Stephen M.R. Covey: How High-Trust Leaders Get Better Results in Life and Work

In this episode of the Franklin Planner Podcast, host George Wright III welcomes esteemed guest Stephen M.R. Covey, a global authority on leadership, trust, and organizational performance. Covey discusses his legacy of timeless principles in leadership and trust, stemming from the influential teachings of his father, Dr. Stephen R. Covey. The conversation delves into the importance of trust as both a social virtue and economic driver, emphasizing the concept of ‘Smart Trust’ as a strategic and calculated way to build trust in teams and organizations. Covey outlines his ‘Five Waves of Trust’ model, which starts with self-trust and ripples out to team, organization, marketplace, and societal trust. He shares practical daily actions such as identifying high-leverage behaviors, declaring intentions, and being more trusting to help individuals build self-trust and improve their leadership. The episode is packed with actionable insights aimed at helping listeners lead their lives more effectively by prioritizing trust and integrity.

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Episode Timeline

00:49 Stephen Covey’s Background and Legacy
02:07 Foundational Principles of Leadership
07:08 Building Trust in Organizations
10:56 The Economics of Trust
18:46 The Ripple Effect of Trust
25:49 Building Self-Trust
26:48 The Power of Small Commitments
30:45 Common Behaviors That Break Trust
36:22 Extending Smart Trust
41:01 Daily Actions to Build Trust

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Episode Transcript

George Wright III: Okay, welcome back to the Franklin Planner Podcast. My name is George Wright III. I’m your host. My cohost, John Harding, is not with us today, but we have an amazing guest, and I’m so excited to be able to welcome Stephen M. R. Covey. How are you doing today?

Stephen M. R. Covey: Hey George, I’m doing great, and I’m excited for our conversation.

George: Yeah, it’s difficult to get a gentleman of your caliber, and obviously long history and legacy, so I’m excited. We have a lot of great stuff to talk about, but just for everyone that’s listening that might be new to even some of your books, let me give them a quick introduction and background on you and then we can kind of dig into it.

Introducing Stephen M. R. Covey

[00:01:00] So for those of you listening, remember this—you know, the whole point of the podcast is to help you to lead your life. And we have someone that has a true legacy of timeless principles here with us. Stephen M. R. Covey’s a global authority in leadership, also in trust and organizational performance; he’s known for transforming individuals and companies by building credibility and accelerating the results. So as a #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Speed of Trust, which actually sold two million copies—or more now, I guess—and also Trust & Inspire, he’s a great author, but he’s also the former CEO of Covey Leadership Center, which is the largest leadership development firm in the world, as well as cofounder of FranklinCovey’s global “Speed of Trust” practice.

So as a global speaker and advisor to Fortune 500 companies, governments, and high-growth organizations, he has got quite a heavy pedigree, but he’s also the son of Dr. Stephen R. Covey, who we talk about all the time here on the podcast with Franklin Planner. So I’m [00:02:00] really super excited to have you here and I do appreciate you taking some time ‘cause I think we have some really good foundational stuff we can lay.

So maybe what you could do for our listeners is lay a little bit of the foundation, because you grew up around one of the most influential leader-thinkers of our time. And so how did that upbringing, and kind of your early career, lead you to the stuff that we’re talking about today on trust and leadership?

Son of Dr. Stephen R. Covey

Stephen: Yeah, well, again, it’s great to be with you, George, and of all the things you mentioned in the introduction, the thing that I’m most proud of, of course, is that I am the son—one of the children of­—Dr. Stephen R. Covey. And his influence has been profound on my life, both as a parent but also really as a thought leader, including some of these principles that you talk about here on this Franklin Planner podcast, of leading your life and, you know, don’t just schedule your priorities [00:03:00] but, you know, don’t just prioritize your schedule—make sure you also schedule your priorities.

George: Yeah.

Stephen: With those first rocks, you know, those big rocks in first, ‘cause if you don’t, then you’ll get filled up with all kinds of other things. So this is kind of what I grew up with.

George: Yeah.

Raised on The 7 Habits

Stephen: It was all around me, and my dad used to always teach us kids, you know, the different principles in each of the 7 Habits. And we were the first guinea pigs, I like to say. He tried us first. And if it worked with a bunch of kids, then it’s gonna work with other people. And they were all taught individually before he put ‘em all together. You know, where he’d teach “Begin with the End in Mind” as a separate principle. And then he’d teach “Put First Things First” as a separate principle, and then teach, you know, “Seek First to Understand, then to Be Understood”—that’s Habit 5—as a separate principle. So we kind of grew up hearing the principles and learning them from my dad, and also my mom, but then over time [00:04:00] he put ‘em together as seven habits with this leading your life being really at the heart of it, of the Private Victory. So it’s kind of what I grew up with and what I learned firsthand, saw it modeled, and it was really extraordinary.

Begin with the End in Mind: An object lesson

He was trying to teach us kids the idea of “Begin with the End in Mind.” So he took us to a building that was already built and, you know, there was the whole family, so there was five or six of us there. I remember being, maybe, ten or eleven at the time. We got on top of this building. He had an architect with him, and then he said, “Okay, kids, look down below.” We looked down from this building—it was like a fifteen-story building—and there was a big hole in the ground. And he said, “You see that hole? A year and a half from now, there’s gonna be another building that’s actually a couple stories taller than the one we’re standing on now. That building has already been [00:05:00] built mentally on a blueprint.” And then he had his friend, the architect there, with a blueprint that, you know, showed us these plans. He said, “So that building—this is ‘Begin with the End in Mind’—that right now we’re standing on a building, but there’s a hole there. But a year and a half from now, you’re gonna see a building where there’s a hole. And that building’s already been built. The end in mind has been built on this blueprint.”

