James E. Lukaszewski is widely known as America’s Crisis Guru. He offers the following timely advice about reputation and trust and the role each play in ensuring organizational success.
I’ve always thought that the whole notion of reputation was more a Public Relations construct than a management concern. Leaders care about trust.
During my nearly 40 years in reputation, leadership and organizational recovery I can’t recall a serious discussion of reputation in a management circumstance by those running the business until just before they were about to lose or see their reputation seriously damaged. Public Relations advisors rather than business operators raised the issues.
Trust is a powerful management term. I define trust as the absence of fear. I interpret fear to mean the absence of trust. Trust is a management word; trust is a powerful cultural word. Trust is a word that has its counterparts in virtually every culture on the planet; and trust is understood clearly and immediately by just about everybody. Generally it’s mom who taught us about trust, so we remember.
Chief Executives of troubled organizations don’t lose their jobs because there’s a reputation problem. They lose their jobs because there is a trust problem, a failure to provide the assurance that prevents the fear of serious adverse circumstances. If we’re talking seriously about our relationship with constituents, stakeholders, employees, the public, anyone who has a stake in our organization for whatever reason, we’re talking about trust.
Reputation? We’ll need to call the PR department for the latest definition.
This is an excerpt from the second of our three book Trust, Inc series.
James E. Lukaszewski (loo-ka-SHEV-skee) is widely known as America’s Crisis Guru. He is a speaker, author (12 books and hundreds of articles and monographs), lecturer and ethicist (co-chair of the PRSA Board of Ethics and Professional Standards).
For more information about our programs and how your organization can elevate trust, visit www.trustacrossamerica.com
Copyright 2019 Next Decade, Inc.
I’ve long held that the opposite of trust is fear. I also believe that trust isn’t lost in an instant. Reputation is.
If we act and lead our lives in an honourable and trustworthy way, then even if our reputation takes a hit, it will rebound. We’re seeing that play out in real-time right now.