Andrew Rondeau

Andrew is the owner of this website and has been a Leader, Manager, Coach and Consultant for the last twenty-five years.

Managers Build Trust And Respect By Letting Go

By Andrew Rondeau
Published 06/19/2008

You are the manager. You are the big boss. You have more stripes than the others do.

That means, as the big boss when you attend meetings and other attendees are less senior, you maybe restricting the thinking, the talking, the debate.

Photo courtesy of Digital Sextant

Why?

Just because you are the big boss.

This may not be your intention but just because you are there, others will act differently.

As the most senior person at the meeting, others will look to you for the ideas. They will expect you to have the ideas. That will restrict their thinking.

Have you attended a meeting recently and you are the most senior person in attendance?

Have you noticed how others tend to talk to you or look at you to see your reaction to what is being said?

Next time you attend a meeting, watch the body language, watch how people behave in front of you.

Moreover, if you do have ideas, others will naturally follow you, agree with you because you are the big boss.

They may be afraid not to follow you, not to agree with you.

Others may think they are being outspoken if they disagree with you. They may think it may harm their career. They may think you will no longer like them or build a grudge against them.

You may be the best manager in the world, not hold grudges against others, want others to speak out and share their ideas and don’t care if others don’t agree with you.

However, no matter how you behave, no matter how you manage, others will naturally ‘hold back’ on their talking and input.

Build trust by not attending.

Trust others to raise great ideas, action plans and agree the way forward by not attending the meeting in the first place.

Others will see you as trustworthy and that builds your respect.

It also allows you to spend time on other activities.

Don’t you go to too many meetings anyway?

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2 Responses to "Managers Build Trust And Respect By Letting Go"

Mike King

said this on 10 Jul 2008 10:06:43 AM EST

Great tip Andrew! I agree this is a powerful message to your team in trust and it does help them express themselves more willingly when you are not their. A critical part of this however, is to ensure you accept those ideas after wards as well. It does no good if you trust them to meet and come up with their own ideas if you replace them or shoot them down after wards anyway. You need to be willing to accept what they come up with.

(Reply to this comment)

Andrew Rondeau

said this on 11 Jul 2008 5:07:27 AM EST

Mike,

You make a great point. You must accept their ideas otherwise all trust will just be lost.

Do you have any examples of where this has worked?

Andrew

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