Some members of our leadership team are highly protective of their intellectual turf and view any cross-departmental feedback as an attack. How do we lower this self-orientation and build actual trust using the Trust Equation?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

High self-orientation is the ultimate killer of trust on a leadership team. When leaders are focused on protecting their reputation, defending their headcount, or hiding their failures, they stop acting as a cohesive team and start running competing fiefdoms.

To lower self-orientation, you must introduce the Trust Equation, which defines trust as the sum of credibility, reliability, and intimacy, divided by self-orientation. To make a meaningful change, your team must practice vulnerability.

Start with your weekly Level 10 Meeting™. The first step is to change how you handle the Issues list. Ensure that issues are raised as company problems, not department problems. When an issue is put on the board, the leader who raised it must state the business impact, and other leaders must be allowed to weigh in without fear of defensiveness.

Next, model the behavior yourself. If you are the Integrator or Visionary, share your own failures and uncertainties first. If the leadership team sees you admit a mistake, it lowers the perceived risk of doing the same.

Finally, align your incentives. If your leadership team members are evaluated solely on their individual department metrics, you are actively encouraging high self-orientation. Shift their focus to company-wide goals and Rocks. When everyone wins or loses based on the V/TO® targets, the incentive to protect individual turf disappears. Encourage peer feedback during your quarterly sessions and make vulnerability a non-negotiable expectation for leadership.