Examples, Tools, and Research
Leadership and Trust
Figure 2: Leadership and Trust
Source: Phil Harkins, Powerful Conversations: How High Impact Leaders Communicate, McGraw-Hill, 1999.
The foundation of any leadership (even of quality management) is trust; it is only when people you intend to lead trust you that you will exert successful influence over them, i.e. leadership. Phil Harkins suggests a simple but powerful formula of trust based on the 4C principle. It is important to understand that there exists within the four elements an “and” and not an “or” relationship (to use an Internet search analogy). If even one of the four elements is missing, trust will not occur regardless of the strength and quality of the remaining three—and consequently neither will quality leadership.