And then eighteen months later, we came back to that same site. And we looked, and there was the building now that’s a couple stories higher than the one we were on. And he said, “What did I tell you? Here it is.” That was his way of teaching both “Begin with the End in Mind,” Habit 2, but then also “Put First Things First.” You know, you carry out your plan, you carry out your blueprint, and you build it and create it. He did fun, practical things like that to teach us kids these foundational principles of time and life management and leadership.

Timeless lessons, timeless principles

George: That’s crazy [00:06:00] ‘cause there’s so many principles actually in that, right, that he could have just told you about it, he could have even showed you a couple things, but to have the blueprints, to show before and after as well. But I can imagine that a lot of people that know these principles, they know ‘em in a book. They know ‘em as a system of habits, but they don’t gain that perspective of it actually being a true principle that was learned and taught in the family and outside that and then put together, and it shows the timeless principles—of how timeless they are, right?

Stephen: Absolutely, that they’re principles, so they apply everywhere, but they’re timeless. They applied when I was a young eleven-year-old hearing this story from my dad, they applied today, and they’re gonna apply in fifty years from now. They’re universal, principles that are timeless.

George: Yeah.

Stephen: Now, how we apply them can be timely.

George: That’s true.

Stephen: The timely application of timeless principles is the idea. They are universal and they apply [00:07:00] everywhere.

Stephen’s Path to Studying Trust

George: So you had all of this backdrop and framework and I’m sure many, many lessons, and I’m sure we’ll hear some of the stories. What made you decide to sort of hyperfocus, I guess if that’s what you’d call it, into this area of trust and of that particular topic? You are now multiple author, very well known, and so I’m curious what— Was there a point at time that you kind of went down this path specifically, or did it just evolve over a period of time?

Stephen: A little bit of both. Honestly, it evolved in the sense that I was drawn to this kind of work, focusing on principles of leadership and human effectiveness. So I was drawn to that, but at first it was a little daunting to— You know, when I’ve got my dad, who wrote the 7 Habits, and he’s this, you know, global thought leader of enormous stature, and I have his name. It’s a little daunting, a little scary to—

George: I’ll bet.

Stephen: —do what he’s doing.

A start in business

So I went down into the business side of it, [00:08:00] and that’s where I focused on learning how to sell and lead and manage, and then I ultimately became, you know, the president/CEO and ran the business, built the company to go all around the world. And that was really tapping into a lot of my strengths. But then at some point, though, when we did the merger of Covey Leadership Center with Franklin Quest to form FranklinCovey—two great organizations, fabulous people in both organizations, great values—but we had been archcompetitors.

George: Uh-huh, that’s crazy.

Divisive, low-trust culture

Stephen: They put us together and at first, there was kind of lower trust—not that we were bad people, there were great people on both sides—but we’d just been competing in the marketplace.

George: Yeah.

Stephen: And we’re kind of almost at each other’s throats for years, and now we’re combined. And so the trust wasn’t as high initially. And we began to see that without that trust, nothing was happening. And we were kind of divided into camps, kind of a “we/they,” and that we needed to change that and get that. And so, we began to work on building greater trust [00:09:00] with each other in this merger to get the value of the merger and to create the synergies that we wanted.

“Trust matters”

And as we began to focus on intentionally building trust, we actually did; we moved the needle, and the trust went up. And when we built the trust, suddenly everything changed. We were more creative, we were more innovative, we’re more collaborative. We moved faster, less cost. We started to get the results that we were seeking with the merger, the synergy. And that was exciting. And so I kinda came away from that whole experience saying, “My goodness. Trust matters, and it matters enormously.” We’ve always known it, but I think we’re underestimating how important trust is. Maybe by a factor of ten, maybe by a factor of a hundred. It’s that important because it changes everything.

And the second insight was, “And look, you can build trust on purpose. You can build it intentionally. You can get good at this.” We just did; we [00:10:00] went from low trust to high trust because we learned the behaviors that help build it. And I walked away from that holy experience saying, “I think I just found what I want to talk about.”

George: It grew right out of a need, obviously, which is where some of the best principles grow out of, and it’s interesting to me because especially right now in the marketplace, it’s so crowded, it’s so busy—relationships, business, and personal—and so trust is one of those things that cuts through the noise. But it may also be, and I’m sure you’ve found this over time, it may be something that seems very ambiguous to someone.

The Economics of Trust

So when you said it’s something we can grow—and, you’ve said in your books, measure, you know, economically as well as measurements—help me understand and help our listeners understand how you see trust, how you define trust in an individual and organization and how it’s possible to make it tangible or have it be something that’s not just this ambiguous concept.

Stephen: Yeah. Well, it starts first with kind of the overall framing to [00:11:00] recognize that trust is not just a nice, soft, nice-to-have social virtue. It is a social virtue.

How speed and cost determine the trust tax

But it’s also a hard-edged economic driver. Here’s why. Because it always impacts two outcomes: speed and cost. And when trust goes down in any relationship or team or culture, you’re gonna find that the speed goes down with it. Everything’s gonna take you longer to do, and the cost goes up. Everything costs you more to do, a lot more. Now, that is a tax; it’s a low trust-tax, it’s a wasted tax. Our distrust is very expensive. So I just invite our listeners and viewers, just think about a person who you work with and who you don’t trust. How long it takes to do anything. How everything slows down, costs you more. That’s a tax, it’s very real. It’s playing out everywhere.

