Berger Leadership Blog

David Horsager spoke to NAFCU Annual Conference attendees on the “trust edge.” (Harrison McClary photo)

At NAFCU’s Annual Conference this past June, attendees heard from author and business strategist David Horsager on the importance of trust. His main point was that trust is the foundation to a healthy, successful organization. In fact, he said “the biggest expense” today’s businesses have is a lack of trust.

I was reminded of Horsager’s speech recently when I read an article by Marcel Schwantes, the principal and founder of Leadership From the Core, about the one behavior that makes good leaders into great ones. Can you guess one that one behavior is? That’s right. It’s trust.

Schwantes cites Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Places to Work For list. He says the research on those 100 companies shows they all have leaders who do things time and time again that “correlate well with leadership trust behaviors,” including:

• keeping lines of communications open;
• sharing their vision for the future with employees;
• offering employees ample opportunities for training and development; and
• constantly listening and responding to what they hear from those within their organization to meet their needs.

“There is an absolute ROI when organizations invest in creating a high-trust culture,” Schwantes writes. “These factors ultimately lead to a competitive edge and enable companies to quickly bounce back from challenging situations.”

I’ll leave you with Horsager’s advice to all those in attendance at NAFCU’s Annual Conference: “You want to change one thing in your credit union this year; it has got to do something with trust.”

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