Power Play: Be worthy of trust

Power Players don’t use big words unless they understand their meaning. Trust is one of those big words.

Power Players know trust is hard to build and must be earned. They also know that if trust is broken it is almost impossible to rebuild.

Power Players don’t expect to be trusted by their team simply because they happen to be in a position of power; if anything, they know this generally makes people more suspicious and less likely to trust.

The truly awesome Power Players earn their trust step by little step. They demonstrate their decency and character, and show that their word is their bond.

There is no other way to earn real trust. Your job as a Power Player is to be worthy of it.

The story

I took my crew out to a Christmas dinner where things got out of hand pretty quickly.

By the end of the night, the owner of the restaurant told me he was nervous and it needed to stop or he would have to call the police. I rounded up the crew, told them to rein it in and set them loose on the city. By all accounts they were fine.

On Monday morning, my boss called me into his office, having heard about the Friday night behaviour. He asked me exactly what went on and I told him that everybody had just blown off some steam and that I had already sent a hamper and movie tickets to the restaurant owner. Case closed.

My crew sat sheepishly waiting for me to come out of the boss’s office. I told them that they were all safe, but that was their one get-out-of-jail-free card.

If they can’t trust me, I’m no use to them. And they never let things get out of control again.