullible. It wasn’t until and through life experience that we began to trust less and less.
As an emerging Servant Leader, I’ve been on both sides of the coin. I’ve been in leadership positions where I was micromanaged, and trust was not extended. I realized the powerful negative effect on my consciousness, my creativity, my engagement, my excitement, my commitment, and my energy and talent.

On the other hand, I’ve been in leadership positions where trust was extended, and I know that the trust dramatically inspired and powerfully released the absolute best inside me. Like all of us, I’ve been burned. But for the most part, I’ve seen incredible results when people engage in the propensity to trust.

In the end, trust is essential to prosperity, satisfaction, and joy. We can grow it. Extend it. Restore it. And inspire it.

Extending trust, that is, the propensity to trust, rekindles our spirits, both theirs and ours. It brings happiness to relationships, results to work, and confidence to our personal and professional lives.

Indeed, we should live by the speed of trust.

All is well. We are complete. And so it is.

To a Propensity to Trust,
Dr. Crystal