Image Source: Sarah Browning, Creative Commons
Building trust is an essential part of leadership, but people aren’t likely to trust you if they feel they don’t know you at all. That was the problem with a manager I was asked to help.
Her biggest issue is that she didn’t let people in. She was a leader – people reported to her – but her people didn’t feel like they understood who she was. She seemed very distant and aloof.
And it was intentional. When I spoke with her about it, she said:
“I don’t want to have people from work in my personal life. I don’t want them knowing what I do, or what sort of person I am.”
Her problem wasn’t arrogance or disdain. She felt vulnerable. She was trying to protect herself.
My challenge was to show her there was a way to connect with her people that didn’t involve the sort of intimacy she feared. I spent our first-day session together modeling how to do this. When we got to the end of the session, I asked, “How well do you think you know me now?”
She replied, “I know a phenomenal amount about you.”
“Really?” I said. “How is that?”
“Every time I asked you a question, you told me a story that related to that topic.”
I told her I did that deliberately because people remember stories, and they also connect with the person telling the story. She was feeling like she knew me almost intimately after just one day, and all because I told her six to eight stories as we were talking.
“You can do the same thing,” I said. “You don’t have to bare your soul with people. You just need to start telling stories about the things you’ve done and how you’ve learned what you know.”
It was a very powerful lesson for her. She walked out of the session thinking, “I can do that. I can tell stories.” I think it made a huge difference in her leadership ability.