New York University Trustworthy Leadership Personal Reflection Paper Trustworthy Leadership can be defined as the quality of someone being competent and be

New York University Trustworthy Leadership Personal Reflection Paper Trustworthy Leadership can be defined as the quality of someone being competent and benevolent so that others can safely be in partnership with that person. (W. Q. Judge). Think about peers you have worked with, either on projects, or in the work place that you have admired and you considered a trustworthy leader. Of the seven (7) practices for cultivating Trustworthy Leadership, which one (1) would you choose to describe the person you worked with? For the exclusive use of J. Guo, 2020.
BEP079
February 1, 2011
CHAPTER THREE
Organizational Capacity for Change
Dimension 1: Trustworthy Leadership
From Building Organizational Capacity for Change
By William Q. Judge (Business Expert Press)
© 2011 by Business Expert Press. All rights reserved.
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affiliate of Harvard Business School.
This document is authorized for use only by Jiamin Guo in Transforming Organizations – Summer 2020-1 taught by CARLO ESIDORE, New York University from Jun 2020 to Oct 2020.
For the exclusive use of J. Guo, 2020.
This document is authorized for use only by Jiamin Guo in Transforming Organizations – Summer 2020-1 taught by CARLO ESIDORE, New York University from Jun 2020 to Oct 2020.
For the exclusive use of J. Guo, 2020.
CHAPTER 3
OCC Dimension 1
Trustworthy Leadership
The glue that holds all relationships together—including the relationship between the leader
and the led—is trust, and trust is based on integrity.
—Brian Tracy
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between,
the leader is a servant.
—Max De Pree
What Is Trustworthy Leadership?
Trustworthiness can be thought of as the quality of someone being competent and benevolent so that others can safely be in partnership with
that person. As Brian Tracy suggests earlier, trustworthiness is important
to all human relationships, but it is essential for leadership effectiveness
and the ability to prepare for and drive organizational change.
All change requires a partnership between leaders and followers. In any
partnership situation, the leader must first demonstrate competence. After
all, why should anyone follow the leader if the leader first does not demonstrate skill or competence in envisioning the future, making that vision a
reality, or both? Certainly, followers are compliant every day with those in
authority, but compliance is largely effective only in stable and unchanging situations. In unstable and changing situations, a trusting disposition
among a critical mass of the employees is essential. If the followers’ disposition is largely compliant, change will be temporary or nonexistent.
Indeed, it is foolish for anyone to follow a leader who is not deemed
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BUILDING ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY FOR CHANGE
competent to lead. In other words, it is appropriate for followers to resist
change when the leader has not demonstrated competence in leading.1
But competence must be coupled with benevolence for one to have
sufficient trust in a leader to agree to be led. Competence is a reflection
of skill and followers want and need their leaders to be skillful, but what
if the leader skillfully takes advantage of his or her followers? This implies
that to be skillful or competent as a leader is necessary, but not sufficient
grounds for leading change.
The popular press focuses on charisma as the mark of leadership, but
history is replete with charismatic leaders who attracted lots of followers and then led them in self-centered and manipulative ways. Thus, the
leader must benevolently care for his or her followers’ well-being, and
they must be convinced that they are being cared for.
A metaphor that I like to use with executives when discussing the
importance of benevolence is that of a knife. Knives are tools that can be
handled with great skill, such as preparing food for a meal or defending
from an attack. However, if the followers turn the knife over to the leader,
they first want to be sure that the leader will not use the knife on them.
The knife is a metaphor for power, and leadership involves the proper use
of power. All knife-wielding leaders need to show that they know how to
use a knife, and that they will not use that knife against their followers.
Some argue that those in authority positions within an organizational
pyramid are the leaders of the organization, and that all that is needed
to lead is for the followers to respect the authority of the position. This
conception worked in the past, but works less and less in today’s organizations, as I will discuss later in this chapter. Indeed, many observers now
argue that we are seeing the decline of authority and rise of trust as an
organizing principle.2 Clearly, to be effective today, strategic leaders need
to combine trust with authority. Authority is helpful, but it is not enough
to lead others effectively.
Trustworthy Leadership Yields Trust and Cooperation
Chester Barnard was one of the first writers who observed that trustworthy leadership yields trust and cooperation. Barnard was a rare individual
who worked in a major corporation (New Jersey Bell) for 40 years and
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For the exclusive use of J. Guo, 2020.
