Importance of Trust in Leadership

Trust is a critical ingredient in the development of relationship in an organization (Goldman and Casey, 2010 and O’Neill, 2002). This is because a trusted leader can utilize the support of others to achieve a common goal and forms one of the most relevant and important aspect of organizations. The three most important concepts learned from the assigned readings include the fact that trust as the foundation of leadership involves the willingness to be vulnerable, ability to gain knowledge and creative thinking and integrate both personal and organizational trust in motivating, stimulating creativity, and helping the organization attract and retain great employees.

The concepts of true leadership draw in identifiable leadership behaviors that important in leadership and management. Hosmern (1995) and Nyhan (2000) note that both true and transformational leadership are authentic when grounded on moral foundations. As such, trust is a component of transformational leadership contains four aspects: idealised influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualised consideration. As can be seen trust has strong conceptual connections with transformational leadership and its components. In this way, the trusted leadership perspective embraces the act of inspiring others that makes up the transformational approach.

In order to inspire and motivate people, trusted leaders that take up managerial positions achieve higher levels of relationship among followers because they articulate a vision (inspirational motivation), show a special concern for people (individualised consideration), and provide a role model for ethical behaviour (idealised influence), among others. Furthermore, they are equipped with knowledge of the environment in which the organization is operating and are faced with very dynamic environments that demand new and appropriate styles of leadership.

In conclusion, building trust in leadership is an integrated process that demands gaining knowledge in aspects of trusted leadership, positive identification and application of tools of trusted leaders, analysis of how trusted leaders work, and building trust in perspective.

The three dominant concepts learned from the assigned readings that include trust as the foundation of leadership involves the willingness to be vulnerable, ability to gain knowledge and creative thinking and integrate both personal and organizational trust draw with the ability to cultivate faith and entrench learning as part of organizational culture. These ensure that the trust attained is sustainable and the levels of knowledge improve with the demands of new management and leadership concepts.

The differences between leadership and management revolve around the manner in which they complete each other in the achievement of organizational goals.