But the good news is the converse is equally real. And when that trust goes up in the [00:12:00] relationship, on the team, in a company, in a culture, with clients, partners, customers, marketplace—when the trust goes up, the speed goes up with it; we can do everything faster, a whole lot faster, and the cost comes down. It costs us less, a lot less. And you can ultimately quantify this. Now that is a dividend, a high-trust dividend. And so just kind of recognizing the economics of trust, impacting speed and cost, and then quantifying it with actual data and then finding examples and stories—and more than anything, I could just actually have people tie into their own experience.

George: Yeah.

“A performance multiplier”

Stephen: When there’s trust in a relationship, or on a team, or in a company. When there’s not trust in a relationship, or on a team, or in a company, or between teams, or with partners. And the difference that is so night and day, so stark, suddenly you begin to reframe trust, not just as social, but also as economic, [00:13:00] as a performance multiplier and as an accelerator. So that’s the first thing is kind of framing trust for what it really is. A performance multiplier and accelerator always impacting speed and cost.

George: Yeah, I think that’s an amazing way to get people to change their paradigm, how they see it, right? Because at the end of the day, when you can see, for sure, speed—I mean, this whole economy, marketplace, lives that we live now, are all built around speed. But trust seems to go down because we’re moving so fast, we’re not thinking about it. But when you see it as speed and cost and the economics of things, I think whether it’s an individual team or whether it’s a relationship or at an organizational level, there is now something tangible. People can actually see how it’s impacting you to not have it. And your example of the two companies coming together is a very tangible example. I think that happens, I think, in a lot of business nowadays; things are moving towards collaboration versus competition, and trust is at the center of that, it sounds like. [00:14:00]

Stephen: It really is the foundation of collaboration, of partnership. If you don’t trust each other, you’re not collaborating. You might be coordinating, which is fine, but your performance is nowhere near potential. But real, creative collaboration, innovative collaboration—that requires trust, and real partnership requires trust.

Trust pays dividends

So it’s the heart of what needs to happen today. And the data on this is overwhelming. I just cite two studies. One is Watson, that shows that high-trust organizations outperform low-trust organizations by 286 percent in total return to shareholders.

George: Wow.

Stephen: Nearly three times higher. ‘Cause they get far greater speeds, far lower costs, and ultimately you can monetize that. And another study shows a very similar thing, done by the Great Place to Work Institute, where they measure those hundred best companies to work for. And to be on that list, you have to have high trust. It’s actually two thirds the criteria. The idea is that, what is [00:15:00] the defining characteristic of a great place to work? It’s mutual trust. Where employees trust management, management trusts employees; it is a symbiotic process. Well, those organizations, in a twenty-seven-year study that they continue every year, outperform the market by 350 percent.

George: Wow.

Stephen: Three and a half times higher. So I look at it this way: high trust is a performance multiplier. I have about 3X.

George: Wow.

Stephen: Whereas low trust is a destructive tax that diminishes, dilutes you, at every gate. So getting good at trust has economic value.

George: Yeah.

Stephen: As well as all the social outcome, the positive, the— what it does to energy, and to joy, and to wellbeing. It’s a better culture to have trust. People are happier, it’s more fun, and they have greater wellbeing. That matters, but it’s the business case that often gets [00:16:00] people’s attention. And it can get better performance and outcomes, and it’s really both the economics and the culture, the wellbeing, the energy and joy.

Trust (or distrust) are always at work

George: Yeah, it’s interesting how the economics do get a lot of attention. The bottom line is, I think a lot of people don’t realize the impact it may be having, whether you consciously think “I want to do something about building trust in my organization” or unconsciously don’t, it’s happening. It’s either taking away from your organization or it’s slowing your organization regardless; whether you intentionally build a foundation of trust in your company or you have it as just some esoteric identity that you want to have, I think that it’s definitely impacting organizations whether they like it or not. Wouldn’t you agree?

Stephen: Absolutely. These principles are operating, whether you like it or not, whether you’re aware of it or not.

George: Yeah.

Stephen: They’re operating there, and if we’re behaving in ways that cause trust to go down, then we will pay a tax. You know, it doesn’t show up conveniently on the income statement as low-trust [00:17:00] tax. But it’s in there, in the form of redundancy, bureaucracy, disengagement of people, turnover of people, churn, customers, fraud, all kinds of ways. It’s in there.

Put on the Trust Glasses

And once you start to look at it—I call it putting on the trust glasses. I went fly fishing on a river and there were fish everywhere. My guide said, “There’s fish everywhere,” but he was wearing polarized sunglasses. I didn’t have any, so I couldn’t see the fish, I just saw the river, and then he said, “Here, put these on.” So I put on the polarized glasses, and suddenly I could see the fish, and they were everywhere. They were all around me. Now the interesting point, and this is true to what you just said: the fish were there all along. I just couldn’t see ‘em until I put on the glasses. I couldn’t see them, didn’t mean that they weren’t there. No, they were always there. But it took me putting on the glasses to see, to recognize what really was happening. I like to say a similar thing: “Put on the trust glasses.”

George: Yeah.

Stephen: ‘Cause it’s happening, whether you can see it or not. [00:18:00] It’s there. And if you can become aware of it, conscious about it, if you can see it, then suddenly you’re inspired to wanna work on it and to take steps to build that trust, because you recognize it’s impacting everything. So I like to give people a pair of trust glasses.

