Tag: reliability

The Importance of Being Reliable and Responsive to People

“It is important to be both reliable and responsive to the people you care about and even to those you’re just getting to know if you can do so.”

How many times have you sent a text or an email to someone thinking it was useful, humorous, thoughtful, or even just to reach out for it to have been received but not replied to? Chances are good it’s happened at least once if not multiple times to the people reading this article. It is one of the inevitabilities in life that not every text, call, or email will receive the attention it deserves and that’s alright as not everyone has the time or the urge to respond. However, when it’s a friend, family member, or a colleague, who you trust or respect or have some kind of relationship with, then it can be a real problem when your outreach goes ignored.

It is important to be both reliable and responsive to the people you care about and even to those you’re just getting to know if you can do so. Nobody’s perfect but you can really stand out nowadays in a good way when you’re willing to make the effort to respond to someone, to be relied upon and follow through, and to hold yourself accountable. These are qualities in a person that will always make you stand out in a good way because in our attention-deficit addled society, these kinds of traits are becoming less and less common.

Things happen in life such as emergencies, setbacks, and sometimes we just need a break from being plugged in to what’s going on with everyone else. It’s okay to take time off from reaching out if you want to focus on yourself for a while. If people try to reach out still, let them know though that you need some time away from the phone or the computer and if they really need you, indicate that it should only be for an emergency or an urgent matter. I don’t mind when people are unreachable but if there’s a lack of communication about why or for what purpose, it can cause some resentment and the fraying of the relationship or friendship in the long-term.

Nowadays, you can silent your notifications, put your away message up for colleagues to be aware of, or just simply turn your social media channels or phone off for a little while. You can be unresponsive and still be a responsible person in my view. What causes concern in my view is when you refuse to answer me when you read my message and wouldn’t give me any reason or indication of what’s going on. There’s a lot of talk about ‘Ghosting’ people today and I believe we are all guilty of ‘ghosting’ on each other at one time or another, but if it’s a recurring pattern, you really should think twice in how you act towards other people, especially if they value your feedback, opinion, or just want to see how you are.

Whether at work or at home or in ‘third spaces’ with friends or someone you’ve just met, remember to be responsive within reason because it’s about common courtesy not only regarding your time and effort but also of theirs for having reached out to you in the first place. It’s something we overlook but when someone is reaching out to you, they are first thinking about you and spending some time out of the millions of other things they could be thinking about to focus on you as an individual to some degree. It does not mean you need to spend a lot of your time but if you have the availability, it doesn’t hurt to give a simple response or at least let them know where they stand with you, whatever kind of relationship you may have with that person.

Whether it’s a co-worker sending you a message on Microsoft Teams asking for advice on a presentation, an elderly family member asking you to do them a favor regarding a health question, or a friend inviting you to their wedding or their birthday party, you do have a responsibility to be responsive. These situations I posed may not be urgent, but they are important, and to ‘ghost’ them is neither mature nor responsible. You have a duty not only to yourself in how you act but how you carry yourself with others.

At the end of your life, how do you want people to remember you? That’s part of why being reliable and responsive takes on such importance especially as you get older. People will remember in any kind of relationship that you have or had with them how you treated them, if you responded to them, and how much you invested into the relationship, whatever it may have been. Make sure to remember this kind of legacy that you’re building each time you answer that e-mail, respond to that voicemail, or send that text message out. The irony of our technological age is that we are connected by our devices but are as disconnected as ever regarding reaching out, making plans, and being reliable in how we present ourselves.

You can set the tone by being a reliable person who’s available and is reliable whether at work, at school, or at home. Be the person who can be trusted, who gets things done, and is able to follow through when you make a commitment to someone else. Sadly, being both reliable and responsive to other people is becoming rarer and rarer in my view. I believe you can have a lot of professional success and personal happiness if you are able to respond to others in a timely manner and be counted on when they need you.

Hopefully, they will remember you for what you did, how you acted, and how well you treated them. They won’t forget it and ideally, they will follow your lead by picking up those kinds of traits in response. Being someone who is reliable and responsive can have that positive effect on how others behave as well creating a good kind of ‘domino effect’ and improving people’s behavior in a family, in an office, or in a group. You do not have to be available 24 / 7 and nobody is expecting you to be doing so but it’s important to be willing to respond, to follow up, to check in, and to be present with other people whomever they may be and whatever kind of relationship you may have with them.

Trust Is The Foundation

“Trust is the bedrock that glues our society together. It is the foundation for which our relationships are built on.”

