The Role of Corporate Comm in Building Trust in Leadership

8/3/2019 The Role of Corporate Comm in Building Trust in Leadership

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The role of corporatecommunications in building trust

in leadership


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y What we can learn from Bill, Al and Herb?


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Philanthropy is also important to Gates.

He and his wife, Melinda, have endowed a

foundation with more than US$24 billion tosupport philanthropic initiatives in the areas of

global health and learning, with the hope that as

we move into the 21st century, advances inthese critical areas will be available for all

people.


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y To date, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundationhas committed:

y more than US$3.2 billion to organizations working inglobal health;

y more than US$2 billion to improve learningopportunities, including the Gates Library Initiative tobring computers, Internet Access and training to publiclibraries in low-income communities in the UnitedStates and Canada;

y more than US$477 million to community projects in thePacific Northwest;

y more than US$488 million to special projects andannual giving campaigns.


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y General

y Organisational context

y Synonyms

yCooperation (?)y One can cooperate with another party without necessarily

trusting the person.

yConfidence (?)y One can have confidence in a persons ability to achieve a

desired outcome without trusting the personal integrity of theperson.

yPredictability (?)y A person may be predictable in ones mission or goals but

unpredictable in their value systems.


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y Leadershipy cornerstone of modern businessy responsible for building of trust within the

organisations culture

y Trusty Built through the way a leader develops the

culture of communication for internal andexternal stakeholders.

y Based on the leaders:y IntegrityyConsistencyy Loyalty


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y Trust is an organisations social capitalySimilar to other capitals

y Valuesy Organisational values

yBeliefs and convictions that guide behaviourand support vision.

yE.g. of corporate values are customer needs,employee empowerment and quality of life

yValues help to communicate what isimportant and what will be recognized andrewarded.


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y Trust occurs:

y Values are followed and supported by the leaders.

y By modelling the values, leaders clearly communicate

expectations and improve the employees perception.y E.g. Hewlett Packards case

y Perception of a fair compensations system

y If employees were largely underpaid while theexecutives received extravagant benefits, then

resentment would persist and trust vanish.


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y Trust in integrity, consistency and loyalty

depends very much on experience in

interpersonal relationship between trustee andthe trustor.

y Once distrust occurred, it takes a lot of

experience in improved leadership behaviour

to improve trusting level once more.


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y Trust-building lies in the ability oforganizational leadership to professionally

communicate to their internal and externalstakeholders at both the head and heart level.

y More people perceived CEO as the ChiefCommunications Officer (CCO) as espousedby Pincus and deBonis in their four principlesmodel that CEOs must adopt:y Consistencyy Compassiony Organisationy Selectivity


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y The importance of this communication-

leadership-trust triumvirate is that leadership and

communication are hand-in-glove process,

sharing the common purpose of forming and

crystallizing meaningful relationship.


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Communication

yAims to create arelationship of

understandingy Purposey Messagey Sourcey Expected outcome

yAims to constructrelationships of

commitmenty Leadery Organisationy Causey Stay committed

Leadership


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y Every time you speak whether its in an

auditorium, in a company conference room, or

even at your own desk, you are auditioning for

leadership. The difference between mere

management and is communication. And the art

of communication is the language of leadership.

(Humes , 1991;pp.13-14 )


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y Influences on how business is conducted:y Information technologyy Burgeoning knowledge flow

y OutcomesyA disempowerment of central controly Empowerment of workforcey (core value = letting go)

yA necessity in todays worldy How do you manage people you cannot see???


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y Leaders roley Responsible for ensuring the overall vision is

achieved.

y Good business sense.

y Broad understanding of how things fit together.

y Be able to rise above the details to see the layof the land.


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y Mayer, Davis & Schoorman (1995) defined trust

as:

y The willingness of a party to be vulnerable to

the actions of another party based on the

expectation that the other will perform a

particular action important to the trustor,irrespective of the ability to monitor or control

the other party.


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y Morgan and Hunt (1994) define trust as

confidence in an exchange partners reliability

and integrity.

y Blois (1999, pp 197-8) concludes that trust is the

acceptance of vulnerability in order to reduce

social complexity.


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y Trust is not taking risk per se, BUT the willingness

to take a risk.

y Willingness and perceived expectations of mutual

benefit is largely portrayed through the

communication skills of both parties but

particularly that of the leader.y If no options exist do we convince ourselves to

trust?


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yAbility

y Benevolence

y Integrity

y

These are coupled with the:y trustors propensity to trust

y These are moderated by:

y perceived risk

y risk-taking inherent in the relationshipy Commitment is the necessary link


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y Charisma

y Cynicism

y Corporate Culture


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y Henry Ford - The founder of the Ford motor company

revolutionised mass production and brought carownership to middle-class Americans. An avowed anti-Semite, he was admired by Adolf Hitler

y Sir Richard Branson - The self-made entrepreneurlaunched the worlds first spaceline, Virgin Galactic, in

2004 and was ranked the 236th richest person in theworld by Forbes magazine last year

y Jack Welch - The former chairman and chief executiveof General Electric increased its value from US$13 billionto several hundred billions. Dubbed Neutron Jack, it

was joked that he eliminated employees but left thebuilding standing

y Dame Anita Roddick - Founder of ethical cosmeticsgroup the Body Shop, she was a high-profileenvironmental campaigner before her death in 2007


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y Charismatic leaders:y Have a visiony Gifted in being able to share

that visiony Have superb rhetorical skillsy Build trust in their leadership

and the attainability of theirgoalsy Unshakable self-confidencey Strength of moral

convictiony Personal example and

sacrifice, unconventionaltactics or behaviour

y Some real life examples?


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y Traditionally

y Management does not trust staff

y Staff must undoubtingly trust management

y Some of the recent past business practices cause

cynicism

y Greed

y Unethical leadership

y Short-termism


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y Reengineeringy Decentralisation

y Downsizing

y Outplacement

y Deployment

y Reality of virtual organisations

y Personnel-reducing techniques

y Short-term CEOs

y Flavour of the month strategies

y Results in a fear-distrust cycle


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y Less motivated staff

y Low productivity

y High turnover

y Lack of support from internal and external

stakeholdersy Loss of competitive advantage


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y Leaders must place a higher value on trust

y Must be able to communicate this to staff

y Develop corporate culture of trust


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Diversity of definitions

Heres one for you

The culture of any group of people is that set of

beliefs, customs, practices and ways of thinking that

they have come to share with each other throughbeing and working together. It is a set of assumptions

people simply accept without question as they interact

with each other. At the visible level the culture of a

group of people takes a form of ritual behaviour,

symbols, myths, stories, sounds, and artefacts.

Communication is necessary to develop a trust-

based corporate culture.


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yAlmost every aspect of business has or is in the

process of monumental change hence the role

of the leader is also changing.

y Today you will not be doing business for long

without trust the leader, through

communication, must foster and nurture that

trust.

The Role of Corporate Comm in Building Trust in Leadership

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