5 Levels of Trust

Count money, man.

Count money, man.

Stacked riches.

I'm trying to told him, I'm a beast, but...

What's up, gang?

Welcome back to another episode of The Grindcast.

Get ready.

It's a new day.

We got five levels of trust in 10 minutes.

Level one.

Reliability.

Okay, so if someone's saying, man, I want to follow you.

This is what we got to walk through the five levels of trust.

Level one.

Reliability.

Do you do what you said you do?

Trust starts with consistency, not charisma, not just your energy.

If I'm going to trust you, how often do you do things that you said you were going to do?

How often do you not do things that you said you were going to do?

Even in the little things, these are the little things where I think people mess of like,

hey, you told me you were going to do this and you didn't do it.

I don't, you told me you were going to be on that call.

I didn't think it was no big deal.

Yeah, I get it, but you said you were going to do it.

Showing up on time is a leadership trait to me.

Like it's hard to have ultimate trust level for people that just are late on a term.

Because now to me, what that shows is that you can't lead yourself really well.

Miscommitments.

You know, that starts to slow your credibility down faster than the mistakes that you make.

Mistakes people can understand, but when you're making commitments to people saying

you're going to do something and you don't do it, that's where your credibility starts to slow down.

Reliability comes when you do the small things when nobody else is watching.

Before people start trusting your vision, if you want them to buy into the vision,

they got to trust in you and they got to trust in your word.

Discipline is what's going to build the reliability and have an excuse

is destroys your reliability and destroys the level of trust.

So nobody wants to hear the excuses.

Discipline of doing the things anyway, that's what builds upon your credibility.

Level two truthfulness cannot believe what you say.

Honesty builds faster than likability.

Transparency, keeping it real, creates clarity, but when you're ambiguous, it creates doubt.

Truth isn't always comfortable, but it's usually the best policy,

it's usually necessary.

Half truths feel safer, but it'll stall out the growth process of trust.

Leaders don't spin reality, they confront the reality.

When the truth isn't there and communication, we like to say people's assumptions fill the gaps.

When communication isn't there, negativity fills the void.

You know, we like to say.

Level three, competence, can you actually deliver?

Good intentions don't earn big trust.

Getting results over time is what's going to build you the trust and the credibility.

You got to have the skill, the skill validates the credibility.

I hear what you're saying.

You know, I trust that you'll try your best to be where you say you're going to be and do what you,

but do you have the skill to take us to the next level?

And I think one of the ways to do this is to prepare,

like when you prepare, preparation is respect for other people's time.

And confidence without competence is just noise and arrogance.

Like I'm confident with this swag and I don't even have no, I'm not even good at what I'm, like what I'm good at.

That's just noise and lack of wisdom and foolishness and you need some humility.

The higher the standard, the higher the trust level that we're going to need, the higher the trust ceiling.

And you don't earn trust by trying, you earn trust by really just executing.

Being a doer, Nike, just do it.

Right?

Don't say just excuse it.

It's just do it.

That's what you earn the trust by executing.

Level four, we have emotional trust.

Meaning like am I safe to keep it real with you here?

This is why I think John Maxwell says that leadership is disappointing people at a rate that they could stand.

So part of it's on me, part of it's on them.

But like is it safe for me to keep it real with you here?

Do I have enough trust from you?

Can we, can I be honest with you here?

They say psychological safety unlocks performance in a lot of ways in people.

When you have like a mutual respect and you can handle people being real, it invites honesty.

And when people are scared to keep it real with you, they just will keep quiet and not say anything to you.

And that'll start to hurt the levels of trust because it hurts the levels of communication.

People perform better when they feel supported, encouraged, where they have freedom to grow with some guidance more than just being managed.

Just give them the right support.

And I think when you start to, like if you're really open minded and we get better at listening more,

when you listen to your people, are you listen to the right people around you, who you need to influence,

listening builds trust faster than speaking will.

And that emotional trust allows disagreements to happen without division.

This is where, you know, our member of Jim's race used to say relationships are tested and loyalty is tested when we disagree.

Right? So loyalty is tested when we disagree.

So emotional trust allows disagreement without us being divided.

That's when you know you're getting close. Like a lot of times people can do this sometimes with their family.

They get together and they fight and then they make up.

You know what I mean? So they don't let it, but then in business sometimes they'll have people that you haven't built up the trust levels and the relationship enough that a disagreement breaks everything down. There's division.

When people feel safe to be honest, they can bring their best and not just try to form fit and tiptoe around everything.

And then the last level, level five is reciprocal trust. We win this together or not at all.

There's a mutual confidence in the team in each other that replaces, you know, typical micro management.

Our shared goals matter more than our personal agendas.

So we got to win this thing together at this level at the highest levels, the ego.

Ain't in the room. There's no ego. There's no room for ego.

If we want a function, you know, at this level with people and I think teams move faster when that level of trust allows, you know, removes a lot of the tension in the friction when you have as much of that trust as you possibly can.

Loyalty becomes a little bit more natural and not a forced fake loyalty. And at this level, you could start to get people to protect the mission of the team.

Like it was their own mission.

All right. So if we recap these five, okay, level one is reliability. Do you do what you said that you that you were going to do?

Can I trust you at that level level two truthfulness? Can I believe what you have to say?

Do you keep it real? Do you tell the truth?

You know, level three competence. Can you actually deliver? Do you got the skill set to back it up?

Level four emotional trust is it safe for me to be real here? Can we be real with one another?

And level five reciprocal trust we witness together or not at all?

Trust isn't going to be built by a title that you have. It gets built by behavior in relationship in the trust that gets earned over time.

Every level compounds and builds you into the next level. You can't skip steps. You can't fake the climb. We can't jump up.

You know, levels we got to just climb on one level at a time with people and with our team and build those levels of trust and relationships that allows great teams to exist and continue to win.

Appreciate you guys as always. Thank you. Thank you for joining on another episode of the grind cast. Get ready to new day.