Trust is the currency of influence.
If you do not have trust then you virtually have a thick, stone wall between you and the other person.
I recently had a phone conversation with a good friend who asked me if people trusted me. You need to know that I am very comfortable with tough questions from good friends. The context of our call was me actually being very vulnerable about my leadership and desire to get better in certain areas. I am typically very self-aware and sometimes can go too far in analyzing myself. This question however brought me to understand a few things about trust as I started to ask “who doesn’t trust me?”
There were two people in particular that I felt didn’t trust me fully because of past projects that didn’t occur as we had planned. In both cases the communication was a bit tense because there was a lot of expectation riding on the project. In both cases as well, I walked away with equal distrust to the other person. However, it prompted me to reanalyze the situation and I realized that I was the instigator of the project and thus the distrust bore on my shoulders when the project died.
The question stayed with me and I began to ask a few others in my world, “do you trust me?” I received a firm “absolutely” from the majority. One friend did say, “yes, but at times you move so quickly that if I didn’t know your heart or intent it would look like you were not following through to the end if things didn’t work like you wanted.” The question led me away from mistrust and led me to solving the deeper issue – communication. Sometimes my mind works so fast that as I have already dealt with things and moved on. I sometimes believe that I have communicated fully at the same level with others, which is not always true. That is the root of any discord in my life.
The next step for me was to set up meetings or calls with these people to apologize or gain clarity, not to rehash the past, but to let them know what I have learned. Quite frankly, I have moved on in both cases and don’t need them to make amends for their comments and actions. While that would be great, I truly desire to rectify the findings in my own life.
Lesson learned: slow down; communicate expectations; over communicate your plans, ideas or next steps; listen to the other person tell you what they heard and what they feel.
So, now it’s your turn.
The blog is entitled, “6 Things You Should Do If You Find Out Someone Doesn’t Trust You.” Hopefully, I just modeled it for you but here is a 6 step recap:
- Be objective, not defensive. Realize that they may be right and do your internal due diligence.
- Ask other people around you if they trust you and learn to understand their answers.
- Use this as an opportunity for self-awareness and personal growth.
- Have a call with the person to let them know you realized areas of growth in your life. Apologize if you need, but know this is an internal journey more than needing them to do something.
- Remember that they may not have the same self-awareness, but your journey to grow may cause repentance or a hunger to grow as a leader as well.
- Lastly, journal what you have found. That will help you in years to come as surely there will be more situations in life that may need your words of wisdom.
What about you? How do you handle situations like this?
