26 GERMINATION.CA SEPTEMBER 2018 WHAT’S THE MOST important thing needed to bring comfort to your employees? Stability, salary, a safe workspace? Wouldn’t it be easier to just say “trust?” It means different things to different people. One thing’s for certain: without trust, it’s hard to create and sustain a successful business environment. “One breach of trust, and what happens?” asks David Horsager, a best-selling author and CEO of the Trust Edge Leadership Institute. “You never ask again. A lack of trust is the biggest expense you can have. Everything of value is built on trust.” Horsager presented at the Independent Professional Seed Association (IPSA) annual confer- ence earlier this year. “Trust is a confident belief in a person, product or organization,” says Horsager. “When I can confidently believe in you, everything changes.” But how, as a seed company, do you build that trust? Employees in all sectors want to trust their leadership. Horsager, who invented the Enterprise Trust Index and conducts a yearly Trust Outlook, said research shows employees would be willing to work longer hours, be more loyal or even take a pay cut if they could just trust their leadership. “Trust is earned,” Horsager says. He narrowed trust down to eight pillars, as defined below. Clarity. The first pillar is clarity. Horsager wrote in his book The Trust Edge: How Top Leaders Gain Faster Results, Deeper Relationships, and a Stronger Bottom Line that people trust the clear and mistrust the ambiguous. “Around the world, people think they’re clear when they aren’t,” he said. A clear mission can unify the entire operation. Compassion. “People trust those who have intent beyond themselves,” Horsager said. “That’s why ... the most trusted person globally is actu- ally Mom.” Horsager’s book fleshed out this concept. “Never underestimate the power of sincerely caring,” he writes. “It is the reason we trust our moth- ers over some salespeople. We are skeptical if the salesperson really has our best interests in mind.” Character. “The leaders who have this pillar tend to do what’s right over what’s easy,” he says. Character is a mixture of integrity (being the same from beliefs to words to actions) and moral character (taking the high road in every interaction). Competency. “You can have character, but if you don’t have the competency for it, I don’t trust you.” To be competent in something, Horsager says you must stay fresh and relevant. Farmers aren’t look- ing to businesses with products that haven’t been updated in 20 years. They don’t trust outdated products. Commitment. “People trust those who stay committed in the face of adversity,” Horsager says. Think about some of the most trusted leaders: Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington and Ghandi. Followers trusted them because they could see their commitment to the greater good. Connection. It’s all about col- laboration. When companies col- laborate, news ideas are combined, rather than competing against each other. “We’ve got to be better at con- necting and collaborating if we want to be around in the new economy,” Horsager says. Contribution. “The first word to actually come out of this research funnel was ‘results,’” says Horsager. “If you don’t produce results, then I can’t trust you.” Consistency. Consistency in a business is how trust is built and how character is revealed. To illustrate this, Horsager pointed to McDonald’s. Even if McDonald’s isn’t your favourite restaurant, you can drive to any McDonald’s across the country and eat the same hamburger. “We trust the sameness,” he says. By using all eight pillars, busi- ness leaders can gain a leg up on the competition because employees will work harder and better due to their faith in the business. In an era where people primarily communicate by email and text, trust can be harder to come by. Alex Martin HOWTOACHIEVE TRUST David Horsager, CEO of Trust Edge Leadership Institute.