Visionary Leaders Plant Trust

Reinventing Sport Leadership - Part 7 of 16

Photo credit - Unsplash

Our great visionary leader and erstwhile President, Nelson Mandela said:

“We signal that good can be achieved amongst human beings who are prepared to trust, prepared to believe in the goodness of people.”

I genuinely believe in trusting people wherever I interact or work with them. Sometimes the experience leaves me frustrated when some of them betray my trust because this took me back instead of progressing. The reasons I felt so defeated and sometimes speechless, was because of how I have always allowed myself to be vulnerable to my team members and colleagues. I have also found myself having to put out fires, unnecessary ones, as a result of trust deficit in my teams and among my colleagues, when I wanted to move on to more important things that benefit our stakeholders. Let us accept that in our work with teams or organisations, we encounter trust deficits regularly.

What is trust in teams and the workplace? When I was given opportunities to lead others, I always go in there believing that everyone knows their role and responsibilities well. I go in with total trust that my team members and colleagues will be there to add value and to catch me and others when we do not meet the expectations. Therefore, as my starting point, I assume that each member trusts all other members/colleagues, firstly to do their jobs well, and secondly, to trust everyone else. In my mind, trust is like the acrobats that I have watched on America Got Talent who do amazing stunts blindfolded. What they do require one partner who is doing all the tumbling acts to have full trust of her/his partner. For someone to do a life-defying stunt knowing that her/his blindfolded partner will be there for him/her, is an act of trust. Such acts symbolise trust for me. Many sport organisations in South Africa that I know, or I have held positions of leadership have shown a lack of trust which has stunted their growth, success, and sustainability.

Sport organisations get it wrong right from the start of the elections process. Recently, many sport organisations I know will have members create what is called slates. For instance, there will be a slate supporting Rendani as he runs for president of an organisation. A lot of work goes into getting members to align with Rendani’s slate than with another slate. We have also seen this when the big political organisations go to elections. The whole process of “slates” corrupts an important process of electing leaders. The next trust deficit issue gets to be that the slate elected becomes distrusted by the slate that lost the elections. Sometimes members of both slates get elected in the board of governors or executive committees. A recipe for disaster is suddenly put in place from day one in that there will be second guessing, gossiping, mobilisation to defy new ideas, bigotry, narrow-mindedness, and partisanship, leading to the creation of an environment with a huge trust deficit among committee members.

Then, when the committee or board of directors set out to begin to work, and decisions are made, resolutions fail to be implemented because one or two people will go ahead to implement to them. However, they get chastised as having not consulted other members. This is ridiculous because a resolution passed in a committee or general meeting, if requiring action, is assigned to a person to implement and see it through. It becomes very frustrating when the criticism is not leveled at the outcome, but at those who did the work. It is so insufferable to have to spend time debating peripheral issues of why you did this or that instead of encouraging one another on a job well done. From here onward, it becomes a war against each other; a war that shows a lack of trust at its worst. I have recently observed a situation where a chairperson of one sport federation excludes a member of the board from communication referring to that latter’s desire to get the support or no support from the board. Consequently, that oversight has led to an investigation of the chairperson and member’s conduct and has also had financial implications for the organisation. This is what a trust deficit does when there is no transparency, honesty, and integrity.

Now, what should a visionary leader do to ensure that there is trust in an organisation? Phil Jackson, the winning-est National Basketball Coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers; a man who coached some of the best players including Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kobe Bryant; has this to say about trust: “Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the me for the we.” Getting all these great players to work together for the success of the team, and together Chicago Bulls 6) and the LA Lakers (5) won 11 NBA championships under Phil Jackson; it took trusting each other to carry out their roles and responsibilities as agreed to before and during the game. Simon Sinek provides another way to understand trust in a team environment when he says that “a team is not a group of people who work together. A team is a group of people who trust each other.” There you have it – trust is central to getting people working together for the common good of an organisation.

How is trust built in a team or organisation? The following is a list of what I have learned about trust over the years from being taught, learning, observing, and practicing:

· Approach leadership in an open-minded way trusting that every member of the team is trustworthy and willing to put his/her share of honest to good work. It is said that open-minded people embrace being wrong, free of illusions, do not mind what people think of them, and question everything including themselves. One of the most brilliant scientists of the 19th century, Albert Einstein believed that “the measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”

· The latter exposes one to being vulnerable. In other words, a leader should open him/herself up to being vulnerable so that she/he can be approachable, able to admit mistakes, seeking help, apologising, and able to acknowledge that one does not have all the answers, are indicators of leadership vulnerability. This trait does not imply that the leader is weak and unable to tackle problems when they arise.