George: That’s a great example. Oh man, I love that, that’s a great analogy, and it’s a great example ‘cause people can relate; it’s there all along.

How to Build Trust

So I’m curious, what is—and you can kind of go whichever direction you want with this question, but—what is the way that you begin to build high-value trust? And maybe this leads you into your “5 Waves of Trust,” but at the end of the day, I would love for you to kind of break down for our listeners, or our watchers on YouTube: what is it that you feel like it takes to begin to build this high level of trust?

From the inside out, not the outside in

Stephen: Yeah. Trust always begins from the inside out as opposed to outside in. So inside out means I look in the mirror. [00:19:00] I start with myself. Outside in, I look out the window and everybody else and point the finger and say, “They need to change,” you know, “he needs to change, he needs to change, they do, and the system, the structure.” That might be true, that people need to change, but how we’re gonna bring it about, how we’re gonna develop it, grow it, transform it, is to always start from the inside and then move out.

The 5 Waves of Trust and the ripple effect

So inside out, and I use a metaphor of a ripple effect where, you know, you got the drop of water coming down, and then it hits, and then the ripples, the waves, they start at the inside and they ripple out. So the very first wave of trust, where it all begins, is self-trust. That’s, you know, do I trust myself? And do I give to my team, my partners, a person who they can trust? Is it smart to trust me? So I start with myself—self-trust, both the trust I have in myself and the trust others have [00:20:00] in me—but then I ripple out into my relationships. That’s the second wave, one by one. And then you build that relationship trust. But you can see why you gotta start with yourself because—

George: Yeah.

Stephen: If you don’t trust yourself, you’re gonna project that distrust onto others, into relationships. So, start with self, then relationships, then it ripples out in the next wave, which is our team trust. Now this is going from “me” to “me and another”—and several others—to “me and an organized entity,” a team, an organization. And so that team and organizational trust is the next wave that we focus on, building the trust there. We then move to the fourth wave, which is now marketplace trust, you know: customer trust, stakeholder trust, building that trust externally outside of the organization.

The first three waves, we were building it internally, inside of the organization, and then we move from that fourth wave, from the customer and market trust to [00:21:00] societal trust, building trust in communities, in all society. And we ultimately want to ripple out to that, ‘cause that matters too.

George: Yeah.

Stephen: And so, you know, we look at it right now, it’s a low trust world we’re operating in, so at the societal level, there’s low trust everywhere, and if we say, “Well, look, until that changes, we can’t build trust,” we’ll be waiting a long time.

George: Yeah.

Stephen: We’re not taking action on this.

Self-Trust Comes First

But instead, if we go inside out and say, “I’m gonna look in the mirror, and I’m gonna ripple out first starting with myself,” I’m gonna become a leader who people can trust; I’m gonna build that trust one-on-one and relationships, and I’m gonna build it on my team, and then between teams that we interact with, and then in our organization, then we’ll ripple it out to our customers and partners, and then we’ll ripple it out to all society. So diagnose from the outside in, but change, develop—

George: From the inside out.

Stephen: From the inside out.

George: Well, and that’s gotta be— It’s gotta be very powerful for, or empowering, for people to feel, ‘cause a lot of people see trust as “Do I [00:22:00] trust them?” or “Can they trust me?” but they don’t start from the inside, so I think that’s very empowering, for people to think, “Hey, listen, your level of influence and trust comes from the inside out.” And so from an individual level, it seems like the most logical place to start. Especially if you’re dealing— even if, let’s say, there’s a lot of people that are dealing with people in their workplace they don’t trust, people in their relationships or in their life they don’t trust; they generally will start to focus on that first, but what you’re saying is it comes from the inside out.

Stephen: Yeah. And again, I’m not naive and blind to the fact that you may not trust that person, and that person may not be trustworthy and have problems, but the better way to do something about it—impact that, change that, solve it—is not to just point the finger and say, “Hey, you’re the problem, and until you change, we’re never gonna build any trust around here.” That might be true that they need to change, but the way we’ll influence that, help it come about? Let’s model.

George: Yeah.

Stephen: Let’s go first. Let’s look in [00:23:00] the mirror. How credible am I? How trustworthy am I? Am I not only trustworthy, but am I also trusting, willing to give that trust, to extend it? And by going inside out, you just have greater impact, not only on others, but also even on yourself. And like you say, it’s empowering. To say, I don’t have to wait on everybody else.

The ripple effect in action

And so I’ll give you just a quick example of this with— I worked with an organization that, they were doing— they were okay on trust, they weren’t great, they weren’t horrible. But we worked with a leader inside of her team, and rather than pointing the finger and saying, “Well, we’re gonna need the boss to change and this and that,” this leader just took the initiative or the responsibility to say, “I’m gonna lead out with this.” And she modeled it. She modeled the behavior that built trust. She modeled the credibility, and she built it one-on-one, then she built it on her team, and her team became a high-trust team. And they began to interact with other [00:24:00] teams, but in a different way than they ever had before, ‘cause they built such high trust, and it became part of how they viewed the world in interactions as they collaborated and partnered with other teams internally.

And it began to impact these other teams of saying, “Hey, what are you doing? Because this is great. This is working. You’re great to work with.” They saw it, and then their engagement scores, her engagement scores, were off the charts. So her performance was high. Her engagement was high. People loved working with that team because they were so good to work with. They built trust. They started to ask about it, and other teams would start to ask about it. “What are you doing?” “Well, we’ve learned how to build trust.” “Could you teach us how?” They began to teach them how, and they began their own inside-out, five-way processes starting with their teams.

