Leading without trust is akin to building on quicksand

LEADING without trust is like building on quicksand. The unsound foundation makes it unstable and unreliable.

- By Ronnie Peiris

In December 2025, I complete 53 years in a corporate career ranging from an accounts clerk at Lever Brothers (Ceylon) Ltd. in 1972, the post I am most proud of, Managing Director at Anglo American Corporation (Central Africa) Ltd., Group Finance Director/Executive Director at John Keells Holdings PLC (JKH) to my current role as Leadership Coach/Mentor.

Being a period when the world transformed from pencil and paper, typewriters, and adding machines to computers, accounting packages, the internet, and artificial intelligence, I am tempted to catalog the shifting technologies, evolving business models, and/or the seismic global events as key influencers of my career. But they are mere backdrops. The true, constant engine that has driven my career and anchored my thinking has always been something far more fundamental and far more human. That, undoubtedly, is the strategic intangible asset of Trust. God blessed me with the ability to Trust and the qualities to be Trusted.

In the first quarter of my career, I was primarily a manager of tasks and people. In 1987, I began a journey of transitioning from manager to leader. I was enlightened and inspired by thoughts I gathered at a Tom Peters and Bob Waterman leadership development workshop, a workshop which was based on their seminal publication, “The Search of Excellence.” I no longer desired to just manage tasks. I was hungry to lead and guide people. I did not want to just direct processes. I wanted to create culture and develop mindsets. And in that exciting, fast-evolving, pressure-cooker environment, I discovered a profound and almost paradoxical truth. That the fastest way to get things done, the most efficient path to extraordinary productivity, was not through command and control, but by letting go.