This is the second in a series of I don’t know how many posts (here’s the first) about Stephen M. R. Covey’s The Speed of Trust book. So far, I’ve only read the part about the first “wave” of trust: self-trust. I made the point in the previous post that you might have to do a little bit of soul searching if you want to become a truly more trustworthy person. The first parts of self-trust are about integrity, congruence between what you say and what you do, what your real intentions are, etc.

But there are also behavior parts. Turns out that credibility is also enhanced by actually being capable–knowing your stuff, having competence. And it is further enhanced by actually getting results (no!). I’m being flippant about it, but I find these two are not always talked about. Trustworthiness tends to be a character attribute, almost divorced by family court decision appeals on the basics of effect from behavior or impact.

I particularly like these two as a member of Generation X. Gen X gets a bad rap for not respecting authority or people in leadership positions. I explain to people that it’s not that simple: Gen X will trust people in positions of authority, when they exhibit the behavior that backs up the promise of their title. Promises and ideals tend to mean less to Generation X than they do to Boomers. What I like about Covey’s treatment of the trust issue is that all of it is included. Generation X is not right or wrong to focus on the behavior component. They (we) are just providing a perspective and a piece of the puzzle.