Yes, Hillary Clinton is “Dogged by Trust Issues” according to several recent polls including this one reported in Investor’s Daily. Hillary even has her own long-term personal “trustworthiness” graph as published in the Washington Post, and she has called for a restoration of trust among Americans.
Trust, trust and more trust. One would be hard pressed not to agree that “trust” is a central theme in this presidential contestant’s campaign. But should it be?
Emphatically NO! Not in Hillary’s campaign, nor in any other politician’s.
At a minimum starting point, trust requires:
- Character, competence and consistency. Many politicians, including Hillary, possess the competence component. It’s the other two that are usually lacking.
- Trust is built over time and in incremental steps. It’s not a campaign platform nor a short-term PR strategy.
- Finally, there is the question of whether one can separate professional trustworthiness from personal. The answer is a simple “No.” Either one is “holistically” trustworthy or they are not.
Given these foundational prerequisites for trust, there is not a single politician that should ever utter the word “trust”, let alone call for its restoration or use it to get elected.
But the most important reason for politicians to drop the word trust is found in our two-party system where the “trust” prerequisite for presidential candidates does not even exist. Democrats and Republicans alike will vote for who they view as the “best” candidate, regardless of how trustworthy they are, or claim to be. “Best” is defined not by level of trust, but rather by how the voter thinks the candidate will benefit him/her the most, or how big a cut of the pie will come the voter’s way.
So my advice to Hillary and all her opponents would be to drop the word “trust” from all future speeches, articles and campaign platforms and focus on being politicians, what they actually “do” quite well. Be honest about who you are. Leave the word “trust” to those who have a genuine interest and “pure” motive to improve it for the long-term betterment of society.
Barbara Brooks Kimmel is the Executive Director of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust, and runs the world’s largest membership program for those interested in the subject. She is also the editor of the award winning TRUST INC. book series and the Executive Editor of TRUST! Magazine. In 2012 Barbara was named “One of 25 Women Changing the World” by Good Business International.
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