Being Trustworthy vs. Trust Willing: How Trust Is Earned and Given

Most leaders focus on becoming someone others can trust, but far fewer ask an equally important question: Am I willing to trust others? In this episode, Zach explores the often-overlooked distinction between being trustworthy and being trust willing through the remarkable story of Charles Blondin's historic tightrope walks across Niagara Falls. 

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Transcript

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We spend a lot of time talking about becoming someone that other people can trust. We talk about things like integrity, being consistent, being reliable, and following through on our word in order for others to trust us. But there's another side of trust that receives, I think, sometimes far less attention. It's one thing to become trustworthy. It's another thing to become trust willing. In other words, are you willing to extend trust to someone else once they've earned it? Or in some cases, even before they haven't. Now, more than 160 years ago, there's one remarkable story that I think illustrates this distinction in a very unforgettable fashion. And so today on the podcast, we're going to discuss why trust needs to flow in both directions and why leaders need to be both trustworthy and trustwilling. And before we continue, I want to extend a simple invitation. The heart of this show and really all of my coaching work is about helping coaches, executives, and leaders develop the mindset and systems to win not only professionally, but also personally. I offer a free coaching call where I can help you unpack a variety of situations that show up in my work with those that I serve. So if you're trying to level up your program's culture, looking for creative ways to develop your staff, if you're feeling stretched or burned out by leadership, trying to build a better system for how you train the mental game with your players, or you just simply want a space where you can be honest, unfiltered, and stretch, I'd love to connect. Even if working together isn't the right next step for you, my goal is to help you leave with greater clarity, a practical direction next, and useful resources. So if that sounds valuable for you or someone you know, visit the link in the show notes. So inspiration for today's episode comes back in the mid-1800s. There was a gentleman by the name of Charles Blondine. He became arguably the most famous tightrope walker in the world. And in 1859, he became the first person to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. It was stretched more than a thousand feet across the gorge and it was roughly 160 feet above the water below. And what's I think really wild about his story is what made Blondine famous wasn't simply that he crossed Niagara Falls. It was that each time he continued to cross it, he would raise the stakes. One time he would cross it blindfolded, another time it was on stilts, one time he pushed a wheelbarrow, and then one time, even famously, he stopped in the middle to cook and eat an omelette. So after watching him complete these incredible feeds, there's um some interesting historical accounts that at one point he invited someone up there and invited uh somebody from the the crowd to let him carry them across the falls. Now, um unshockingly, we'll say nobody uh volunteered, nobody accepted this. And so he had to resort to his longtime uh manager. His name was Harry Colcord, and Harry climbed onto Blondine's back and made the journey with him. And so that's how um it all, or that's again kind of the the inspiration for this story today. But the point that I really wanted to highlight with this is I think it's an incredible example of it's one thing to recognize that somebody is trustworthy, but it's another thing to entrust yourself to them. And I think that same distinction can show up in many forms in leadership day to day. So when I think about trust, I think there's uh two different sets of questions, different questions that we have to ask ourselves and consider. One way that I thought about this or I I've had this expressed to me is that uh generally there's two types of people. There's the type of person who will trust others until that trust is broken. And then the other one is there's the type of individuals that they withhold trust until somebody earns it. Now, we could make a case that every both for both the extremes um are neither one is is perfect. Um, if we just trust somebody blindly, eventually we may get hurt. And if we trust no one until they've proven uh absolutely that they're they're capable, we may never give people enough room to grow. So the other question, though, that I think is important to consider here is the first being, am I trustworthy? And then the second distinction is am I trust willing? Those that may sound similar, but they are different. Being trustworthy means becoming someone that others can confidently depend on. You consistently follow through, you demonstrate good moral character, you have the competence to help people move from where they want to go to uh or where they are, I should say, to where they want to go. And it got me kind of thinking about um one of the uh authors that I really respect in this space of like trust and leadership is uh Stephen Covey. And he talks about trust being built through these C's, and uh, two of which being character and competence. So character answers the question, can I trust your intentions? Competence answers something more like, can you actually help me get better? So, you know, and there's a lot of people that have expressed this or talked about this, that like for athletes internally, um, they're or even sometimes consciously, they're thinking about uh with a coach or or really any staff member, can you help me become better? And if the answer is no, trust becomes way harder to establish. But even after trust has been earned, leadership also needs to ask the question Am I willing to extend trust to somebody else? Because trust willingness isn't simply believing another person in another person's ability, it's choosing to give somebody this like meaningful responsibility, sometimes even after they've earned it, and sometimes because it's the one thing that might help them earn it in the first place. So let me give this more of like a real life um example. Uh, I've shared this in another forum with kind of a different message previously, but um several years ago, uh there was a company that I've gone in twice now helped facilitate kind of like a two-day leadership retreat with them. The second time that I facilitated this, the company was in the process of in the next upcoming year, they were transitioning fully into what's called an ESOP. Uh in other words, an employee stock ownership plan. Uh, the very, very Cliff Notes version of this for those that might not come from that world or know what that means is an ESOP is like this special, almost like retirement plan that gives employees a share of ownership in their company without necessarily out of pocket um cost. And so uh it's a way to like foster more ownership amongst the collective um organization. So in my conversation with their senior leadership team and their CEO during the planning process, we discussed how people rarely start acting like owners until somebody first trusts them with ownership. We say, for example, that we want initiative, we say we want leaders throughout the organization, we say we want players to think for themselves. But if every meaningful decision still has to come through us or is made for them by the leader, then we've unintentionally communicated that the true trust is rooted in the leader themselves and not the people. Leadership, though, isn't just about becoming some someone that others can trust. It's also about knowing when to place trust in those around you. So this week, my invitation for those of you listening is yes, we want to think about how can I become more trustworthy? How can I strengthen, for example, my competence uh so I'm more reliable, more dependable. Others feel like uh they provide they get benefit from me. But don't stop there. Also ask yourself who has earned enough trust that it's maybe time for me to give them more? I think that's what it means to not just be trustworthy, but that's what it really means to be trust willing. Thanks for listening.