What happens when an organization wants its employees to take responsibility, communicate openly and work together, but the people inside the organization do not really trust each other? Leadership development cannot be separated from the relationships between Leaders and employees. A person may have the knowledge and ability to take responsibility, but if they believe that their decisions will not be trusted, their ideas will not be heard or their mistakes will be used against them, they may choose not to take the risk. Trust therefore affects the way people communicate, cooperate, make decisions and take responsibility.
Trust does not mean that everyone agrees with everyone else or that Leaders should stop checking what is happening. It means that people can express their ideas, ask questions, disagree, admit difficulties and take responsibility without constantly being afraid of the reaction of others. A Leader who wants employees to take initiative needs to give them real responsibility. An employee who is given responsibility needs to understand what they are responsible for, what decisions they can make and when they need support. Trust is built through these everyday interactions, not simply through a statement that says, “We trust our people.”
This is where the TRU-GUT Method can bring a practical approach to organizational development. Instead of treating trust, cooperation or responsibility as ideas that employees simply need to learn, a TRU-GUT program can create situations in which people have to practice them. Employees may need to work together to solve a real problem, divide responsibilities, make a decision, negotiate different opinions or complete a task without one person controlling every step. Leaders can also be given the opportunity to step back and allow their teams to make decisions. These experiences can show how people actually communicate and cooperate when they have a common goal and real responsibility.
However, there is an important practical problem that any program for organizations needs to recognize: time. Businesses have deadlines, customers, financial pressures and everyday problems that cannot simply be put on hold. Leaders may understand the importance of developing their people but still struggle to find the time for another training session. Employees may want to develop new skills but still have their daily responsibilities to complete. For this reason, Leadership development should not always be treated as something separate from everyday work.
TRU-GUT programs can use real situations that already exist within an organization. A team may need to solve a problem, improve a process, organize a project, deal with a communication difficulty or make an important decision. These situations already require people to communicate, cooperate and take responsibility. Instead of creating an artificial exercise, TRU-GUT can use the situation itself as an opportunity for development. This makes the experience more relevant because employees are not discussing an imaginary problem. They are working on something that actually matters to them and to the organization.
This also changes the role of the Leader. The Leader is not simply participating in another training activity. They can observe how their team works, how responsibilities are shared and where they may be taking too much control. They can ask themselves whether they give employees enough space to make decisions, whether they listen to different opinions and whether they allow people to learn from mistakes. Employees can also reflect on their own behaviour and consider whether they communicate clearly, take responsibility, support others and contribute ideas when they are needed.
Reflection is important because experience alone does not automatically lead to development. After an experience, people need to consider what happened, what worked, what did not work and what they would change the next time. This can be done without turning every situation into a long training process. Even limited time can be useful when the experience has a clear purpose and when people can immediately connect what they have learned with their everyday work.
This is the direction I would like TRU-GUT Method programs for organizations to take. They would not replace existing HR or professional development practices, nor would they ask organizations to take their people away from their work every time they want them to develop. They would create meaningful opportunities for Leaders and employees to practice communication, cooperation, decision-making and responsibility through situations that are relevant to the organization itself.
The goal is not to create perfect Leaders or to make every employee responsible for everything. It is to help people understand what they are capable of doing, what they need to improve and how their actions affect the people around them. A strong organization needs results, but it also needs people who can work together, take responsibility and trust each other enough to contribute.
TRU-GUT therefore brings Leadership development closer to everyday organizational life. The question is not only how much time an organization can give to developing its people. The question is how the time and situations it already has can become opportunities for people to develop.
Trust does not mean that everyone agrees with everyone else or that Leaders should stop checking what is happening. It means that people can express their ideas, ask questions, disagree, admit difficulties and take responsibility without constantly being afraid of the reaction of others.