This is the third episode in a six-part series examining The Five Essentials of Leadership. It focuses on the second essential: cultivating high trust.

Trust rests on credibility, which is a by-product of the first essential, Exemplifying Exceptional Character, the topic of our previous episode.

The host Dr. Mike Armour approaches trust as much more than merely a moral virtue. It's is a strategic advantage. In today’s hypercompetitive environment, agility, speed, and innovation determine who thrives. Trust is the multiplier that accelerates all three.

The episode introduces a distinctive perspective on trust-building. It shows how reciprocity is the engine of trust. In reciprocal relationships, trust grows when value flows both ways -- leader to team, team to leader, company to employee, vendor to client. Balanced value exchanges create fairness, stability, and mutual reliance, ideal soil in which trust can take root.

When trust is absent, Armour argues, organizations pay what he calls a "verification tax" -- the time, energy, and resources wasted verifying what could be taken at face value if trust were high. Endless verification adds drag and drains speed, he explains.

Eliminating that tax is one of the primary ways in which trust is a speed multiplier.

A PDF transcript of this episode is available at https://www.upsizeyourleadership.com/episodes. Find this episode in the date-ordered index and click on the link to download the script.

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