Polices, Rules & Company Trust: Does Your Company Trust You?

Posted By:  Stuart Andrews: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuandrews/ 

The Leadership Capability Architect™ | Author -The Leadership Shift | Architecting Leadership Systems for CEOs, CHROs & CPOs | Leadership Pipelines • Executive Team Alignment • Executive Coaching • Leadership Development

A company doesn't write rules because it's disciplined.

It writes them because it stopped trusting people to get it right.

Because that's what a policy usually is. A scar from the last time trust broke.

We read a thick handbook as the sign of a serious operation.

Layers of approvals. Sign-offs. Sensible-sounding process.

Most of it isn't order. It's fear that got organized.

It's the extra approval step that appeared after one person messed up once.

It's the form you fill in to prove you did the job you were hired to do.

It's the policy written for one bad actor, now slowing down everyone who wasn't.

It's needing sign-off on the exact decision you were trusted with last year.

The more rules a company writes, the less trust it has.

Every new rule buys you a little control and costs you a little ownership.

Stack enough of them and you get a team that follows instructions perfectly and stops thinking entirely.

Compliant. Slow. Quietly checked out.

Next time you're about to write a rule, ask what broke the trust that made it feel necessary.

Fix that, and most of the rule disappears on its own.