It ultimately spread from this one team to multiple teams, and then ultimately those teams spread it up, to their leader, because their leader began to see the [00:25:00] power of this; they saw it in the performance of this team, but also the impact they were having on other teams, and people came to the leader and said, “We need this for the whole company.” Ultimately, the leader said, “We need this for the whole company.” And they took Speed of Trust to 45,000 people and gave them a common framework, language, and process. And some of ‘em might say, “Well, I wish we had a CEO like that. They had the vision.” And I said, “It didn’t start with him.”

George: It didn’t start with him, yeah.

Stephen: It started with this person working in her Circle of Influence and rippling out and then up, and ultimately it went, impacted everyone. So don’t underestimate the power of modeling this from the inside out to impact not only you and your team, but also other teams, and ultimately even, perhaps, an entire organization.

The importance of self-trust

George: Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, the obvious is that people say, “Listen, trust is something you can work on, on an internal personal level,” but for individuals even trying to lead their [00:26:00] life, there’s this self-trust piece that’s starting, right? How do individuals trying to lead their life— How does building credibility with yourself—your habits, your commitments, your values—translate into greater confidence and productivity in things as well? Because I would imagine a lot of people dealing with a lot of things right now that wanna influence their teams and organizations, but on a personal level, that lack of self-trust? That’s gotta really … manifest in a lot of areas in your life as well, right? As an individual level?

Stephen: It ultimately manifests in every area. And especially right now with all the change and disruption hitting us, and AI and all these things, it’s really important that we have a sense of clarity, and a sense of changelessness in the midst of all this change. And that’s what self-trust can do. And it’s so powerful. So—I’ll never forget this—one time I gave a presentation on The Speed of Trust, and at a break—I’d just done the 5 Waves of Trust— At a break, someone came up to me and said, “Hey, [00:27:00] Stephen, this is really helpful, because— Look, let me just talk openly with you.” And then he kind of pulled me aside.

George: [Laughter] Here we go.

Stephen: No one was hearing. He goes, “I’m not happy with my life. I’m not where I thought I’d be. I thought I’d be in a different place in my career. I thought I’d be a different place in my family. I’m not. And I realized now, when you put up the 5 Waves, and this ripple effect, this inside-out approach, I realize what my problem is.” He said, “I’ve been blaming everyone my whole life. I’ve, you know— My first job, I can’t trust my boss, so I get another boss. Can’t trust this boss. So I leave the company, go to another company. Can’t trust that boss. Can’t trust the management, can’t trust this. My whole life I’ve been pointing the finger: ‘I can’t trust anyone.’ And then I go home, and I can’t trust my kids, can’t trust my spouse, can’t trust my neighbors. When you put up the 5 Waves, I realized what my problem is.” And then he kind of made sure no one was looking, and he said, “Stephen. I don’t trust myself.”

George: Oh, wow.

How to Build Self-Trust

Stephen: “I don’t trust [00:28:00] myself, and I realize I’m now—I now realize, I’m projecting that distrust of myself out onto everybody else. So what do I do?” And my advice was, “I would focus on starting by learning to make and keep commitments to yourself.”

Make and keep commitments

See, it’s interesting, George. There’s behaviors that build trust. The research shows the number one behavior is to keep commitments with another person. Make and keep commitments. So you make a commitment, you keep a commitment with another, and the trust goes up. You make another commitment, you keep it, repeat that process. Make, keep, repeat; make, keep, repeat. You can build trust with others very fast that way. Well, guess what? That’s also the fastest way to build it with yourself.

George: Yeah.

Self-respect and integrity

Stephen: ‘Cause we often don’t treat a commitment to ourself with the same respect that we treat a commitment to somebody else. And we overpromise and [00:29:00] underdeliver to ourselves. We say, “Yeah, I’m gonna get up at, you know, at five tomorrow to go exercise.” And then the alarm goes off and we turn it off, go back to sleep. [Laughter] You know, little things, little things! Learn to make and keep commitments to yourself, and as you do that, a greater sense of integrity, clarity, and power starts to come to you.

Small but mighty

I like how Admiral William McRaven—

George: Yes—

Stephen: He was the commander of Special Operations, and I worked with him when he was there, and, you know, elite fighting forces—and then when he retired, he became the chancellor of the University of Texas system, and he gives this commencement address that goes viral.

And he said, “Graduates”—you know, college graduates, now graduates—”if you want to change the world, make your bed.”

George: I know, isn’t that crazy? That’s amazing.

Stephen: Yeah, his whole idea is, start with a small commitment that you can make and keep to yourself, and then keep it at all costs. And then go from that commitment to the next commitment to the next commitment. What happens is, your sense of clarity, of [00:30:00] integrity, of power, begins to grow, that self-trust grows.

Self-trust is the gateway to trusting others

And when that’s in place—that you trust yourself because you’re a person of character, you’re a person of competence, and you focus on your character and your competence, your credibility—then your sense of clarity and power grows with that, and then you begin to build trust with others and in relationships on teams and cultures. But it’s always inside out. And it starts with our self-trust, which is really our credibility, our character, our competence; focus there, the best behavior I know to do it.

George: Yeah, and it’s amazing to me how much we tend to underestimate the power of little things, and we’re overwhelmed by the big things, and so these little commitments to ourself make such a big difference.

