You cannot have leadership without followership.  The essence of leadership is personal influence, as contrasted with position power. Position power is granted. It is a function of the position. But personal influence has to be earned.

 Followership is developed by building stakeholder trust and confidence in people in leadership roles. Stakeholders are a leader’s key constituents on the management playing field. These are people reporting to the leader position, people above, people both upstream and downstream in the value chain, and people in other parts of the organization who are important to the success of the leader’s organization.  Key constituents may also include people external to the organization as a whole. 

Leaders must earn the trust and confidence of as many of the key constituents on their management playing fields as possible if they are going to be successful in achieving desired results. 

So how do leaders go about earning the requisite trust and confidence of their constituents?

 Attributes for Developing Leader Trust and Confidence 

Being Competent  

Perhaps the most obvious attribute needed is competency. People are not going to be confident about following someone who they perceive does not possess the requisite leadership, management, and technical know-how to provide proper guidance and direction. 

In today’s rapidly changing, complex world of work, leaders are often not the most technically knowledgeable, skillful, or experienced person in the work group. Most people realize this and do not expect leaders to be all-knowing. But, leaders need to possess enough relevant technical competence to properly lead and manage the technical work of the group. 

If leaders do not possess the necessary leadership, management, or technical competence, the first order of business is to either develop the needed competence as rapidly as possible or be surrounded with people who have the requisite acumen.

 Being Authentic 

A second attribute is being authentic. Being open and honest with people is a major builder of trust.   

To optimize this attribute, the leader needs to be willing to self-express.  That is, to take the initiative to express one’s true thoughts and feelings. Such self-expression involves communicating assertively. Assertive communication is communicating in a direct, positive, confident, and respectful manner. Assertive communication comes from within; as contrasted with aggressive communication, which is overlaying one’s thoughts and feelings on others. Aggressive communication is about  “you messages”. Assertive communication is about “I messages”. 

If leaders are going to be authentic and be willing to express their true thoughts and feelings, they need to be willing to be vulnerable. Being vulnerable involves sharing personal uncertainties, concerns, and perhaps fears. Being vulnerable earns respect. 

Respecting Everyone 

Effective leaders need to be open to divergent points of view, to welcome differences. Effective leaders learn, grow, and revise their mental models of what the world is based on their own experiences and their interactions with other people. 

Conflict, or differences, is not something to be avoided. Rather it should be seen as an opportunity or catalyst for growth and change. The key is to manage conflict effectively. 

“Walking the Talk” 

A fourth attribute is “Walking the Talk”, otherwise known as integrity. Walking the Talk is doing what one says one will do. Being true to one’s word. 

A corollary to integrity is consistency. This does not mean being inflexible or set in one’s ways. But rather, behaving in a manner consistent with one’s values or beliefs.  

Leaders are well served by sharing their business-related values. Better yet, the team is well served by searching for a common ground of values that all the members can buy into and live by. 

Forwarding the Action 

The final attribute for building leader trust and confidence is forwarding the action.  People want to be part of something that is moving to new and better places.  People want to contribute to something of value. 

Forwarding the action consists of two parts:  

1)      envisioning the future; and,

2)      executing resultant strategies and actions.  

Leaders need to do both. Vision without execution is dreaming. Strategies and actions that do not lead to focused progress is wheel spinning. 

Leaders need to involve key stakeholders in the process to allow for proper buy-in. People tend to own things they help create. 

Carl Welte is a certified CSI Associate
Welte Associates
(415) 897-9449
carl@welte.com
www.welte.com