What if building trust isn't a "soft skill," but the strongest leadership strategy you could develop?
In Lead with Trust, leadership expert and HR executive Bart Spence reveals a simple but powerful truth: the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our leadership and results. Drawing on more than two decades of real-world experience-from boardrooms to ballfields-Spence offers a practical, human approach to leading through trust.
At the heart of this book is The 9 Principles of Trust, an experience-tested framework brought to life through storytelling, humor, and hard-earned lessons. You'll discover how trust is built in everyday moments-keeping small promises, listening without fixing, leading with vulnerability, and showing up when it matters most. Complementing these principles, Spence introduces the "Trust Metric," a comprehensive and innovative framework designed to evaluate the trustworthiness of individual leaders, assigning a measurable trust score while also outlining a clear, actionable pathway for strengthening trust across key areas of leadership. Lead with Trust shows how trust-centered leadership can: Boost morale and engagement through psychological safety and honest communication.Reduce turnover while strengthening performance.Strengthen company-wide relationships at every level between leaders and teams.Repair broken trust after missteps without shame or defensiveness.Develop confident, authentic leaders grounded in integrity, vulnerability, and consistency.