Building trust is important

LEADING WITHOUT THE AUTHORITY 

Q: I am now the chairman of a religious organisation, which has a fairly large community. I took up this post for a few reasons: Firstly, I wanted to give back to the community after ‘taking from it’ for so many years especially, and secondly, I was the most qualified to do this job considering the wealth of experience I have in managing at the top. 

Unfortunately and unexpectedly, this experience is the worst that I have ever had because there is absolutely no autonomy and authority to do what I want to do for the good of this place! 

On top of this, I hate the ‘heavy politics’ there where I have no control too! Frankly, I am totally disgusted even though I should not feel this way. 

I am seriously thinking of quitting unless you can help me see something that I cannot see till now. 

Frustrated 

A: One hard reality to face is that managing a commercial organisation is very different from managing a non-commercial one like what you are doing now. 

I call this ‘managing in the middle’ where you do not have absolute authority. 

On top of you is an executive committee, who like you, have volunteered themselves to serve the community. Below you is the community which has its needs and aspirations and wants a leader who is their ‘enabler’ to get their needs met. 

You, therefore, need a major shift in your leadership and management philosophy and style otherwise it is better for you to call it a day. 

The Bottom Line: The key ingredients to be a successful leader here are patience, humility and compassion. Forget about the clout and authority you had before. Only through consistent actions driven by these three attributes can get you far. 

Managing them successfully is through persuasion, influence and empathetic communication to get them to buy into your ideas. You too need to buy into theirs as long as they are for the wider interest of the community. 

This is certainly not the place for power play. One other thing you could do is ‘walking your talk’ by ‘rolling up your sleeves’ to volunteer and be the first one to do whatever you want others to do. Such actions will scale up your trust and credibility and soon you will become the ‘fuel’ that will drive the actions of others.

 

Powerful Questions: If this is not the place, where is a better place for paying back to the community? Will quitting make you any happier? If you didn’t quit, what sacrifices are you prepared to do to serve others? Where is the middle ground to make it work for you? 

 

MANAGING CHANGE ||SUCCESSFULLY 

Q: We took over a manufacturing plant about a year ago at a time when nothing was right about it – production level was low for quite some time, people were lethargic, and leadership was weak. 

It was a big challenge right from the very start but we were determined to put things in order. So we started to introduce new changes on all fronts so that we could reap a reasonable return on investment as soon as possible. 

We began by charting a new vision, established a new set of core values to drive this and also introduced a set of work standards to fit into the entire scheme. 

We had numerous sessions in communicating all these to our people. But the outcomes were not encouraging at all as somehow we felt that there was a wall of resistance from them that they are putting up against us. 

It looks like they prefer things to stay the way it has always been and do not want us to ‘rock the boat’. What do we do now? 

Hard Nuts 

A: If you were to take the ‘blame them’ perspective in this situation then I feel there is nothing more or new you can do now. 

Trying to change things that are beyond your control is much harder than when you work on yourself, which you have much more control over. 

So if you stay on this way, then things are likely to stay pretty much the same as it has been, perhaps getting even worse over time. 

You need to accept the fact that relying on power and authority will not make people change in the way you want. It is definitely more than this. 

The Bottom Line: Building your trust with people is perhaps most powerful than relying on your power and authority. 

Treat them with importance even though you are the boss. Give them the attention, give them space to express, and treat them with respect. 

With this done, it becomes easier for you to know what really is bothering them. 

When you do that, they will begin to see you as an ally. It becomes a whole lot easier than to get their cooperation to deal with pertinent issues that are blocking the achievement of results. Go on, work on this fast. 

 

Powerful Questions: What is your attitude towards your workers? How is it influencing you in your thoughts and actions when dealing with them? What kind of results are you getting? What changes in yourself do you need to make that will get you better results than the ones now? 

 

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