Critical Key to Empowered Leadership

In recent times there seems to be a dearth of trust between people in different circumstances be at home, in business, politic etc. Trust is a word with which we are truly familiar. Yet, it is difficult to define in a truly comprehensive way. You may not know that it is a word of Scandinavian origin. It connects “agreement,” “pact,” and “faith”—all wrapped into one. Webster notes two definitions: first, “a confident dependence on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something”; second, “something committed or entrusted to one to be used or cared for in the interest of another.” The first definition is commonplace and correlates with our grade-school interpretation. But, the latter definition embraces the transcendent qualities of the word.

Trust, in its fullest sense, extends beyond simply having great confidence in a person, or faith that a task will be performed. It manifests itself when one becomes committed to the protection and care of someone else—he is entrusted to that person, who holds his faith in trust.

The Founding Fathers of the United States were very concerned about trust and mutual respect and the leadership of the country they had just created. In fact Baron Charles de Montesquieu’s seminal work, The Spirit of Laws, was closely referred to.

The concept of the separation of powers, developed here and influenced by the work of the Greek historian Polybius, surely formed the basis of the Constitution.
Montesquieu explored this relationship which must exist between a people and their government – between leaders and followers – without which they could not survive. He weighed the advantages and disadvantages of dictatorships, monarchies and republics, describing the cohesive forces of each. Although he felt that the free republic was the most desirous form of government, he stated that it was the most fragile because it depends on a virtuous people. The framers of the Constitution took that to mean those that could sacrifice their private concerns for the good of the country. Of this quality of being they had grave concerns. Washington concluded, that “the few, therefore, who act upon Principles of disinterestedness are, comparatively speaking, no more that a drop in the Ocean.”

Any good leaders should feel an obligation to not only consider their personal well being but also that of others as well. When this implicit commitment is broken – when the leader only considers their own well being – there is no basis for leadership and the leader cannot be trusted.

Suspicion not trust is the operative word today. Trust, however, is an essential ingredient of the leader follower relationship. An ingredient that is in short supply. Trust of course, involves a vulnerability on our part, due to some form of ignorance or basic uncertainty as to the other person’s motives. This is a leap of faith that many of us today, are not willing to make. But a leap we must make because leadership doesn’t and can’t happen in a vacuum.