Once the panic passes, a natural question to pose is: if I am not in charge, who or what is? The answer to this question is not simple; however, it points to a very useful principle in leadership – trust. The question could just as easily be formulated as, in what or whom do I trust?

If trust is so important, can it be developed, or is it innate? My experience suggests that it can be developed. For a variety of reasons I won’t go into now, I had developed a basic principle in life that people had to earn my trust. My default position was mistrust. Now, it is almost impossible to earn the trust of someone who’s default is mistrust. I couldn’t trust people to work to my standards; in my first management position, this resulted in lots of work and control issues for me, and a pretty easy ride for everyone else (I was doing the stuff I really should have delegated!). I took a long hard look at this and reluctantly admit, I was no longer able to trust myself to deliver the work to my standards. That’s when I decided to give people an advance payment of trust and see what would happen. I was not disappointed: given the chance, they began to reach the standards I set. My workload dropped, so that I could supervise them, help them to develop, and take care of my own duties.

What has helped you to develop trust? How does this impact your leadership?

Photo: Paul Kline / iStockphoto

The best advice I ever got? When I was starting out in my first management position, my parents just reminded me not to do anything that would make it hard for me to look at myself in the mirror in the morning. Timeless and priceless.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Growing up in Ireland in the 1960s, I was told my fair share of stories about St. Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint, whose feast day is being celebrated all over the world today. The story that stuck with me is about the Easter fire.

The then custom in Ireland was that the High King and his druids would light the first fire on the Hill of Tara, the king’s home. Then, those who saw it would light theirs. Those who saw those fires would light theirs in turn and quite quickly, all fires were lit across the island. The weekend for this ritual coincided with the Christian feast of Easter.

Patrick was at Slane, close to Tara and lit his Paschal or Easter fire, in defiance of the custom. The druids were incensed and Patrick was brought before King Laoghaire to answer for ruining their ritual. He was unrepentant and preached the gospel to the king, explaining the symbolism of his fire. To cut a long story short, Patrick impressed the king and many of his court and won the king’s protection to spread his mission throughout the island.

The story illustrates the importance of standing up for what you believe in and showing integrity. Despite facing almost certain death, for kings in those days were all-powerful, he spoke to his truth. Most often fear of what could happen holds us back from telling it like it is. Experience shows, this fear is most often unfounded.

One of the functions of a business is to make money. O’Leary has never been a proponent of leaving anything on the table: he wants it all – always. I reckon that his latest wheeze is just a cheap publicity gag, even if it does cheapen human dignity along the way. (Would passengers need a doctor’s certificate to prove incontinence, or will such people have to pay a surcharge for overuse of the facilities?) And such gags say a lot about what image of humanity someone carries around inside them.

Tonight it got a tad lower. I came across a Harvard Business Publishing blogged article Why Ryanair’s Bathroom Plan Sort of Makes Sense. The author’s rationale is that if a company is average, or middle-of-the-road, it’s nothing. To survive, companies need to stand out, to accentuate their uniqueness. “Pay to pee” fits into this strategy. Sounds like a warped view of the Purple Cow. I don’t think Seth Godin is going blog anytime soon about the merits of treating customers like scum.

Note to Harvard Publishing: Write out one hundred times, “Debase human dignity and you debase business ethics.”

Where’s the problem, you may ask. Surely they used carbon off-sets? That’s the problem. Carbon-offsets are the 21st century’s plenary indulgences. Way back when, those who could afford to, paid their priest or bishop for absolution for their sins and thus ensured that they went straight to heaven instead of the standard stop-over in purgatory. It’s not reported if God got His cut.

Carbon-offsets and “antarctic leadership development” expeditions display fundamentally flawed leadership. A leader takes responsibility for their actions; they don’t simply salve their conscience by planting a few trees or sequestering a couple of kilos of carbon-dioxide. One challenge is how to rethink our behaviour,not just off-set it. Would it have been possible for managers to connect with the environment closer to home? Of course it would. Many of the participants were based in London or other European cities. There was no need to go almost half-way around the world to come face-to-face with the environment and environmental change.

The challenge for leaders (especially) in multinational companies is how to adapt the organisation’s culture and processes so that the organisation can run in a way that is as gentle as possible on the environment. Here is a kick-start for their thinking.

Perhaps it’s time for a latter-day Martin Luther to nail 95 theses on the door of BP’s corporate headquarters.

People are surprised when I don’t answer a ringing phone and instead stay focused on our discussion. The humble answering machine also serves a purpose.
Not answering the phone (or using the blackberry or laptop) offers a few benefits: first, we can discuss and work more productively. Secondly, the meeting can usually finish sooner. Thirdly, I send my meeting partners a clear signal that I value the working relationship and their presence.

One client fines people €20 if their mobile phone rings during a meeting. If they answer, it costs €50! Imagine a working world where we are so present that such rules are unnecessary.

The first is to analyse common sayings and phrases within the organisation. One example is when new ideas are greeted with, “We’ve never done it that way!”. To me that shrieks conservatism and caution. Notice what phrases are used often in meetings and conversations. Then think about what value they transport. Pretty soon you have a basic list of the organisation’s lived values.

Another help to identifying values is to think about favourite policies and procedures. Do they point towards quality, safety, consistency or independence?

A third help is to consider a list of values I’ve put together and see which ones resonate with you or how you experience your organisation:

A number of leaders I work are interested in how to hire the right people. Explaining your values supports this process. It makes it clear to the candidate what sort of organisation they may be joining and what behaviour is expected. They are then free to decide if this matches to their values and how they want to work. (Side note: in a job interview, both interviewer and interviewee are under scrutiny. It’s not only will a position be offered, but also will the offer be accepted.)

If an organisational unit’s values come through in daily work, then staff are much better able to decide how to act in given situations. They don’t need to ask for detailed guidance, they can just evaluate how the different proposed actions fit to the values. This takes care of many decisions, freeing up a leader’s time to develop strategy and staff.

Alignment between the unit’s values and those of its staff is an important ingredient for motivation. One recent discussion with a group of managers centred on the discrepancy between the officially-held values of their organisation and what they experienced during their working day. Some were so disappointed that inner resignation was starting to take hold.

A friend of mine joined an organisation where people valued deceit. (He hadn’t seen this facet of the organisation during the hiring process.) Since he placed an extremely high value on integrity, it wasn’t long before he showed side effects of stress. After a few months, he couldn’t take it any more and quit. His health recovered almost overnight.

I’ll venture a prediction: neuroscience research will establish a significant correlation between values alignment in the workplace and good health, and between misalignment and poor health.