Causes of Broken Trust

So, tell me, from your perspective, from your teachings and trainings, what are ways that people tend to break trust? Because I think that’s another perspective to look at, where we might be struggling with things on our teams or in our [00:31:00] lives, but if there’s things that we’re doing that are breaking down trust, those behaviors—which of those have you found to be the most common, and what were your thoughts on that?

Thirteen high-trust behaviors: Common sense, but not common practice

Stephen: Yeah. Yeah, well, as I mentioned, I’ve identified thirteen high-trust behaviors, and there’s research and data behind all thirteen and how they work collectively and individually. And these are straightforward things like Talk straight. Demonstrate respect. Create transparency. I phrased them in two-word expressions for simplicity and clarity. Clarify expectations. Practice accountability. Listen first. Keep commitments. Extend trust. So, kind of straightforward. In a very real sense, they’re almost common-sense behaviors. So, the behavior is common sense, but it’s not common practice.

The opposite of high-trust behavior

See, so—I’ll use Talk straight as an example. The authentic trust-building behavior means, “I tell the truth.” That’s what “talk straight” means. [00:32:00] “I tell the truth. I use simple language, I’m honest, I call things what they are, I’m candid.” Candor is the language of trust. So, telling the truth builds trust. Now the opposite of that behavior, the opposite of talking straight, the opposite of telling the truth, is to lie. And that’s kind of self-evident that lying—not gonna work, at least not in the long run. You might get away with it upfront, but you can’t over time, and so the opposite—lying—will destroy trust. That’s self-evident.

The counterfeit of high-trust behavior

Here’s what I think is the more, the bigger challenge. It’s what I call the counterfeit behavior. See, counterfeit behavior is kinda like counterfeit money. It looks real, it might even work, but it comes at a price: trust goes down. So the counterfeit behavior is not the lying—that’s the opposite. The counterfeit is the spin. The embellishment, and the twisting and posturing and exaggerating—

George: Rationalizing.

Stephen: [00:33:00] Rationalizing, and it’s where you tell people what they want to hear, versus what the truth is. And I just was with a group two days ago in investment banking, and their whole approach is, “We don’t tell you what you want to hear. You may not wanna hear what we tell you, but you can trust what we tell you, because it’ll be true.” And so, it’s the spin. It’s that counterfeit that trips us up even more than the opposite, the lying, because it’s kind of self-evident. The lying’s not gonna work in the long run. But the spin?

George: It might even work in the short term, but it actually will count/work against you, right? In the long term.

Remember your reputation

Stephen: Yeah, it might work, you might get away with it, but when everyone’s spinning, you’re paying a tax, the spin tax, at every gate, and people don’t believe what they’re hearing from you. They’re saying, “Okay, well this is coming from Stephen, or from George,” and if we’re spinning, and we get a reputation that we always spin, then they hear it and they say, “Well, I’m not quite sure I believe it, though.” Because they see our track record. They know that we always spin, we always embellish, exaggerate, sugarcoat, [00:34:00] versus “I tell the truth. and I call things what they are.”

George: Yeah, it’s interesting— Go ahead, finish.

Examples of low-trust behavior

Stephen: With all thirteen, it’s a similar thing. “Practice accountability” means I take responsibility. The opposite: I say “not my fault.” The counterfeit: I point the finger and blame others; it’s their fault. You know, and, create transparency: I’m open. I let people see in. The opposite, I obscure. The counterfeit: I have hidden agendas, hidden objectives, hidden motives. So I really think it’s the counterfeit behavior is what trips most of us up, because most of us are not bad people trying to do bad things. No, we’re good people, but oftentimes we can be caught, in a culture of counterfeit behavior where everyone is sugarcoating, spinning, or finger pointing, blaming, or sweet-talking people to their face and then badmouthing behind their back, instead of speaking about people as if they were present, and so forth. That’s the idea.

George: I’m glad you made that distinction, because I [00:35:00] think in today’s world of social media and influencers, the buzzwords of “be real and authentic and raw” are thrown out there not with this true filter of trust involved, because I think being raw and speaking what’s on your mind is different than telling the truth, candor, and things like these, and so I love the idea of, and I love what you said with, you know, “These are common sense things. They’re just not common practice.” And when you don’t practice these, they will come back to stunt your growth, make you unhappy, unfulfilled; this is why many of the challenges our listeners are facing— a lot of them, no matter what it is—depression, anxiety, self, you know, worth, confidence—can come back to this inner-trust wave, the first starting point, at some level, whether it’s individually or with teams or organizations and others.

Delegation and Trust

I wanted to ask you one question, because I think on a tangible level, there are a lot of leaders listening to this and that we work with at Franklin Planner, that, [00:36:00] they say things like—and you’ve probably heard this a million times—“You know, it’s hard for me to delegate and give trust because I wanna make sure it gets done right. I— you know, and sometimes I’m afraid that will impact me and my organization.” And so what do you say to someone like that where they sort of fear that extending trust will hurt them?

Acknowledge the risk

Stephen: Yeah. Two things. First, you do acknowledge that to trust is to take a risk. But also be aware of this: not to trust is also to take a risk. In today’s world, where we’ve gotta move fast, where we need to attract talent and retain it, and inspire people or else they’ll leave and go elsewhere, they have choices, they have options—with these younger generations coming up that don’t wanna be commanded and controlled in how they do things—to not trust, I think, is becoming the greater risk.

