I know it’s hard. I hate heights but love parasailing. The view and freedom are amazing. But it is all about trust. Trusting the harness. Trusting the boat and the cable. Trusting those on the boat to send you up, guide the boat and bring you down safely. You can’t even communicate. It’s all about them.

Yet trust is hard. Some days, it’s as if we can’t even trust our neighbors to practice social distancing. But trust is the currency of the new economy.

We have to trust our colleagues, sight unseen, to do their work. We have to trust systems we may never have used to process our unemployment checks and manage our data. We have to trust our friends and family to follow health guidelines. We have to trust our teams, and consultants and clients and each other. We have to manage risk but still trust.

How do you build trust? Here are a few ideas. What would you add?

1) Do what you say you are going to do

That’s how I know you’ll do it next time. How I know I can count on you.

2) Know your stuff

People turn to leaders like you and like me because we are experts. It’s our job to keep our knowledge up to date.

3) Share our experience

Tell the stories of how we do what we do and the results we achieve. AND, share our vulnerability. About when it went wrong and how we turned it around. About what challenges we are facing.

4) Model trust and trustworthiness

Like almost every other skill, modeling is step number one of leadership. Let’s help people learn how to do this. Including how we handle it when things don’t work out as planned.

Stay safe and stay sane,

Julie