How many leaders do you know who take the initiative to watch out for their employees’ interests?

Do you use your power to build trust or enforce compliance?

Pause and reflect for a moment. I realize the first question is rhetorical and intended as an expression of my personal suspicion. The second question, though, is for you. I am assuming your answer is not a simple “yes” or “no,” but something more like, “hmmm, I never though about power that way before.”

“Extending favor.” Being the first to risk trust. I’ve long believed the person with more power must be the first to risk trust.

The “risk,” while real, is far outweighed by the potential of what is possible to accomplish when people are not consumed with concern about what might happen to them if they let their guard down.

Here is our challenge… To come up with concrete ways to empower, resource, and support those who work for us. How do you ensure that everyone on your team is successful in terms that both are meaningful to their personal goals and the company’s?

Just as important, how genuinely do you feel toward wanting others’ best? I’m pretty sure (I know) that if extending favor is used as a technique in order to win the benefits of peoples’ loyalty on a short term basis, it will backfire. Trust is harder to earn than to destroy.

What was your main take-away from this chapter?

Each Friday I post my reflections from one chapter of Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality by Henry Cloud. If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 9:43 am and is filed under Integrity by Henry Cloud, Working Matters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.