Competence Contributes to Trust

Trust in business and in life is everything!

In a previous blog, we referenced that trust starts with ourselves, our character, who we are being and how we are showing up. This building of trust continues with understanding how competence comes into play when we are showing up, when our behaviour matches our intention, and our focus is on creating and giving value to other people.

As Zig Ziglar famously quoted “...You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want”.

We all have natural skills and abilities, and it is up to each of us, how we leverage these skills and build on them to achieve the life we want. We are either green and growing or ripe and rotten because there is always something to learn, it makes no difference whether you are twenty or seventy, learning and building on your competence will keep you young and more aware of opportunities to contribute to yourself and to others.

We are the average of the 5 people we hang out with.

Competence is made up of our capabilities and the results we achieve in business and life. In his book, The 5 Levels of Leadership John Maxwell outlines that a level 3 leader is one who people want to follow because of what they have produced and the results that have been achieved. We are the average of the 5 people we hang out with, so if we are hanging out with people who are focused on producing results, then we will also eventually produce results. The opposite can also be true, the choice is ours to make.

Building our capability means acknowledging the skills we have, building on these to gain the ones we want, applying the knowledge we have in making great decisions that our future self will thank us for and utilising all of this to create an experience through application and sharing with others. We learn more when we teach others than just gaining knowledge.

We cannot manage what we cannot measure

Results are about credibility, they are the fruits of our labour, and they come from the roots of our character. Past, current, and future performance will influence the results we can achieve, how we measure results will give us the evidence that we are heading where we want to go. We cannot manage what we cannot measure, therefore measuring, recording, and communicating results is imperative.

Here are 3 ways you can build on your competence and be trusted:

#1. Leverage your strengths to achieve your purpose and goals

Simply start with identifying your strengths, whether they be talents, attitudes, knowledge, technical skills, or your own personal style. Focus your energy on what you already have and when you are clear on who you want to be and what you want to achieve, identify what strengths you need to build on. Is it more technical skill, different attitude, mindset or increased knowledge in a particular area of business or life?

#2. Be a lifelong learner

We stop learning when we die, whether we realise it or not. Learning keeps us young, decide now to keep learning, and do this in a proactive way by seeking out what you want or need to learn. I decided in my 40s to prove to myself I could get a university degree. It took me 5 years and I learned how to learn. Start with a book, a webinar, engage a coach or do a program, as it is all learning.

#3. Take responsibility

The key to success is taking responsibility for the results you want to achieve. When we take responsibility for our results, we release our own creativity as to how we can achieve them, opening avenues of possibilities because if something does not work one way, we can try another way. Testing and measuring is a great approach to use when aiming to achieve results because there is no such thing as failure only feedback.

We build trust and credibility as leaders by leveraging our capabilities and achieving results. Think of the branches and the fruits of a great tree. The branches are the capability of the tree to produce the fruit which is the result. When we produce results as leaders others will want to follow and we can then help others be the best they can be.

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