Without trust, there can be nothing. Trust is the bedrock that glues our society together. It is the foundation for which our relationships are built on. Once that bedrock is ruptured, it can never fully heal again. This is why we place such a high value on it because it can be hard to find or even replicate whether in business or in work or in our lives in general. We learn from a young age the value of keeping our word, being accountable for our actions, and being part of a team or a whole.

If we cannot make a promise, we shouldn’t keep it. We learn not to overpromise, undersell, or to bite off more than we can chew in what we can be relied upon for. Whether it is a secret between friends, a business deal that should remain private, or our duty to uphold a certain standard in our professional lives, the ideal of trust is at the center of how we are expected to act and behave. Trust can be earned over time and can take months, years, or even decades to build on it but while it is hard to gain trust initially, it can last a very long time with repeated adherence.

However, once the trust is broken between people or groups or societies, it can never truly be fully healed again as it once was. While verbal trust is a key part of our lives, we often go above and beyond to string together the bonds of trust more deeply. We shake hands to formalize a deal, sign the terms and conditions of an agreement, have legal papers, lawyers, and the ‘fine print’ drawn up, so the trust given and received is as clear as day. There are multiple ways to establish trust with each other but there are just as many ways that trust can be broken too if you are not careful.

It is not just our work lives or business success that depends on the trust established within them but also our personal relationships. If you are not seen as trustworthy but those people who are closest to you, it is likely that will extend outwards to other kinds of relationships in your life. It is vital to maintain your trustworthiness across the board regardless of how fleeting the ties to the other person or group are. While our relationships, business dealings, and professional ties will all begin and come to an end, our reputation precedes us throughout our lives, and it is important to keep your trustworthiness intact as you navigate the years and decades of who you meet and who you establish connections with.

Trust is not only about keeping your word or telling the truth to someone else or acting in an honest matter, but it is also about not promising something that you can’t deliver on or embellishing or making up falsehoods to earn the other person’s trust. You may think you are able to take an action or provide something or to promise a result but if you cannot guarantee it 100%, it’s best to pull back and let that person or group know that it is not entirely possible. How often have you heard that expression, “don’t make a promise that you know you can’t keep.”

It’s not only about breaking a promise that shatters trust but also trying at something that you said would happen and guaranteeing its success without being realistic about the odds or about if you could deliver the intended result without error, delay, or setbacks. You not only have to be honest with other people to establish trust but also honest with yourself and what you can and what you cannot do for them.

Our own ego can sometimes hurt our own trustworthiness because we are biased in believing we can do more or be more or accomplish more than what we can do when we make a promise. It can be difficult to reign back our promises to others and to pull back our own ego when it comes to what we are capable of. However, it is necessary to keep our trust alive with the other group or person with whom you are dealing with. I believe it is better to hurt our own ego when it comes to being realistic about the promises or the actions, we can accomplish rather than to lie or to embellish or to delay the unrealistic promises that were made, which hurts that trust or even breaks it completely. When the trust is broken, the other person won’t think you’re honest or reliable or even a good person so that is why trust itself is the foundation for which any kind of relationship is built upon.

Trust being the foundation of an individual’s relationships is key, but it also portends to our society and our world. Shared values, beliefs, and rules are built on trust in that if you will follow them and obey them so will everyone else living in that society. If that trust is broken in the sense that there are rules for me and you, but not for them, then that trust in one another starts to erode. Basic civility, courteousness, respect for laws and rules, and overall trust builds society up and when promises are broken, when double standards are common, and when one party or group holds unfair advantages over another group, without any kind of recourse or change made to make the society fairer, then the society will suffer as a result.

It is no accident that more productive and successful societies and countries function at a higher level, and it comes down a high level of trust between its citizens regardless of age, gender, race, socioeconomic background, etc. When trust is shared by all to play by the rules and do the right thing for each other, then that society and/or country will flourish as a result. How can a society establish strong economic ties, pass new laws that are enforced for all, and foster a strong education system that works for all? if it is not built on that fundamental trust that we are to look out for one another rather than to take advantage of one another instead.

If you can read this article knowing that your trust for your fellow man or woman is high and that they can rely on you as you would rely on them, then you’re in good shape where you are with the trust of your society. However, if your trust in your fellow man or woman is waning and you are skeptical of other people’s intentions often, well, then unfortunately, your society has a lot of work to do to rebuild and strengthen that fundamental trust. You should be part of that change by helping to build up the trust in one another again where you are at rather than to keep poking holes in the foundation or to tear it down completely. The choice is yours to make.