Trust in Entrepreneurship

Remember, back on February 3, 2009, we defined an entrepreneur as someone who undertakes an enterprise in an atmosphere of risk. Then on February 18, 2009, we revised the definition of an entrepreneur by substituting the words "a leader" for the word "someone" and came up with an improved definition: An entrepreneur is a leader who undertakes an enterprise in an atmosphere of uncertainty and risk.

Then, we found in John C. Maxwell's The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Follow Them and People Will Follow You, (Nelson Books, 1998) Maxwell's 6th Law of Leadership that says, "Trust is the foundation of leadership. See p. 55).

He expands this on p. 58:

To build trust, a leader must exemplify these qualities: competence, connection, and character. People will forgive occasional mistakes based on ability, especially if they can see that you're still growing as a leader. But they won't trust someone who has slips in character...Character makes trust possible. And trust makes leadership possible.

Steven M. R. Covey, in The Speed of Trust (New York, Free Press, 2006), spends a whole book talking about trust.

So trust is inextricably bound with leadership, and leadership with entrepreneurship. Therefore. Trust in inextricably bound to entrepreneurship.

In fact as we find out from reading Covey's work, trust is key in business dealings. One of the reasons we have the recession we have is because trust has been washed out of the system. Once gone, it takes a while to get it back.

For entrepreneurs to succeed, they must build trust. Trust with themselves, trust with their spouses and families, trust with their employees, trust with their customers, trust with their business partners, trust with his market, trust with the government.

We've spent some time with Ron Burt, Michael Gerber, Todd Duncan, John C. Maxwell. We're going to spend some time with Steven M.R. Covey looking at his work on trust. I hope you'll find it interesting and useful.

What do you think of this? The goal is to produce more, skilled entrepreneurs. Is this helpful? Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com.

Entrepreneurship is the life's blood of all my professional activities. It makes them go. It informs my connection strategy. For my ideas on connection strategy, go to my new blog www.Connecting.blogspot.com.

It makes my Your Stop for Real Estate , my real estate referral business go. See www.yourstopforrealestate.blogspot.com.

It makes my writing go. For my ideas on writing go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com where you can read my mystery for free, download it for free or buy it from Amazon.com more cheaply than you can copy it.

It makes my new publishing enterprise, By and for Writers go. See www.byandforwriters.blogspot.com where you can get a poem or a short story published.