Why leadership is based on trust.

Trust (n): Firm reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of a person.

"Trust is at the core of all meaningful relationships. Without trust there can be no giving, no bonding, no risk-taking."

---Terry Mizrahi, Director of Ecco (Education Centre for Community Organizations).

I have been reflecting a lot lately about the importance of commitments and building relationships from a professional point of view.

The subject is relevant to me because I work in "community organizing" and building coalitions between and within communities and development organizations and government agencies. When a community-based organization requests and receives funding support from an agency, both parties are building a relationship and a commitment is being made.

In my work I am usually in a position where I am asked to help an organization deliver on the commitment made to the funding agency, of course; but also to the beneficiaries of the project being planned or implemented. Project management requires a lot of communication and interpersonal skills to ensure everybody involved at a project is in the same page and that everybody knows what theirs and everyone's responsibilities are. Good communication in a project also requires everyone involved to be able to express what they understand the other parties are committing to do or be as part of the endeavor.

How many times have we been part of a project where not everyone knows what to expect from the others because some people have demonstrated to be unpredictable on when and where they will deliver the things they have committed to do or the role they have committed to be? I am trying to generate some practical discussion and ideas about effective communications in a project, and I also am interested in experiences from the field that can teach us, the less experienced people,t the importance of trust in the work you do.

---The quote at the begining of this entry comes from "the Art of Project Management" by Scott Berkum, well written book that examines the art of managing successful projects.