Greetings Leaders and Happy 2026.
WARNING: THIS EMAIL IS FROM AN EXTERNAL SOURCE!!
On any email from outside, your organization has most likely auto-stamped the above message (or something very similar). The warning is often in red, with bold and capitalized letters, along with an exclamation point or two. Perhaps car horns or other sound effects are attached as well. Should you send me a return email, it will likely contain the “confidentiality notice” (or constipation notice as my friend Dave Carr calls it), advising me that I will be “hung on the stocks” if I don’t treat everything in the message as top secret. I get it. With all the hacking and other sleazy crud going on in the world, we absolutely must ensure the security of anything traveling through cyberspace.
This example is just a roundabout way to remind you about how important trust is. If my emails (and I as the source) could be recognized as 100% trustworthy, all the warning messages would be unnecessary. So, my question related to trust … Do you tend to treat your people like an external email message where you are clearly reminding them that you are on guard about their potential untrustworthiness? Or have you made it clear by your actions that no cautionary warnings are needed in their dealings with you?
Every day we can find examples of people we believed in who have fallen from grace and veered ethically sideways. On social media as well as mainstream news sites, it can be impossible to determine content which has been diligently researched and is truthful, vs. that which is merely a well-crafted but totally unsubstantiated opinion. And in our interactions with important institutional processes, we all too frequently are left wondering if even those can be trusted. (Medical/health care billing is one example that quickly comes to mind). It seems as if the universe is sending out a lot of messages cautioning us to be ”very wary about trust.”
So be mindful that in any environment, preserving trust is hard work that needs constant attention. It requires intentionality and frequent, open communications. You may be one who has weekly or even more frequent check-ins with your people about results and action plans. Yet, how often do you check in on the current state of trust with those around you? Keep in mind that it is much easier to restore lagging performance than it is to rebuild fractured trust.
In the best relationships trust is as solid and strong as armor. Yet today’s world is one where we are continuously bombarded by trust-impairing debris of all kinds. And inevitably, we sustain some hits that result in a chink or two in that proverbial armor. If not immediately addressed, the cracks spread, the armor ultimately fails, and trust vanishes. That is why as a leader, you must ensure that trust is always a priority and then remain relentless in fortifying it. Funny thing … when you make trust a safe and desired conversation to have, that armor gets smoothed out and made even stronger for everyone.
Item number one on today’s to-do list: Strengthen Trust.
Cheers and all the best.
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