Leading with Trust: A Development Pathway

The Landscape of Trust research project is a year old: it’s intended to build a broad understanding of how trust works, between individuals, within communities and team, and into Organisations themselves. The work is in three phases: firstly, evidence gathering, learning more about ‘trust’, secondly, building out visualisation tools and diagnostics, and, thirdly, putting together developmental approaches, practical things that we can actually do with this evidence and knowledge. With this post, i’m kicking off this third phase, sharing a proposed development pathway around ‘trust’, and couching it in terms of ‘Leading with Trust’.

Primarily, i’ll use this post to provide a broad development structure, and as an index point, to link out to the other writing i’ve done so far. All three strands of work are ongoing, and my aim, as always, is to #WorkOutLoud, to prototype the new work fast, and to evolve it as the evidence grows. This structure will initially form the basis of some prototype development programmes i am running, but will possibly also form the structure of the book, which i provisionally intend to work on June to December next year.

Module 1: Foundations of Trust

This module examines the foundational concepts, based firmly in the research work:

• The Subjective nature of trust: why not all types of trust are equal
• The Landscape of Trust: what it is, and where we sit within it
• The 12 Aspects of Trust: the complexity of a multivariate environment
• The Taxonomy of Trust: can we measure the level, and is there such a thing a ‘too much trust’?
• Trust and Mistrust: why opposites may not exist

Module 2: The Structures of Trust

In this module, we will explore how trust is held, at each of the different levels. This takes us into considering the social structures of trust:

• Tribes: the strongest trust bonded structures
• Communities: meta tribal structures, and how they are connected.
• Organisations: formal entities that host trusted tribes
• Structural limitations on organisational trust, and how we can overcome them

Module 3: The Failure of Trust

This module is explicitly about how trust is eroded, fractured, and broken:

• Implicit rules: the hidden side of failure
• Fracture or erosion: mechanisms of failure, and how we can inoculate ourselves.
• Testing the Temperature: synchronous and regular temperature checks
• Integrity and authenticity: the counterpoints to failure

Module 4: The Flow of Trust

In this module, we consider how trust flows within the different structures, the forces that block or amplify it, and whether it flows freely:

• Induction into tribes: conformity and induction
• Cultural Alignment: primary and secondary culture
• Consequence and Trust: formal and social consequence
• Degrees of connection: how trust flows more easily in some directions than others

Module 5: Technology and Trust

In this module, we specifically consider technology and trust. Looking at how the ownership of technology impact trust, and the differences between physical and virtually held trust:

• Ownership: how ownership impacts trust
• Identity: the link between concrete identity and consequence in trust
• Virtual vs Physical trust: does it vary, and how.
• The sequencing of trust: does the location of formation impact the type and persistence of trust

Module 6: The Projection of Trust

This module is based around a model of how trust is projected, and the various biases and barriers that can impinge upon, or shape, this:

• The projection of trust: how trust forms and flows
• Bias in trust: why we may not be as discerning in trust as we would like to think
• Monoculture vs multi-culture in trust: how trust works in global organisations

Module 7: The Diversification of Trust

In this module, we consider how we look at trust in terms of building the Socially Dynamic Organisation, how we diversify our Trust networks:

• Interconnectedness: the growth and interconnectivity of tribes
• Confirmation bias: the limitation of monoculture
• Structural and contextual barriers to trust, and how to overcome them

Module 8: Leading with Trust

This final module links the Trust work into the wider work around Social Leadership. It considers how we put trust at the heart of our leadership approach:

• Managing Pollution: reconciling the formal and social space
• Forces for good: exploring the role of authenticity, fairness, and humility
• Building Social Authority