Leadership is commonly associated with action – trying, doing, achieving. However, there is another side to leadership that focuses on the followers: trust. Leaders need to actively trust their followers to show courageous leadership. This may sound simple, but it’s often harder for goal-oriented achievers.

The act of trusting often requires letting go of our need to control outcomes or people, our defense mechanisms, and our preconceptions about what is “right.” For hard-driving controlling types, such as the coffee-clutching professionals who make up much of today’s workforce, this goes against the grain of everything they stand for. Trust runs counter to the take-charge ethos that epitomizes today’s business world. In many companies, the most valued employees are those who, when encountering challenging situations, control chaos, force order, and take decisive action. As the Roman poet Virgil said, “Fortune favors the bold.”

“Trust Courage,” for managers, is a tricky thing. On one hand, you need your employees to trust you so that they follow your direction enthusiastically. On the other hand, you have to monitor their performance, which, if done too closely, often feels like distrust. Plus, many managers work in companies layered with systems that are inherently distrustful. It is more difficult to fill workers’ “trust buckets” if you’re an extension of a system that doesn’t trust them. “Sure,” your workers may say, “I’ll trust you… just as soon as you get the company to stop random drug testing, monitoring our e-mails, and making us submit time reports.”

New managers in particular are challenged with Trust Courage. Consider, for example, how hard it is for new managers to delegate important tasks to employees. In such instances, if the employee screws up, it can reflect on the manager, not the employee. Consequently, many new managers struggle to fully let go of delegated tasks, choosing to hover above direct reports like smothering parents. In so doing, they become Spillers, thwarting employee development and keeping themselves mired in tasks that they should have outgrown by this stage in their careers.

Delegation involves not acting on the temptation to grab the task back from the employee. The ability to delegate is directly proportional to how much trust a manager has in an employee. Trust doesn’t come easily for new managers (or immature experienced ones), because it involves intentionally refraining from controlling an outcome (or a person). If the manager doesn’t trust that the employee will get the job done, they will grab the task back and do it themselves — or worse, they won’t even give the task to the employee in the first place. The result is a sort of leadership dependency whereby workers wait to be told what to do, like baby birds waiting to be fed. When this happens, a dangerous spill cycle begins; the leader keeps doing the tasks, which keeps the workers from gaining the skills to do the tasks, which keeps the leader from delegating the tasks, which keeps the leader doing the tasks, etc.

Trust Courage involves taking risks on other people and accepting that you might get harmed in the process.

Trust is risky. When you trust, you become vulnerable to actions that are beyond your direct control. Your success becomes dependent upon someone else’s action. The challenge here is one of reliance; you have to give up direct control and rely on the actions of others. It is this lack of control that makes trust so difficult. Trusting you can harm me. Because of this risk, it takes courage to place trust in others. It takes Trust Courage, for example, to let employees do their jobs without interference. It takes Trust Courage to accept that, despite their best efforts, employees will make occasional mistakes.

To learn more about how to develop courage, attend HRDQ’s webinar “Courageous Leadership: How to Build Backbone, Boost Performance, and Get Results”. This webinar will allow attendees to understanding why courage is the premier personal and professional virtue while learning how to create an environment that supports ongoing courageous behavior. Participants will also receive tips on how to increase their courage while inspiring more workplace courage.

This webinar is based on the HRDQ product “Courageous Leadership.” Courageous Leadership is a comprehensive training package that introduces courage-building, which is a practice that guides leaders to readily meet challenges, fully embrace change, and speak more assertively.

Register for the free webinar today!

Having difficult conversations is unfortunately a part of the working world. Not everything in the workplace is easy or positive, and leaders are tasked with the responsibility of delivering bad news on occasion. But being able to manage these difficult conversations is a skill that is truly essential, and will ensure that employees still feel valued and respected with company morale remaining high – even when times are tough.

Managers often need to have difficult conversations with their team. They are the ones who have to address employee performance issues, relay company problems, and deliver bad news like layoffs and terminations. If a leader can navigate these conversations successfully, however, there will be less turmoil overall.

There are a few ways for a manager to prepare for the eventual difficult conversation. Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you get ready for a potentially negative meeting:

• Prepare yourself. Find out everything you can about the situation before you have the difficult conversation. You want to be able to answer any questions they may have.
• Be ready for the conversation. Make sure you know what you want to achieve with the discussion.
• Choose the right time and place. Clear the area of distractions and make it an open forum for feedback after you deliver the news.
• Deliver the message promptly and clearly. Focus on the facts and tell the truth about the situation. Don’t become emotional or angry.
• Try to see their view. Put yourself in their shoes and think about how you would want to hear what you are delivering to them.
• Listen actively. You should empathize, acknowledge, respect and validate the other person’s feelings. Don’t take their reactions personally – they may just be upset at the news.
• Be open-minded and willing to negotiate. Sometimes negotiation can help a situation. If there is wiggle room try to work with them.

HRDQ has resources that can help with difficult discussions. “Navigating Difficult Conversations: Deliver Your Message with Poise, Empathy, and Resolve” is a reproducible title that will allow participants to understand the nature of difficult conversations and what it takes to handle them. Participants will be able to identify the seven stages of handling difficult conversations, learn how to use empathy in a way that minimizes negative responses and strengthens relationships, apply best practices for delivering the conversation, and learn how to bring the conversation to a close with solutions. Click here to learn more: https://www.hrdqstore.com/navigating-difficult-conversations-rtl-title.

For further learning, HRDQ is hosting a “Difficult Conversations: Embrace Confrontation and Produce Long-Lasting Results” webinar on March 7 at 2 p.m. The webinar will allow attendees to walk away with the skills to tackle any tricky situation in the workplace. They will learn what it takes to handle these conversations, see how identify the stages of difficult conversations, develop ways to use empathy to strengthen relationships, learn how to prepare, initiate, and deliver the conversation, and discover how to generate solutions in difficult situations.

Register today!