The Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center (DVIRC) is a very progressive association made up primarily of business owners who manufacture products in the Greater Philadelphia region. DVIRC conducts many training opportunities for its members over the course of the year.
On May 18, 2021, DVIRC conducted a membership event at the Northampton Country Club in Richboro, PA and they invited John Gronski to deliver the leadership keynote address. John delivered a motivational presentation on how leaders could best cultivate trust among those they lead and their customers and also provided a technique on how to repair trust if it is broken.
In terms of cultivating trust, John said there are five best practices for cultivating trust. They are:
- Trust others first. A leader can do this by getting followers to share their views and opinions on how to solve problems. Another way is to empower those you lead to make decisions and decide on ways to best do their jobs without undue oversight or micromanagement.
- Provide a vision. Leaders must provide a shared vision and provide direction. Communicate purpose. Provide the “why”. Establish imperatives and priorities.
- Display integrity. Leaders must conduct themselves in accordance with high ethical standards. Be honest. Follow through on promises. Do not use your position for personal gain but focus on protecting your teammates.
- Lead by example. Share difficulties and risks. Adhere to the same standards you set for your followers.
- Care. Get to know your people and what makes them tick. Remove obstacles and provide resources so your followers could do their job more efficiently and effectively. Place the needs and welfare of your followers above your own.
If a leader does break trust, John provided a simple technique to go about repairing broken trust. It is a three-step process.
- Acknowledge. The leader must acknowledge they made a mistake. This must be done quickly. The longer one waits to acknowledge a mistake that has broken trust, the more difficult it will be to repair that broken trust. The people you lead are not stupid. They can see when a leader makes a mistake. There is no sense in placing blame elsewhere. That simple continues to erode trust.
- Apologize. Say those three words, “I am sorry”, is powerful. Again, this must be done quickly.
- Right wrongs. Once you acknowledge you made a mistake and apologize now you must change your behavior, so the mistake does not happen again. It is a good practice to let the person or persons you broke trust with know how you plan to change your behavior to prevent the trust from being broken again in the future.
The response following the keynote was exceptional. Feedback indicated the topic was extremely relevant to today’s business leaders. One attendee said she picked up her phone and immediately ordered the book, “Iron-Sharpened Leadership”, on Amazon during the presentation. Another attendee ordered Gronski’s other book, “The Ride of Our Lives”. One can order signed copies of John’s book by visiting his website, https://johngronski.com/. To have John Gronski speak at your organization’s event email John here – John@JohnGronski.com.
