Leadership and Trust

Really like this excerpt from the book I am reading, The Speed of Trust. This resonates with me, especially this simple definition of leadership:

Simple definition of leadership. Leadership is getting results in a way that inspires trust. Maximizing current contribution, and your ability to contribute in the future by establishing the trust that makes it possible.

The means to the end, are as important as the ends. How you go about achieving results are as important as the results themselves. Because when you establish trust, you increase your ability to get results the next time. And there’s always a next time. To get things done in ways that destroy trust is not only short-sighted and counterproductive, it is ultimately unsustainable.

As the courageous explorer, Sir Earnest Shackleton put it: “Life to me is the greatest of all games. The danger lies in treating it as a trivial game; a game to be taken lightly, and a game in which the rules don’t matter much. The rules matter a great deal. The game has to be played fairly or it is no game at all. And even to WIN the game is not the chief end. The chief end is to win it honorably and splendidly.”

“Trust is key to long term success”.