02 Feb Reasons Why I Would Lose Trust In You
Original Spanish version published in El Comercio newspaper (Peru) on April 02, 2016
- If you started bragging about how cunningly you had duped others, and thought that morality was just for some and ethics for “squares”, I would immediately lose trust in you.
- If I discovered that you had faked any information, “stretched” the truth, or, even worse, hid it, especially if this truth was key in making decisions about or assessing important situations, I would certainly lose whatever trust I had in you.
- If you kept quiet about some important information that you should have shared (and I wouldn’t accept “you didn’t ask” as a valid excuse), or if you held back any information to have a bit of power over others, well, now you know why I wouldn’t trust you.
- If you lied in your professional or in your personal life, even if it was something small or apparently unimportant, I would lose trust in you just the same.
- If you thought that you were very clever and tried to turn things around to pass off your weaknesses as strengths, as if you could fool everyone all the time, who would trust the quality of your work or of your services? Certainly not me.
- If you were always finding fault in everyone else and you didn’t give any constructive advice or help, only gossip or slander, if you thought that your power lay in destroying reputations just for the sake of it, neither I nor anybody else would trust you.
- If I found out you were bad-mouthing me behind my back or were using my name for your own personal benefit, how could I trust you?
- If you’d already lied in the past, denied the undeniable, and kept at it with a grin on your face, no way would I ever trust you again, even if I didn’t have another choice with whom to work or for whom to vote.
- If you didn’t deliver, didn’t honor your word, or failed to keep your commitments, we clearly couldn’t trust you, now or ever.
- If you oversold yourself or pretended to be something you weren’t, if you tried to pass yourself off as the seventh wonder of the world, overstating your virtues or accomplishments –with nothing to substantiate them– or if you weren’t transparent about your past, I would certainly lose trust in you.
- If you lost your temper or threw a tantrum all too easily, to everyone’s amazement, or worse, in an attempt at manipulating us, I would certainly lose trust in you in this case as well.
- If you stole, took what was mine without my permission, if you plagiarized something, well, we know what would be in it for you.
- If you didn’t practice what you preached, changed opinions, parties, or allies like the wind, as per your convenience, or if you kept quiet at meetings and reserved your opinion, but later expressed it openly and negatively by the water cooler, how could I trust you?
- If you tried to bribe authorities –or recommend that I do it–, thinking that this was the best or more efficient way or “the only” way of achieving things, I would never trust you again.
- I you used the power you had only to serve your agenda or for your personal benefit, forgetting that your power should be used to serve others, I would lose trust in you forever and you would never be able to win it back.
Winning other people’s trust and being worthy of it is so important in life and at work that I find it hard to understand why it matters so little to some!
