In times of uncertainty, using self-awareness and strategic foresight to buold trust

Abstract

The conventional method of gathering followers' perceptions of a leader is through a 360 degree survey. In times of uncertainty and with the rapid pace of change affecting businesses today, a leader does not have access to a 360 degree survey tool that would indicate whether their followers' perceive them to be trustworthy. Followers are not only employees, but partners or stakeholders. Surely, another method must exist in gathering real time information that would inform a leader of whether they are being perceived as trustworthy. This qualitative research study used a semi-structured interview process to interview fourteen business leaders in South Africa. Exploring the possibility of using selfawareness with the applicability of strategic foresight as tools to gather real time feedback, and build trust to lead effectively in times of uncertainty.The results of this study indicated that leaders do not prefer 360 degree feedback tools. The leaders prefer to use continuous conversations as a method to interact with followers, to gather real time feedback on whether followers perceiving them to be trustworthy. A new model introduces a process to help leaders and future leaders was then developed.