Recently, I was at a party of a friend of mine. Like a usual get-together of his, it was filled with people from all sorts of backgrounds and was designed to push everyone into active participation. This wasn’t a party where you sat around, observing and working hard to look cool. You talked to people. Constantly. These parties are always interesting, and you come away learning something compelling about many partygoers. It can be a little exhausting, though. To give myself a break, I decided to play a game. What was the most outrageous story I could get away with?
I was speaking with a woman who was in town to give a talk to a group of people. Kind of like a local TED Talk. She created an organization that brought organizations together who had a common purpose. This way they could share resources and scale for more impact. One success story was bringing a roving band of tutors to inner-city schools. Wonderful stuff. After speaking with her for a while, I was thinking of what my story was going to be, especially since I couldn’t come up with something that was even close to being that awesome. In an instant, my story arrived with a question.
The woman asked me about my shirt. I was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Bruce Lee as a hip-hop DJ. I told her that my main job was researching the history of DJ’s. In my most sincere and cheerful voice I explained that I had the shirt made upon learning that Bruce Lee was actually an incredible DJ. He was highly sought after in the London Underground disco scene just as it was becoming popular. She was rapt. I had a whole backstory about how martial arts and movies were just a mechanism for Bruce Lee to allow him to DJ during his downtime for free because it was his true passion. I had her completely hooked.
It was at this point I was losing steam, and pulled the plug. “You know, I’m completely screwing with you. My wife bought this for me online somewhere.” She had a moment of stunned silence and bewilderment on her face, and then she began to laugh. “You totally had me! I completely bought into everything you said.” I apologized; introduced her to a friend who was walking by and headed for the bar and some food.
The next day I was thinking about the discussion with the gullible Bruce Lee woman; not in terms of humor, but with respect to leadership. Great leaders are storytellers. They have a narrative, a journey that draws people eagerly toward them. It is a powerful thing. Leaders have a responsibility to use care with that power. I then asked myself, what if that woman had worked with me? Would it still have been a goofy discussion, or would it have created a trust deficit because I abused the power of leadership?
A little too PC, perhaps? Maybe, but the importance of trust in the leadership equation cannot be ignored. Without trust there can’t be a sustainable relationship. In the end, that’s all leadership is about – relationships. Shared vision, shared purpose, respect for each other, growth, empowerment are all by-products of a relationship based on trust. I’ve seen many teams fall apart because trust in the leader was never earned or was squandered. So, what’s your story? Does your story instill trust, or is it poisonous? How you treat people will be the true measure of how your tale ends.
HR Rebellion 