Trust involves at least five crucial ingredients. As I define them, you’ll note that many of these ingredients are also a part of leadership, followership, and relationships in general.
- Candor. “Truth with an attitude, delivered immediately”. Truth plus insightful and honest perspective; for example, there may be other perspectives on the same set of circumstances even though the facts seem to apply across the board. Candor’s focus on starting with the truth takes others perspectives into account.
- Credibility. Always conferred by others on those whose past behavior, track record, and accomplishments warrant it. You deliver what you promise.
- Competence. The ability to apply special knowledge, experience, and insight to resolve the issues, questions, and problems of others; putting the power of your intellect and expertise to work, clearly for the goals of others.
- Integrity. The personal, organizational, or institutional inclination to do the right or most appropriate thing at the first opportunity or whenever there is a choice or dilemma. A person with integrity is someone you can count on to steer you in the right direction or help you make the morally correct decision, often on the spot, every time.
- The Loyalty Exception.
Loyalty has limits.
Senior executive staff ranks are full of strong-willed people who choose or learn how to be loyal to a CEO. That loyalty may be situational (by choice or pathological- sucking up).
In the case of the trusted strategic advisor, the relationship with a senior leader is less about blind loyalty and more about a higher level of objectivity and perspective. By keeping perspective, I mean always remaining at some altitude, some constructive distance to ensure that the advice given or taken is truly the most valuable, objective and helpful.
The key question for you as the Trusted Strategic Advisor is, what are the indicators that should cause you to question your loyalty, or at a minimum, raise serious questions of those to whom you have provided advice? There are patterns of suspect organizational leadership behavior to look for that, Ironically, generally begin at the top executive ranks.
The presence of even one or two of these indicators in your working environment is a very serious matter. The Federal Sentencing guidelines of 1991 list fifty of what are called Predicate Behaviors, inappropriate activities to look for that signal, serious potential trouble. Here’s a sample:
- Lack of tough, appropriate, centralized compliance within areas of the company.
- Leadership that allows supervisors to overlook bad behavior.
- Structuring incentives in such a way that they can compromise the ethical behavior toward the quality of products and services.
- Permitting shortcuts.
- Doing “whatever it takes” to achieve inappropriate business and financial goals.
Establish a personal integrity barrier, your own loyalty limits. Write them down and be prepared on the moment’s notice to explain those limits. This exercise alone will prepare you to provide a service of extraordinary value to those you advise. If it prevents, helps detect, or deter activities or plans that will be regretted later. Or that would cause harm to others.
Copyright 2006
*©2006-2025, James E. Lukaszewski, “Why Should the Boss Listen to You, The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor, page 59,” Josey Bass. Contact the copyright holder at jel@e911.com for information and reproduction permissions. Editing or excerpting forbidden.