621: Rachel Botsman - Being Comfortable with Uncertainty, Giving Trust Before It's Earned, Being on Time, Giving Great Keynotes, & How To Trust and Be Trusted
Feb 10, 2025
auto_awesome
Rachel Botsman, a leading expert on trust and author of three bestselling books, dives deep into the dynamics of trust in today’s world. She emphasizes the importance of leading with trust, arguing it fosters a highly attractive team environment. Botsman discusses mastering public speaking by engaging the audience and overcoming nerves. She also highlights how consistency and punctuality build reliability in relationships. Lastly, she advocates for a holistic hiring approach that values character as much as competence.
Skilled leaders thrive in uncertainty by embracing negative capability, fostering innovation, and motivating teams to accept change.
Trustworthy leaders combine integrity and competence, effectively communicating their decisions while understanding their impact on teams and stakeholders.
New leaders can earn trust by demonstrating confidence and humility, engaging in proactive risk-taking, and embracing a culture of collaboration.
Deep dives
The Importance of Comfort with Uncertainty
Skilled leaders demonstrate a significant comfort with uncertainty, allowing them to thrive in unpredictable environments. This ability, known as negative capability, enables them to navigate unknowns without the need for rigid scheduling or guaranteed outcomes. Leaders who embrace uncertainty are often characterized by their aptitude for taking risks and exploring new opportunities, which can propel their careers forward rapidly. By fostering an environment where ambiguity is accepted, these leaders can drive innovation and motivate their teams to embrace change.
Building Trust through Integrity
Integrity is identified as a key trait shared by trustworthy leaders, serving as a crucial element in their decision-making process. Trustworthy leaders clearly communicate their interests, intentions, and the rationale behind their choices while understanding how their decisions impact their team and stakeholders. Additionally, trustworthy leaders possess the competence necessary to follow through on commitments, which complements their integrity and bolsters their reliability. This dual focus on character and capability allows leaders to cultivate deeper trust with their teams.
Accelerating Trust for New Leaders
New leaders looking to earn trust quickly are encouraged to demonstrate both confidence and humility. Engaging in proactive risk-taking and showing a willingness to learn in unfamiliar situations enhance their reputations among team members. Asking interview questions about experiences of being a beginner can help identify candidates who appreciate the importance of humility in leadership. By embracing these qualities, new leaders can foster a culture of trust and collaboration, quickly integrating themselves into their teams.
The Role of Consistency in Trust
Consistency is vital for establishing and maintaining trust, as it helps reduce uncertainties associated with expectations over time. Leaders who consistently show up on time and follow through on commitments signal reliability, mitigating the cognitive load for their team regarding trust. However, while consistency diminishes the need for trust in specific actions, it simultaneously strengthens the overall trust in the leader as a person. Thus, demonstrating consistent behaviors reinforces trustworthiness and enhances team dynamics.
Hiring for Character and Competence
The hiring process should prioritize both character and competence to ensure the selection of leaders who exemplify integrity and reliability. Organizations are encouraged to develop interview processes that assess traits such as empathy and integrity in addition to expertise. Focusing on the holistic context of candidates, including references and past performance in various settings, can lead to better hiring outcomes. This multifaceted approach not only improves recruitment success but also builds stronger, more trustworthy teams.
This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. www.InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader
Rachel Botsman has become an expert on trust in the modern world. She’s written three books: What’s Mine is Yours, Who Can You Trust, and How to Trust and Be Trusted. Her TED talks have amassed over 5 million views. And she teaches at Oxford University’s Business School where she created pioneering courses on trust in the digital age has become an expert on trust in the modern world. She’s written three books: What’s Mine is Yours, Who Can You Trust, and How to Trust and Be Trusted. Her TED talks have amassed over 5 million views.
Notes:
Trust is being comfortable with uncertainty.
Capability and Character - Assholes are capable people with low character.
Demonstrate the ability to take risks. Confidence in the unknown. Healthy challenge and push mentality.
Trust willing – Lead with Trust. Make the trust wager. What’s the best way to earn someone’s trust? LEAD with trust. Trust them first. This also creates a highly attractive company or team. Don’t you want to attract highly trusting, capable people? The best way to do that is to lead with trust.
Be more trust willing. Lead with Trust. Jim Collins story. Make the trust wager. You don't have to earn it, you got it.
Willingness to be a beginner. Be curious. Look stupid at first. Those are good qualities in a leader.
For keynote speaking:
Share your expertise, but don't seek approval
Share your stories, but don't look for validation
Share your passion, but don't perform for the applause
Don't sell from the stage. Don't show your book. Don't give your resume.
Honor the present. If you’re running a meeting, start it on time. Honor the people who showed up on time. Leaders who are overscheduled… It’s usually their fault and it comes from ego. If you’ve hired a capable team, then you don’t have to be in every meeting. Also, if you’re always late, you aren’t reliable. And that becomes part of your reputation. That’s not something we want to be known for.
How can people trust you if you're always late? They won't. You aren't reliable if you're always late. Reliability is a big part of your reputation. It can become the thing you're known for. That's bad.
The power of consistency: Intensity makes a good story. Consistency makes progress.
Consistency builds trust.
Leaders who are overscheduled have a problem they've created for themselves. It's usually from ego.
Interviewing leaders for jobs. High character is a must. We can teach capabilities later.
Paul Simon's audiobook with Pushkin is awesome.
Rachel's five principles for trust:
Competence: Having the skills, knowledge, time, and resources to do what you say you'll do
Reliability: Being dependable and consistent in your actions
Integrity: Being honest about your intentions and motives, and ensuring your words and actions align
Empathy: Caring about others' interests and how your actions affect them
Consistent action: Earning trust through how you show up, set expectations, and deliver acts of caring
Life/Career Advice:
Don’t get boxed in too early and grow a career based on being able to tell people at parties that you work at a prestigious company.
Look for great teams and great bosses. The industry doesn’t matter as much as the people. Culture is everything. People are everything.
And then when you’re younger it’s helpful to be a generalist. Know a little about a lot of things. But as you get older, it’s useful to become a specialist at something. Become an expert. Go deep on a topic. This is similar to what Mike Maples Jr said on episode #619.
Get the Snipd podcast app
Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
AI-powered podcast player
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Discover highlights
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode
Save any moment
Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways
Share & Export
Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more
AI-powered podcast player
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Discover highlights
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode