Re-Building Trust – Part II

In part 1 of this blog series, we talked about how our inner dialogue impact our behavior and messages in difficult situations. Click here to read part 1.

In continuation to part 1, here’s the next step to Re-Build Trust. It’s not about stereo-typical knowledge of right leadership behaviors….

There’s something new and different to it, which can help you decide how to behave when!

STEP 2

BEHAVIOR : A behavior is defined by what one can “SEE” or “Videotape”. There are a lot of do’s and don’ts about behaviors that we have been listening, reading and learning about. There are some contradictions as well around the RIGHT behaviors for a manager/leader. For example:

Years ago, for me to get work done out of the teams use to take a little longer than what was expected from my GO GETTER boss. She was awesome and decided to coach me on this aspect. Her intention was to refrain me to waste time in bringing collaboration and create WIIFT in the tasks to be done by the teams members, peers and clients.

One of my bosses advised me to use the “F” word, she made me practice it too a couple of times…. I was never comfortable and gave up!

While her intention was right, but swearing just didn’t come to me naturally, so I decided to bear some loss associated with it. Changed my own approach in being a little more assertive and it worked.

Later, with a lot of introspection here’s what I learnt around leadership behavior and how I can decide myself which ones to imbibe.

I’m sure you know “Behaviors build our brands”, now what if we reverse it –

Define our brand to decide our behaviors

This exercise eased a lot of my queries, dilemmas around leadership behaviors.

One leader is happy using “F” word, as it gives her an internal power, and she wants to build the “fearless and bold” brand for her, while for me – the brand I want to build is “Compassionate, Simple and Authentic” – the F word doesn’t go with it!

So I consciously chose Behaviors that go with my aspired BRAND.

This is not as simple as it looks, let’s ponder on this example –

In one of my sessions, there was a participant, who came late, sat behind the class and intermittently kept working on his laptop. I observed for half an hour and started the topic of brand as a leader.

Later he said – I want people to see me as a hard-worker, focused on work, and multi-task’er. He was very surprised to know that with his initial behavior in the class (coming late, working on laptop etc.), his brand was being perceived as – careless, messed up with time, indecisive of his priorities.

So, few important things to remember –

1. Ensure congruence between your brand and behaviors through feedback and concerned people’s reaction
2. There will always be some people who will disagree with your behavior, but is it making the desired impact on the ones’ you want to re-build trust with? – that’s what matters
3. Whenever in doubt what to say, just take few seconds to revive your brand image and decide your response.

Activity 2 : Choose the brand that you want to build as a leader or in any relationship role. Write down the behaviors that you will display, specially in the difficult situations.

In summary : Behavior is the key to build trust, therefore, carefully choose the brand you wish to build in different relationships, and reflect on associated behaviors that match the brand you would like to build.

Click here to read part 3 of the series. Please feel free to leave a note/comment, if you have some thoughts and experiences to share.

If you need help to define your brand and work on some behaviors, reach out to us in any way – info@neucodetalent.com, watsapp @ +91 9731601397, http://www.neucodetalent.com.