OCC DIMENSION 1
25
rose to a position of leadership; afterward, he wrote insightfully about that
leadership experience. Barnard noted that the key to organizational survival and prosperity was cooperation, communication, and a shared sense
of purpose. He further argued that leaders could only lead when they
were perceived to be trustworthy by the rest of the organization. Even in
the 1930s, Barnard argued that authority is completely a function of the
willingness of subordinates to cooperate with the leader. Barnard was well
ahead of his time.3
Warren Bennis argues that the traditional idea of a “heroic” individual
leading followers through sheer force of will is a myth. Instead, he argues
for creative and productive partnerships among a group of individuals
as being the only viable way forward. He emphasizes the importance of
those in leadership positions needing to learn how to generate and sustain
trust so as to enable organizations to survive the increasingly turbulent
changes swirling around and within today’s organizations.4
Some argue that there is so much distrust in the workplace today that
leaders can no longer rely on trustworthy leadership as an organizing
principle. While it is true that there is very little trust in most of the organizations today, it is not true that mistrust on the part of followers cannot
be diminished over time. For example, in a recent experimental research
study, trustworthy players were found to be more effective in obtaining
mutual cooperation than untrustworthy players, even given a history of
distrust prior to engagement. Trustworthy players did this through signaling reassurance, rather than fearful messages, to the potential partner.5
In sum, trustworthiness is essential to change, and it can even overcome
a mistrusting disposition.
Others argue that it is human nature to resist change, and that organizational changes are even more challenging than individual change.
However, this viewpoint is too pessimistic, and both the empirical evidence and common sense suggest that human beings generally want to
be part of something that is changing for the better, if there is trustworthy leadership driving that change and if they are involved in helping to
decide the nature and pacing of the changes.6
Dynamic stability is the new normal; static states of equilibrium
are becoming rarer in organizations. Trustworthy leadership helps to
reduce the pain associated with organizational change,7 and it yields
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For the exclusive use of J. Guo, 2020.
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BUILDING ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY FOR CHANGE
increased employee engagement.8 Trustworthiness can lead to more creative work, and organizational innovation is impossible without trustworthy leadership.9
Trusting Cooperation Makes All Change Possible
Organizations can function for short periods of time where part or all of
the top management team are viewed as untrustworthy. However, this will
thwart the organization’s overall ability to change, and in the long term all
organizations must change in order to survive. When in a crisis situation,
however, trusting cooperation, and hence trustworthy leadership, is essential to survival.10 It is a truism that when the ship is sinking, the captain of
the ship must be obeyed in order to save the ship and its crew. If the ship’s
captain is not viewed as trustworthy, the rational thing for the crew to do
is abandon the ship, regardless of what the captain is urging.
Many if not most of today’s changes are complex and interrelated.
For example, business process improvements typically cross multiple
departments and multiple levels of an organization. Previous research has
shown that preparing for change and the presence of trust can enable
an organization to avoid “silo” thinking and focus on the organization’s
well-being.11
Middle managers are the linkage between top executives and frontline
employees. During all change initiatives, middle managers often feel torn
between the changes urged by the “tops” against the resistance expressed
or observed by frontline workers. Trustworthiness on the part of change
agents enables middle managers to maintain the linkage between tops and
the frontline, rather than actively or passively resisting the change.12 In
sum, all change requires trusting cooperation, and that is why trustworthy
leadership is a critical dimension of organizational capacity for change.
Trustworthy Leadership Is Valuable and Rare
To secure competitive advantages today, organizations need valuable and
rare resources. Previous research has demonstrated that trustworthy leadership is not only valuable; it is also rare.13 For example, recent research
has shown that trustworthy leaders are often able to establish trusting
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This document is authorized for use only by Jiamin Guo in Transforming Organizations – Summer 2020-1 taught by CARLO ESIDORE, New York University from Jun 2020 to Oct 2020.
For the exclusive use of J. Guo, 2020.
OCC DIMENSION 1
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climates within organizations, and that the higher the trust level, the
more profitable the organization is.14 Furthermore, other research has
demonstrated that trustworthy leadership speeds up the decision-making
process as well as the implementation speed of new strategies.15 This suggests that trustworthy leadership helps to assure not only the organization’s survival but also its future prosperity.
Fortunately or unfortunately, trustworthy leadership is relatively rare
within today’s organizations. In a recent national poll, it was revealed that
80% of Americans do not trust the executives who lead major corporations. Even worse, roughly half of all managers do not trust the top executives in their own firms.16 In another national survey, 62% of all workers
claim to have no aspirations to any leadership role within their organization because they perceive the leaders to be untrustworthy.17 Clearly, having a trust gap between consumers and corporations is problematic, but it
is even more challenging when middle managers and frontline employees
lack trust.
There are many reasons given for the rareness of trustworthy leadership within today’s organizations. Clearly, many executives did not act
in a trustworthy fashion in the aftermath of the Enron, Worldcom, and
AIG scandals.18 Indeed, some observers even declare that “trust is dead.”19
While I personally do not believe that trust is dead, I do agree that the
level of trust that Americans have for their leaders is not very high.
Another reason given for the lack of trust in today’s corporate leaders is the view that compensation levels are becoming excessive, and that
executive leaders are greedy and self-serving above all else.20 While many
workers have been laid off in recent years, or are assuming increasing
duties with no pay increases, executive compensation has been increasing
dramatically. Clearly, the perception of injustice and unfairness on the
part of executive leadership is not conducive to fostering trust and cooperation among the rest of the organization.
