WINNING LEADERS: The Key Ingredient
Charisma...Communication...
Vision...
Persistence... All of these are essential ingredients of leadership. But the most important one? Trust.
Do people on our teams trust us? Can they count on us to keep our word? Are we leading by example? Do the men and women who look to us feel safe in our presence?
Trust. It’s the Key Ingredient. Without it people may give us some of their time, but they will never give us their hearts.
How do we earn someone’s trust? The answer could fill pages, but when it comes to our business model, I see two primary answers.
First, we earn other people’s trust by “doing it.” By walking the walk.
We cannot lead others unless we have done what we are teaching others to do. There is not a Fast Track to leadership. Everyone must pay her own dues, run his own course. Everybody starts the same way.
People we would lead are thinking to themselves, “Okay. Tell me how you got started. Show me what you do. How do you follow the system? Go ahead, let me see your stuff.”
John Maxwell, best-selling author and leadership guru, puts it like this: “Your walk walks and your talk talks, but your walk talks louder than your talk talks.”