Building Trust In Your Leadership Among Your Subordinates: A Personal Approach

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Recommended: Importance of integrity to an individual

“The glue that holds all relationships together - including the relationship between; the leader and the led is trust, and trust is based on integrity.” This wise statement from Brian Tracey embodies the synergistic relationship between leaders and followers that this paper will focus on. According to the course textbook, leadership can be defined as “the process of influencing an organized group toward accomplishing its goals.” (Hughes, Ginnett & Curphy, 2009, p.4) Although this statement is valid, it is my firm belief that it is a leader’s responsibility to do make a positive impact in a subordinate’s life. This paper will discuss why building trust is important in creating a team, how to build trust and finally analyze a personal course of action to implement upon entering the fleet.

Building trusting relationships is a crucial backbone in the body of a team. As stated earlier, it is the leader’s responsibility to do make a positive impact in a subordinate’s life. I have seen this impact first hand during my time as a Midshipman. LT Bill Burke, former Echo Company Advisor consistently went above and beyond the minimum requirements as an advisor. He was able to do this by implementing a legitimate open door policy. Unlike most CO’s open door policies, LT Burke made it a point to encourage people to come talk to him. One example of how he made a positive impact in a Midshipman’s life was convincing a MIDN to stay in ROTC after he got his girlfriend pregnant. LT Burke always went to bat for his people; consequently, they supported him in his endeavors. He was nominated and recieved the national Naval Professor of the year in 2009.

According to Stephen Covey, trust is the highest form of human motivation; it can bring out th...

... middle of paper ...

...el-Aziz, A. (2010). Trust & leadership. Informally published manuscript, Leadership

Laboratory, SANS Technology Institute, Denver, Colorado. Retrieved from http://www.sans.edu/research/leadership-laboratory/article/1588

Covey, S. (1990). The 7 habits of highly effective people. New York, NY: Free Press.

Covey, S. (2008). The leader in me. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Dirks, K. T. (2000). Trust in leadership and team performance. Journal of Applied

Psychology, 85(6), 1004-1012. Retrieved from

http://portal.psychology.uoguelph.ca/faculty/gill/7140/WEEK_8_Feb.27/Dirks_JAP2000.pdf

Hughes, R. L., Ginnett, R. C., & Curphy, G. J. (2009).Leadership: Enhancing the lessons of experience. (6 ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Statton, J. (2011, June 03). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://michaelhyatt.com/6-ways-

leaders-can-build-trust.html

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