A third common reason why it is getting harder to trust executives
is because the shareholder value ethic is eroding the trust of the general
public, especially in publicly held corporations. The consulting firm
McKinsey notes that building trust among key stakeholders is a strategic concern for any corporation, and that generalized stakeholder trust is
a major competitive advantage since it is so rare.21 In sum, trustworthy
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BUILDING ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY FOR CHANGE
leadership is not only valuable; it is also rare. The good news here is that
when the strategic leader is viewed as trustworthy, a noteworthy competitive advantage is generated.
Trustworthiness Is Becoming Increasingly Important
Notably, leadership trustworthiness is not only rare, but it is also becoming more important. Daniel Yankelovich tracks social trends throughout
the United States, and he argues that a new social contract is replacing
the old one. Yankelovich asserts that as we transition from an industrial to an information-based economy, the employment relationship is
changing dramatically, and that these changes require that organizations
be managed and led differently.22
There are hints as to where these changes are all leading. Some note
that organizations are evolving into federations and networks, and
evolving away from pyramids and hierarchies.23 When an organization is
organized more as a network, then “lateral leadership” is more the norm
than is vertical leadership.24 If this assessment is correct, being at the top
of the pyramid or hierarchy will be less critical to getting things done in
future organizations.
Others note that the millennial generation now outnumbers the baby
boom generation in today’s workforce. This new generation of workers, having seen their parents get laid off, outsourced, and downsized, is
much less loyal to the organization than previous generations. As Marshal
Goldsmith observes, this generation wants you to earn their trust; trust is
not given automatically.25 Therefore, as millennials increasingly infiltrate
our organizations, organizational leadership is going to have to earn their
trust in order to be effective, and that trust is not easily earned.
Another trend in organizational life is the growing pervasiveness of
virtual teams that are often spread out in a wide variety of time zones and
countries. Since work cannot be directly observed or controlled, accountability systems must focus on outcomes and “control” is exerted through
trusting partnerships.26 In general, the trend for future organizational life
is clear: leaders need to rely more on soft power and persuasion than
on hard power and control.27 In sum, trustworthy leadership is not only
valuable and rare, but it is also increasingly important.
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This document is authorized for use only by Jiamin Guo in Transforming Organizations – Summer 2020-1 taught by CARLO ESIDORE, New York University from Jun 2020 to Oct 2020.
For the exclusive use of J. Guo, 2020.
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Practices for Cultivating Trustworthy
Leadership in Your Organization
There is no recipe or formula for building trustworthy leadership within
an organization. Human beings are too variable for a recipe and human
relationships come in all shapes and sizes. After all, leadership development is an “inside job” that requires character development, and character
development was the focus of a previous book of mine.28 However, there
are some behavioral principles for those individuals and organizations
seeking to make their organizations more change capable.
Practice 1: Become Skillful in Leading Others
Leadership takes skill and all skills can be developed over time. Without
previous experiences in leading others through a change initiative, it is
not possible to become a trustworthy leader.29 Hence, anything that an
organization can do to accelerate and enhance the leadership skills of its
managers will yield long-term benefits in also enhancing the organization’s capacity to change.30
However, having a formal leadership development program is not
enough to generate skillful leaders. In a recent review of these programs
at eight major corporations, the differentiating factor that separated the
successful programs from the unsuccessful programs was whether or not
personal follow-up was part of the program or not. Personal follow-up
involved such things as reminder notes to keep working on the development plan, one-on-one sessions with an executive coach or peer, and
sufficient time and resources to work on important attitudes and behaviors unfolding in real time. In other words, leadership development is a
contact sport.31
Practice 2: Learn How to Speak With and Listen to Associates
One of the problems with much that has been written about leadership
and communication is that too much has been focused on telling the rest
of the organization what the leader wants to do and helping to persuade
the organization that resistance to change is a bad idea. This is only part
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BUILDING ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY FOR CHANGE
of what is required. In order to build the leader–follower relationship,
time and energy must be invested so that fears, concerns, and doubts can
be expressed, alternative viewpoints can be discussed, and challenges to
the vision can be articulated.
Most change initiatives fail because they do not consider the emotional aspects associated with change, and trustworthy leadership that
communicates well can be an important antidote to counteract that
obstacle to change. Indeed, noted author and change guru John Kotter
argues that it is important to understand what people are feeling and to
speak more directly to their anxieties, confusion, anger, and distrust.32
Interestingly, recent research reveals that the more communication
that goes on between executives, the more trustworthy the communicators view each other to be. In a study of 50 senior managers within a multinational firm, it was reported that those executives who communicated
more often were more likely to view others in the organization as more
trustworthy.33 Perhaps this is why interactive communication forums
such as town hall meetings, online blogs, and two-way video sessions are
becoming staples of organizational life.
Practice 3: Know Your Values and Act With Integrity
A key ele…
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