They lack the necessary technical and detailed knowledge, and often also the direct
access, if the employees work in virtual teams several hundred or thousand
kilometers away.
Again and again Sprenger has observed that managers, even though they violate
classical textbook knowledge or make management mistakes, get good results and
lead their company successfully, the reason being that their employees are willing
to follow them because they trust them. This means that these managers are
considered to be credible, predictable, straightforward and honest. Employees listen
to the manager and believe him or her. “The substantive message is preceded by the
trust message. As a filter, it decides whether the substantive message is heard at all,
and even more so whether it is also believed” (Sprenger 2002b, p. 50).
If trust has been established, people are willing to follow a person and to believe
in them, even if they do not always share their views. They forgive mistakes and
accept inconvenient measures. Trust creates a robust position for the manager,
because it requires the voluntary consent of the employees. If it is lacking, the
entire relationship between boss and employees will be missing something: each
well-intentioned act and positive intention will be suspected of being mere manip-
ulation and therefore become ineffective, strategies and policies fail.
2.3.3.4 What Is Trust?
According to Sprenger, people depend on one another at an existential level. Thus,
trust is a fundamental human experience beginning with the trust between children
and parents. Our working lives involve another kind of trust: as a social convention
of the society and as a choice. This kind of trust does not grow slowly on the basis of
many positive experiences. It is given consciously and in awareness of the risk
connected to doing so, and it must compensate for the impossibility of monitoring
everything and counterbalance our lack of knowledge about the other person or the
project. Sprenger defines trust as follows: “I am willing to refrain from monitoring
someone else because I expect that the other person is competent, upright and has
good intentions” (Sprenger 2002b, p. 66). Therefore trust enables us to act under the
conditions involving cooperation and uncertainty.
Trust – just like knowledge – is a resource that is not reduced by frequent use but
increases. The more trust is used, the more of it is created. This can be seen in
companies with well-honed official procedures, the constant exchange of benefits,
with expectations of the leaders that they make decisions, of the employees that
they implement decisions, and of colleagues that they be cooperative. According to
Sprenger, trust is an effective and indispensable means tool for organizations.
Sprenger feels that trust in itself is neither good nor bad; it is not a moral factor
believing in the good in the individual. It arises from rational consideration and
serves the reasonable principle of maximizing benefit: “We do not need to climb up
on the high chair of morality. Trust as selfishness is a more effective and powerful
strategy. (...) The smart egoist will always cooperate.” Investing in trust pays off
for the entire organization: companies that succeed in creating a culture of trust
94 2 Occupation or Calling: What Makes for Good Leadership?