Intelligently Brief Insights™ on The Speed of Trust posted occasionally from the wild wild west of North America.

According to Chief Learning Officer Magazine  we are smack dab in the middle of a leadership drought, and this dearth of qualified leaders is wreaking havoc in companies large and small.  This is no surprise to us at CoveyLink.  Our research has consistently shown that poor, low trust leadership at any level in an organization will ultimately translate into disgruntled customers, rising costs, lost profits, slower speed, thwarted growth, and an anemic bottom line. So, just how bad is the problem? 

From CLO Magazine:

“Even more disturbing is the impact these [leadership] shortages are having on growth. Some companies indicated they are literally sitting on capital, unable to expand into new markets or make critical acquisitions, due to a lack of leadership talent. In one large organization, there were more than 100 leadership vacancies . . . 

“The researchers, led by Dr. Eileen Antonucci . . . note that some 70 percent of companies in the study reported moderate to major leadership shortages. ‘Leadership shortages are not just inhibiting growth,’ Antonucci states, ‘they are driving up costs.’ Some companies are spending millions on recruitment as they scramble to fill key positions. The cost of training a parade of new managers and executives (not to mention money lost while these individuals ‘get up to speed’ in their new positions) is equally taxing.”

So what does all this mean to you?  From our perspective, this creates an opportunity for individuals to “become the solution” by making themselves more qualified, more trusted leaders, in short, more promotable to these crucial leadership positions. Our research indicates that leadership and trust can be taught and that people who build a strong reputation for producing results with integrity have more leadership influence and have a better chance to be promoted. (Incidentally, they are also those people who are more likely to succeed as entrepreneurs.)  At CoveyLink, we call this the SPEED of TRUST™.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” — Alvin Toffler, Author of The Third Wave

When workers catch the vision of the strength of a high trust leader within an organization and work to be just that kind of individual, they suddenly become an invaluable asset in the workplace—one that gets noticed, one that gets promoted.  In essence, they develop into the very asset their struggling company most desperately needs. 

Says CLO Magazine,

“Of greatest concern are the costs of poor decision-making as companies are forced to place less qualified individuals into critical leadership positions. Poor leadership at the top of the organization can translate into millions in lost profits and missed opportunities.”  (July 11, 2005 Volume 2, Issue 27)

A poorly qualified leader is a leader who cannot be trusted to perform, and this problem often doesn’t show up until the profit reports come in.  The more critical the leadership position, the more critical the cost of poor performance.  We’ve said it before: the high cost of low trust can be measured and the dividend and speed of high trust in teams and organizations is measurable directly to the bottom line. 

We believe a powerful Global renaissance of trust has begun—trust in terms of capability, trust in terms of character.  Sparked by recent world events, business ethics, and the transparency of conversations enabled by the worldwide web, this call for a renaissance of high trust leadership is reverberating around the Globe.  It’s affecting our bottom line, it’s affecting our ability to compete, and it’s affecting our peace of mind. 

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