I Trust You and I Believe In You
The Role of Trust in Organizational Leadership
By Ted Studdard, Colonel, USMC (Ret)
I trust you and I believe in you…”
Just minutes before, I thought I would be fired. My fledging two-month career in the Fleet Marine Force was about to end before it ever really started. I had just violated one of the most critical safety rules that I, as a young artillery officer, was responsible for keeping.
The Story
I had recently completed my initial Marine Officer training and joined my first unit. We were preparing for an upcoming deployment and were three weeks into our initial month-long, live-fire training exercise. For this training, we were allocated a special type of ammunition that was extremely lethal and thus had extremely specific safety parameters.
The training areas where we could shoot this ammunition and the weather were never aligned, and we were in danger of not having the opportunity to train with this ammunition. A couple of days before the exercise was scheduled to end, the weather broke. We were in one of the few firing positions where we could shoot this ammunition.
Our commanding officer, Captain M. A. Singleton, left our position to go to the battalion headquarters to get our next mission, and I was left in charge of firing. I took the initiative and we fired the ammunition — the Marines executed perfectly. As the last round impacted, I could see Captain Singleton’s vehicle headed back to our firing position.
As soon as he arrived, I told him about shooting the ammunition and how well the Marines executed the mission, fully expecting him to be pleased. He was not. In fact, he started asking me questions about how we executed the fire mission, specifically focusing on safety. He was most interested in finding out if I knew where all the other units were in the vast training area.
When he asked if I knew where the mortars were, I knew I had failed. I could not account for their location. He told me that they were out of my line of sight but less than a kilometer in front of our gunline (roughly half a mile). This ammunition was so lethal and so sensitive that firing over the heads of friendly forces was strictly prohibited. I was responsible for violating this cardinal rule, and, even more importantly, my actions put lives at risk.
Captain Singleton motioned for me to follow. We walked a short distance from the rest of the unit so we could have a bit of privacy. I fully expected to be on the receiving end of a very unpleasant one-way conversation followed by being relieved of my duties, i.e., fired. For several very long minutes, Captain Singleton quizzed me on safety procedures, finally stopping when he knew that I understood what to do and that I had truly made a mistake in my haste to accomplish the mission.
I braced myself for what would come next — relieving me of my duties. To my surprise, Captain Singleton said, “I trust you and I believe in you. Now go train your Marines.” I felt like I could run through a brick wall. I would get a second chance; my commanding officer told me he trusted me, and he showed that he trusted me through his actions.
Creating Trust Up and Down the Chain
How did this event impact our team? Personally, I knew that Captain Singleton had my back and there was no way that I would ever do anything to let him down. Many leaders think that, by virtue of their position, subordinates automatically trust them. This is not true, in fact, leaders often must give trust to get trust.
In his book, The Leader as Coach, Richard C. Huseman, Ph.D. cites a Boston University Survey that found 80% of employees do not trust their leadership. On this day, Captain Singleton gave trust by the truckload. Our entire unit quickly realized what I had done, and all were watching to see how our leader responded. The way he handled this situation let all the Marines know that if we made a mistake that was not illegal, immoral, or unethical that he would support us.
On this day, we all witnessed our leader trusting down the chain, which in turn, created trust back up the chain.
The impact was far greater than any of us ever imagined. Within a year we would be in combat together, and the foundation of trust Captain Singleton built that day would provide the footing that enabled our unit to execute at the highest level under extreme circumstances.
Trust is the Key to Unlocking Your Team’s Potential
After 25 years leading large, dispersed organizations around the world followed by nearly a decade in various leadership roles at the corporate headquarters of a Fortune 20 company, I am more convinced than ever that trust is the key to unlocking the tremendous potential that we all have in our current teams.
Why is trust so important? Trust empowers your team. For starters, trust facilitates decisions at the point of action by the person closest to the issue, who, in many cases, has the best situational awareness.
Trust also speeds the entire decision cycle by enabling your team to make decisions on the spot. Empowered people feel ownership and the team becomes “our” team rather than the boss’s team. Many people consider trust an intangible quality that cannot be measured, but an empowered team built on trust has lower turnover, lower hiring and onboarding costs, and improved connectivity and continuity both internally and externally.
How can we build trust? Let’s focus on two ways any team can build trust:
The first way is by developing your team deliberately, so you are comfortable placing your trust in them. The second involves incorporating your team into planning, thus demonstrating the trust and faith you have in their experience and their expertise. Building a team that you are comfortable trusting begins with onboarding. This is followed by training and teaching and culminates with trusting.
Leaders who invest time in preparing their people in a deliberate manner are far more comfortable trusting because they know their people are prepared.
Onboarding // This is a critical time for you to begin laying the foundation. Effective onboarding starts with introducing your values and your vision, not just what they are but why they are important and how they are integrated into the organization. Simply put, it is the “what we do, how we do it, why we do it, and how our values guide our actions.”
Training // Preparing someone to do a job or a task.
Teaching // This is the next level. Once a person is trained, teaching helps prepare them to make decisions. This process is all about teaching someone how to think (not what to think) and how to make decisions in the context of the current plan and the long-term vision guided by values.
Trusting // Once your team is onboarded and understands the “what, how, and why” in the framework of your values and vision, is trained for their role, and understands how to make decisions in context, it is time to take the leap of faith and trust. Every decision they make will not be perfect; however, if it is legal, ethical, and viable, then support it. If there is a better solution, take the opportunity to teach and provide course correction. Over time you are building confidence, creating ownership, educating your team, and showing your team that you trust them.
Strengthening the Bonds of Trust
Incorporating your team into the planning cycle also strengthens the bonds of trust. Creating an operational planning team that represents a cross section of your organization and using this team to help conduct annual planning, to create measures of success, and to conduct in-stride assessments and adjustments is a powerful way to leverage the incredible talent you already have. Additionally, it creates a depth of trust that permeates the team.
Trust is an intangible quality that all great organizations have. Trust empowers people, it enables them to leverage their experience and expertise, it creates strong bonds, and it ultimately lays the foundation for enduring success.