Not trusting may be the greater risk

So, you acknowledge that, yeah, it’s a risk [00:37:00] to trust, but the risk of not trusting is perhaps greater. But then you wanna mitigate that risk by saying, “What if we extend smart trust, not a blind trust that’s just indiscriminate, but a smart trust that blends my propensity to trust flowing from my heart with my analysis and assessment flowing from my head about what am I extending trust on, what’s the risk involved, what’s the credibility of the people involved, and then I kind of tailor it—to the person, to the context, to the situation.

George: Oh, good.

Stephen: So it’s not, “I trust everyone all the same on everything.” No, it’s, “I’m trying to extend as much trust as I can to this group or to this person,” and given this context, this risk situation, their credibility, where they’re at, I can go further or maybe not quite as far yet, but I wanna get farther, so I’ll start ‘em here, and I’ll say, “Hey, I’m gonna extend this trust to you, and I’ll extend more and more to you as you show, you develop these capabilities, ‘cause my goal is to expand, extend, abundant trust to you.” So I move them [00:38:00] along a continuum, help ‘em do more. And so it’s not a blind trust, it’s a smart trust.

Clarify expectations and practice accountability

But also, I would say this (see, this is three of the behaviors, three of the thirteen): extend trust, which is what we’re doing, but then do it with two other behaviors as part of that extension of trust: clarifying expectations, and practice accountability. So what I do is I build an agreement together with the person around the trust being extended, saying, “Look, I’m gonna trust you to lead this team, or to lead this project, or to work from home, or to do this. So, let’s go over the expectations.” Around desired results, outcomes, you know, and I’m trying to delegate outcomes, not methods.

Allow room for creativity

So I let them be creative, but— you know, because otherwise they could fall into the activity trap where I said, “Hey, I did what you told me to do, it didn’t work! I’m not responsible, you are!” You know, no. I wanna delegate outcomes. What is it that we’re after? Results, outcomes. And then I have guidelines, [00:39:00] within what limits, whatever the parameters, so that people don’t draw way outside the line and get us in trouble, and then I talk about resources: What do you have to work with? The financial, people that can help you achieve it.

Keep the focus on the results

But I’m really empowering them around, “Here’s the results we wanna get.” But then we also—that’s clarify expectations around the outcomes, and the parameters, and the resources—but then we add the second behavior to go with that, which is: agree to a process of accountability against those expectations, of how they’ll report back on how they’re doing against this, and what are the implications of achieving or not achieving the results. And that way the person feels empowered, they feel trusted, but you as a leader have not lost control. You shift the control from you having to hover over and micromanage them to the agreement, the control.

George: And more trust is built by doing it that way.

Trust is a two-way street

Stephen: You build a lot more trust because when you trust people, they trust you [00:40:00] back.

George: Yeah.

Stephen: When you don’t trust people, they tend to not trust you, too. So by building this agreement with the person, you involve them in the agreement, you build it together. So rather than dictate the agreement, it’s “Let’s build this together.” So there’s buy-in, there’s commitment; and then in the accountability, have them lead out in reporting back to you on how they’re doing on an agreed-upon timeline, versus you just trying to micromanage. They feel trusted, not micromanaged, but you as a leader have not lost control.

George: Yeah, and you still have maintained some level of control for yourself. I think it does, it goes right back to this communication and candor that you’re talking about. Instead of just doing things. When you open up a dialogue and you talk about the fear and of the risk that may be taken, but you can set the parameters, communicate it, and have accountability.

Well, I tell you, we could go all day, but I know we both have a very tight schedule here, so I want to get to this last question for you, ‘cause I wanna respect your time, and we had kind of [00:41:00] a hard stop.

Three Steps to Increase Trust

From an individual basis, Franklin Planner’s mission—Franklin Planner mission overall—is to help people lead their life, whether it’s a team or an individual level. And so, with regards to this amazing notion of “it starts with you,” could you recommend two or three daily actions or things that could dramatically help increase the trust that people are experiencing but also having with themselves? You probably have your own daily rituals or habits, but—these are things a lot of times at the end of our podcast, we’ll leave our listeners with a challenge; maybe this is something like that, but—what would you recommend for individuals listening to this episode in order to be able to build high trust in their life, which will definitely impact them?

Stephen: Yeah, great. Here’s three things you can do right away.

1. Start with yourself

First, focus on yourself, focus on your credibility, and your behavior. And identify high-leverage [00:42:00] behaviors where maybe you could get better at—and that could be keeping commitments, it could be clarifying expectations, it could be listening first—but the whole idea is that trust is built from the inside out. But how? Through your credibility and through your behavior. And behavior’s, really practical and tangible. so you can say, “You know what? I’m gonna make sure that I’m always gonna be more transparent. Transparency builds trust, creating transparency. So I’m gonna be open and transparent in what I’m doing, or I’m going to focus on really clarifying expectations with my team so that it doesn’t feel arbitrary or capricious.”

George: Yeah.

Choose a high-trust behavior to work on

Stephen: “I’m coming in later, I gotta get better at that.” Or, “I’m gonna work on listening first, because I too often listen with the intent to reply, not with the intent to understand.” So, I’d identify, you know— My first step would be, focus on yourself by identifying a behavior or two that you could work. You could take it from the [00:43:00] thirteen.

George: Okay.

Stephen: So you could google “The 13 Behaviors of High-trust Leaders” and say, you know what? You’re gonna get these instantly. They’re intuitive, they’re self-evident, they’re common sense. Make it common practice. Get really good at a couple of those that you say, “This would be high leverage for me.” That’d be the first step.

