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Structure of this Website Lecture 6 : Trust and the dilemmas of rationality and freedom The learning objective is to provide materials to help readers appreciate the importance of trust for effective leadership actions. Charismatic leaders can presented as achieving power and influence through gaining unconditional trust of followers. The trust effectively provides a way for followers to suspend freedom of thought regarding the legitimacy of the leader’s intentions and proposals. Such trust offers protection from anxieties of identity and existence. Despite the dominance exercised through charismatic leadership, the general dynamic is not completely stable. In everyday life, trust is often mapped as ‘fragile’ and open to break-up (betrayal). This is a meta-stable state in which the fragmenting happens in a ‘catastrophic’ way. Perceptions may rapidly tip from ‘hero to zero’. Leaders who believe in a trust-based style also accept that they have to grant follows permission to act without direct leadership control. This leads to a dilemma of granting power to others if the leader wishes to exercise more direct control over them. Trust-based leadership facilitates and invites change rather than directing it. Box 6.1 sets a challenge for readers to assess the way trust is involved in leadership processes. |  |
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