Posted on February 9, 2011 by Tom Patterson

Mark Twain said it best: “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” In other words, there’s no reason to waste your time and energy trying to remember what you said when, and to whom, if you make it a practice to be a truthful person.

A human resource executive told me just yesterday that the number one reason she is approached by people seeking a “change” of some kind is because of the dishonesty in their workplace. As an executive coach, my experience has been that it is—more often than not—the lack of truth telling that gets leaders and followers in the biggest jams.

Who Would You Trust?

It’s not rocket science to say that dishonesty breeds distrust, but many leaders still act confused by that reality when it rears its head in the workplace. An international study cited in the online version of the Harvard Business Review revealed that “…the majority of respondents trust a stranger more than they trust their boss” (Michael Segalla, “How Europeans Do Layoffs.” Posted on the Harvard Business Review website June 9, 2009. The data on trust is found in, “Managing Talent in Troubled Times”).

That’s quite a finding, isn’t it? Most people are more likely to trust someone they know nothing about, than a person with whom they may work day in and day out.

Do you have a boss? Where is your trust level of him or her, and what’s behind your response? Are you a boss? What’s your sense of the level of trust you have from your direct reports? How do you know how to gauge that? What do you suppose figures into their relatively high or low levels of trust?

Office Politics – The Game

I hear leaders and others talk about “office politics,” as if it’s a necessary game they have to learn to succeed. But think for a second about a person you believe is especially adept at office politics. What is it they do really well, politically speaking? Where do they register on your personal Trust-o-Meter, and why?

There’s a lot to think about regarding the importance of truth and trust, and it’s disastrous to under-appreciate its significance. In upcoming blog posts, I’ll dig in a little deeper and more specifically about the link between the two, and what you, as a leader, can do to build that trust.

For now, though, give some real thought to how comfortable you are with truth telling, whether it be with direct reports, peers, or superiors. What figures into your relative comfort levels? Don’t be afraid to dig into that question, because doing so will pay huge dividends down the line.