2. Be transparent

Here’s a second thing: Get really good at declaring your intent. And that means that you share not only what you’re doing, but share why you’re doing it. Always give the why behind the what. Because, when you do that, people will interpret you differently. They’ll see you differently. So if you need to talk straight to someone and tell ‘em hard news, make sure up front you say, “Hey, my intent here is to help, not to hurt.” And, you know, and so I’m trying to say— I’m giving context to what my agenda is, what my motive is. And it is not a hidden agenda, it’s an open agenda. I’m transparent, there’s nothing to hide. Transparency builds [00:44:00] trust. Authenticity, vulnerability, builds trust. So a great practice of being vulnerable, being transparent, is to declare your intent—

George: Intent.

Stephen: —meaning give the why. Here’s my agenda. Here’s my motive. It’s not a hidden agenda, it’s an open agenda. Team—

George: Love it.

Stephen: —here’s what we’re trying to do, here’s why we’re trying to do it.

George: Love it.

Give people the “why” behind your actions

Stephen: When you give the why, people interpret you differently. They’ll see you differently. When you don’t give the why, when you don’t declare your intent, people will ascribe intent to you anyways.

George: Yes. Yeah.

Stephen: They’ll do it from their vantage point, and often it’s fear based. “I wonder if they’re bringing this in ‘cause they wanna replace us with AI.” They start to bring things, you know—

George: Yeah, yeah.

Stephen: —they start to read things into it out of fear. And at best, it’d be guessing. My rule? No guessing. Declare your intent.

George: Yes.

3. Be more trusting

Stephen: And finally, third step. So the first step was, you know, you model the behavior, you become more trustworthy. But this last step, I’m gonna [00:45:00] say, not only be trustworthy; focus on being more trusting. Find ways to extend more trust, where you can lead out in extending more trust to others. Why? Because when people are trusted, they tend to be inspired by it, and they rise to the occasion; they perform better, and they grow and develop.

Give trust to receive trust

So you’ll get better results, better outcomes, you’ll grow the person more, and guess what else? They reciprocate and return and give it back to you. I’m not saying to blindly go out and trust everyone, no. Target it, you know, but find ways that you can extend more trust to people as a means of both performing better and developing the person. They’ll perform better, which helps you perform better—but also, developing the person, they grow and develop, they can perform better in the future because of that.

But also, they trust you more because you’ve trusted them. You went first in not only being trustworthy, but also in being [00:46:00] trusting. And we need leaders to do both. Someone needs to go first. Leaders go first. They go first in leading their life, which is what the Franklin Planner’s all about, and they go first in being trustworthy and in being trusting. We need both, we need to do both.

George: Yeah, I love it: Identify the behavior, declare your intent, and be more trusting. I think that’s amazing ways for people to be able to focus on doing this.

Conclusion: Why manage your time when you can lead your life?

Now, one of the things I wanna do in this, so if you’re listening to this: I will put links in the show notes to Stephen’s books so that you’ve got that and some notes on the things that we had here. I’m also gonna get them links to be able to connect with you, ‘cause I think that would be helpful for them to learn and grow and get more additional— But once again, I just wanna express my gratitude for you taking time, not just because of your background and your amazing content, but your ability to interact and your true desire to help individuals—and like our mission, lead their life with more trust—comes back to a more [00:47:00] fulfilling life as well. So I appreciate you being here.

Stephen: Absolutely. I’m excited to be here, George, and I love your focus on— Really, what the end goal of what you’re doing with Franklin Planners is “Lead your life.” I remember we had an early statement where we would say this: “Why just manage your time when you can lead your life?”

George: Yeah.

Stephen: And I know to get you— we need good time management.

George: Yeah.

Stephen: That is an important principle, but the broader principle is leading your life, which includes good time management. So we, you know, prioritize our schedules, and we schedule our priorities.

George: Yes.

Stephen: Good time management is part of it, but the broader, overriding principle is “Lead your life.” And that’s beautiful, what you’re doing, and I think that trust is the foundation of a life well led. That you trust yourself.

George: Yeah.

Stephen: Start with that. You will lead your life so much better, which will then help you lead your relationships, and your team, your [00:48:00] organization, and have an impact on all society.

George: Wow. Beautifully put, beautifully put. Well, listen, if you’re listening to this episode, do us a favor, share the episode. And just remember, no matter where you’re at, what you’re doing, it’s never too late to start living the life you’re meant to live and creating the life that is gonna be your best life.

We appreciate you spending time here today with Stephen M. R. Covey. I’m George Wright III, your host. Have an amazing day, and we’ll talk with you soon.

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Thank you for joining us on this Journey to create your best life and to lead your Life and Teams. Please share this show, and we look forward to the journey we will take together.
The Franklin Planner Team

About Guest:

Stephen M.R. Covey is a bestselling author, speaker, and leadership expert known for his work on trust, ethics, and high performance, particularly his book The SPEED of Trust, which frames trust as a crucial economic driver, not just a soft skill. He’s the former CEO of Covey Leadership Center, instrumental in making his father’s 7 Habits famous, and now leads FranklinCovey’s Global Speed of Trust Practice, advocating for “Trust & Inspire” leadership over old “Command & Control” methods. 

Guest Resources:
Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/StephenMRCovey
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephenmrcovey/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100029016867179
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-m-r-covey-6400191a5/

Other Useful Online Links
• Personal / Project Website: Trust & Inspire — https://trustandinspire.com/
• Insight Out Show
• Professional Site: Speed of Trust — https://www.speedoftrust.com/