How should we define professional success?
By how well we perform?
Or
By how trusted we are by others?
Performance is the ‘go to’ measure of professional success
Companies focus on performance.
That’s understandable.
After all, we find it relatively easy to measure performance.
Those of us who consistently exceed our targets are automatically considered high performers.
And yet, performance is an output.
It’s looking at results achieved but not how we get those results.
Our ‘way of working’ – and our ‘way of being’ – are what really count!
This is what drives us to perform better and inspire others to do likewise.
Performance is built on trust
Ultimately, good performance in individuals, teams, and businesses is built on trust.
Trust can’t be easily measured but it can be won and it can be lost.
Instinctively, we know when it’s present and when it’s not.
Crucially, we instinctively know whom we can trust.
Moreover, when we reflect on why we always come to this realisation.
The colleagues we trust the most have mastered ‘smart skills’
Smart skills first appeared in Professor Loredana Padurean’s book ‘The Job Is Easy, The People Are Not!‘
The book details the skills trusted leaders deploy to inspire, influence, and achieve authentically and effectively.
Examples of smart skills include emotional maturity, active listening, and followership.
Simon Sinek refers to these as ‘human skills‘ and they’re critical for building trust and creating the right environment for us to perform at our best.
Mastery of ‘human skills’ is the key that unlocks professional success
Some of us have a natural flair for ‘human skills‘.
Others, like me, had to work hard to learn them and then practice them through coaching, mentoring, and observation of our role models.
It’s worth the effort though.
Because- in the long run- being heartfelt, human, and helpful are more highly prized by our subordinates, peers, and superiors than an unrelenting focus on business results at all costs.
The relationship between performance and trust
Simon Sinek popularised the concept of performance versus trust drawing on his learnings from working with the elite US Navy Seals.
I’ve reduced his original 9-box matrix into a simple 2 x 2 matrix.
When we look around us, we see many ‘high performers’.
The question is:
Are they?
🅰 ‘Distrusted high flyers’
Or
🅱 ‘Authentic leaders’
It’s easy to tell the difference.
In Summary
Trust is the magic ingredient that makes or breaks teams.
True leaders know that to be truly successful we must both perform well and be trusted by others.
This is the foundation on which to build professional success.