· The leader who trusts his/her team or organisation believes that each member is capable of carrying out their roles and responsibilities well. Now, if other team members have also opened themselves to being vulnerable, they will know when they do not know how to do something and seek help.

· The latter speaks to the teams or organisational culture. The visionary leader builds teams or organisations with a positive culture. A positive organisational culture is characterised by valuing everyone’s input and opinion, appreciation, and valuing of diversity for the richness of experience, knowledge, and skills it brings to the team or organisation. Other elements of the organisational culture that a visionary leader values and endows on the member of their teams are respect and fair treatment to all team members; generating a sense of pride in the organisation, its people and work; ensuring that every member, as well as customers, are treated fairly and equitably; and ensures effective communication of the team or organisation policies, procedures, and other issues.

· Leaders who ingratiate trust in their teams exhibit reliability by doing what they say they will do and meaning what they say. if the means to do something, do it. Reliability is being able to help other people to be better at what they do by eliminating issues that may cause failure, discourage, or sow doubt in one’s abilities to do the job. This act of being reliable suggests the ability to mentor and coach people to learn on the job and become better.

· These leaders are not threatened by the qualifications, knowledge, and experience of members who are junior to them in a team or organisation. They thrive in an environment where there are people who are better than them. Even Steven Jobs has acknowledged the worth of people who are smarter than leaders when he said that “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do” (Steve Jobs).

· Credible leaders tell the truth by admitting when they are wrong or have neglected to do what they promised to do. It is easier to admit having not done what you promised to do rather than lie or give excuses. Making excuses is a bad habit that holds not just the leader back, but everyone in the organisations. They waste time because that which you promised to do, will have to be done anyway. Benjamin Franklin advises that those who are good at making excuses are seldom good for anything else. As a leader, you do not want to be known for making excuses by blaming everything and everyone within range. Leaders with integrity do what they say they are going to do, and either admit that they have not done as they promised, or it has been done as promised. They do what they say they will do long after the mood they made promised in has long gone.

· Great leaders invest in building trust in their organisations, firstly by extending trust to others. Remember I mentioned earlier that a leader must believe in the abilities of the people around him/her. Believing in other people is a matter of having trust in them that they will do they work to the expectations. People want to be included in discussions and the work to be done. The leader must be able to delegate to others effectively and let them do what they have been assigned to do without interfering or looking over their shoulders. Such behaviour does not build trust among leaders and members of teams and organisations. Great leaders give other people opportunities to talk, and they listen intently. Hence, they must not dominate conversations and never ask questions. The opposite indicates that you do not value their input, and in turn, you also do not value them.

Leaders that are visionary, transformative, and authentic care about every member of the team or organisation. This is not easily found in sport in South Africa because of how we elect our leaders. The trend of slates, that is, two or more groups having their own list of candidates for election; and no robust tool or standards to assess the quality of all candidates by measuring their experience, qualifications, knowledge, talent, and skills; has been detrimental to the growth and development of sport. A clear example of what I am talking about is the upheavals and disagreements within the African National Congress at the moment. The party is definitely not the party of Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, and many those who brought freedom to all of us. The same trend exists in many of our sport organisations.

Let me conclude by indicating that building trust takes hard work but can be done easily if the leader invests effort in the process. It takes the leader being honest, supportive, patient, having good listening skills, delegating effectively and not looking over people’s shoulders, being honest, telling the truth, being vulnerable, moving on despite setbacks, being fair, being consistent in words and behaviour, being able to model the way (exemplary), being accountable to the vision, mission, values, and goals of the organisation to achieve them, and knowing that a lot rests on their shoulders if the team or organisation is to grow, be successful and sustainable. Trustworthy leaders are those who, according to Mahatma Gandhi, know:

“It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one’s acts.”

Steven Covey says that:

“when trust is high, the dividend you receive is like a performance multiplier, elevating and improving every dimension of your organisation and your life… In a company, high trust materially improves communication, collaboration, execution, innovation, strategy, engagement, partnering and relationships with all stakeholders.”

Therefore, without trust, the leader’s influence and impact on the team or organisation, and the performance of individuals and teams dies.