Leadership is a relationship between the leader and those who choose to follow.  Trust is the foundation of that relationship.  If you break trust, you damage your future as a leader.  Trust is complex, but it can be broken down into four habits that, if practiced regularly, will raise your “trust meter” significantly whether you are the leader or the one who chooses to follow.   

In a 2015 podcast interview, Rob Reindl and I talked in detail about the four key habits for building trust across an organization. Rob is the former head of HR for Edwards LifeSciences.  Edwards is the global leader in the science of heart valves and hermodynamic monitoring. The company is known in the health care space for its outstanding culture of trust.

Corporate Purpose + Individual Choice = Collective Passion

Here’s a quick peek at something tangible that really works:  The formula above is the focus for a paper I recently co-authored with the team from Co.tribute, a platform empowering businesses, employees, and clients to connect their work to the social causes they care about most.  The paper will be published soon on their website, but in the meantime, here is an early look.

In my reading, I seek out stories about companies and executives working to build high performing companies and a better world. It’s encouraging to see more and more research and progress on these themes.  Indeed, a movement is building amongst CEOs to bridge trust between companies, society, and government.  

I curated several articles and I hope you find them inspiring in your own journey as a leader to create a better company and a better world.