What’s your company’s level of trust?

Have you earned the trust of your team as their leader? Or rather, as a leader, have you given your team a reason to trust you?

As the saying goes, trust must be earned. However, what needs to be considered is that trust isn't built in a single moment but is earned through small and subtle actions throughout the working relationship.

A client of Visage was running the quarterly review to assess how everyone fared personally and as a business collective. Social distancing had dispersed everyone to home offices around the country and one of the colleagues started off the Zoom meeting. He spoke about the need to improve his skills and learn more about the business. “I need to change my style and approach,” he confessed.

His transparency and humility set the tone for the remainder of the meeting. At that moment, the leadership team realised they had reached that high level of trust which is not self-evident in many companies.

Employees with high levels of trust can open up knowing that their vulnerabilities won’t be exploited.

Peter Loscher, the president and chief executive of Siemens, identifies six levels of trust that businesses should put focus on within their team.

Trust in yourself and the value of your contribution. Humans are wired to learn/teach and we enjoy communicating and retaining new knowledge. To become a vital contributor, we must first believe that our knowledge and experience are valuable to others. A person who doesn’t trust their own wisdom and creativity has little impetus to offer trust to others.

Trust between team members grows slowly and over time. Some studies describe the “mere exposure effect”, which finds that simply seeing someone repeatedly will increase trust as they grow more familiar. Influential team leaders know that personal bonding and trust exercises build valuable social capital, increasing productivity later.

Trust in the team’s leader cultivates cultures within cultures. The best leaders take the time and effort necessary to make people feel safe and valued. Emphasising team cohesiveness while encouraging constructive conflict, they set clear expectations for outcomes and clarify individual roles.

Inspire trust in the project. Nobody wants to apply themselves on a WOMBAT (Waste Of Money, Brains And Time). Once you’ve convinced everyone about the importance of the project, people will have a compelling reason to share information and value their input.

Do you trust your employees? In many collectives, participation is encouraged with words but welcomed with dismissive body language and disinterest by the leader. All employee input carries vulnerability and risk to the feedback giver, so acting disinterested will only add to the reasons not to speak up.

Trust the hivemind. Humans thrive in collaborative relationships and there is a phenomenal sense of accomplishment in achieving as a group what could not have been done as individuals. That will happen only when everyone on the team understands and trusts that none of us is smarter than all of us.

For more insights about trust, we have written another relevant blog post about trust-building through vulnerable leadership. Watch out for them wombats!

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What’s your company’s level of trust?

What’s your company’s level of trust?

Have you earned the trust of your team as their leader? Or rather, as a leader, have you given your team a reason to trust you?

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