Leading With Trust And Respect

It is up to today's leaders to set the example for true change to happen tomorrow.

- Brian Eagar

Having recently watched the increasingly popular documentary filmed in South Africa, My Octopus Teacher, I was once again struck by how our engagement with any person, creature or product is governed by the level of reciprocal trust and respect. In fact, I believe that the two terms cannot be separated from anything – not even from each other.

Because these two terms lie at the heart of all relationships, they are also fundamental to an engaging organisational culture – which ultimately describes how we connect with each other (or don’t). As leaders, we need to role-model trust and respect in order to entrench it at the core of our organisations. This can be overwhelming, but it can also be very practical when we break it down.

Director of the NeuroLeadership Institute, Dr David Rock identified five social domains, better known as the SCARF Model, that activate the same threat and reward response in our brains that we rely on for physical survival. Simply put, when any of these elements are threatened, it stimulates the part of the brain that is triggered when our bodies feel pain, sending the danger signal and switching us off. Conversely, positive contributions to these domains switch us on.

Therefore, to establish relationships with high levels of trust and respect, we need to be mindful of contributing to each of the following as per SCARF:

Status: respecting others and their roles.

Certainty: clarifying expectations as much as possible when things are uncertain.

Autonomy: providing a sense of control and a feeling of being trusted to perform responsibilities.

Relatedness: finding ways of connecting with others and fostering an environment that encourages connection.

Fairness: treating everyone equally.