Trust is fundamental in the effective working of teams and organisations. When people feel trusted by their manager, they are far more likely to engage in trusting behaviour themselves, such as sharing knowledge and information.
When there is high trust, there is greater creativity and innovation, better organisational performance, better service for customers and patients. For example, research by Professor Michael West identified five key cultural factors that were present in high-quality healthcare organisations. High levels of trust was one of the key factors.
And here’s the thing, too many of us leave building trust to chance when we need to heed Charles Feltman’s wise words, from his book The Thin Book of Trust, when he says:
“Having the trust of those you work with is too important not to be intentional about building and maintaining it”
Here are five ways you can create high levels of trust in your team:
- Conduct a self-audit on your leadership
A study led by Professor Joanna Paliskiewicz examined the role of leadership behaviour in facilitating trust and subsequently, driving excellent organisational performance. As part of the study, the researchers identified 10 leadership characteristics that facilitate trust and in turn performance:
| – Ability/competence – Benevolence – Congruency – Consistency – Communication | – Dependability – Integrity – Openness – Reliability – Transparency |
Action: Reflect on each of these characteristics. Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 on each – where 1 is the worst you could be doing, and 10 is the best. With the lowest scoring characteristic, identify one thing you can do to improve it and commit to taking action over the next month. Alternatively, you could ask your team members to score you on each of these characteristics. DOWNLOAD my sketchnote of the 10 characteristics here.
2. Show team members you trust them
A study involving 1,100 people in Norway looked at the conditions that can facilitate a mastery climate. A mastery climate is one where success and failure are based around cooperation, learning, and effort. The Norwegian study found that feeling trusted by one’s manager played a large part in learning, sharing knowledge and information, and helping other team members.
One of the most powerful ways we can show our staff we trust them is by delegating. However, not everyone delegates effectively and when this happens, there is frustration all round, which can erode trust over time. In their book, Being the boss: The three imperatives for becoming a great leader, Professor Linda Hill and Kent Lineback outline three levels of delegation based on the skill and experience of the person being delegated to. Check out my sketchnote summarising the three levels. DOWNLOAD the sketchnote here.
Action: Reflect on how you demonstrate you trust your team. What things do you do that clearly signal you trust people? Is there anything you do that might undermine feelings of trust? How effective are you at delegating?
3. Speak less, listen more – hold the silence
One study looked at the impact of silence in organisational life. The study found that managers who were more tolerant of silence seemed to create more trust and have a more positive effect on members of staff. This, in turn, appeared to lead to staff getting more involved in decision making and generally having a more positive attitude.
Action: If you tend to dominate discussions, or if you jump in when someone doesn’t answer your question immediately, set yourself a goal of holding the silence. For example, when asking a team member a question in a one-to-one, count slowly to 20 in your head.
4. Develop a servant leadership style
A meta-analysis (study of lots of studies) from the University of Exeter suggests that a servant leadership style is highly likely to create a positive culture of trust and fairness.
Action: See my sketchnote on the 4 competencies of servant leaders. How do you think you’re doing against each of these? Which are your strengths? Which do you need to work on? DOWNLOAD the sketchnote here.
5. First-time leader? Take your time building trust
A recent study suggests that it might be better for new leaders to let trust build over time, rather than establishing lots of it right away. The researchers found that employees’ initial expectations for a new leader indicated how trust levels might change over time. The higher the initial levels of trust of the leader, the greater the potential there was for trust to decline. However, those leaders who started with low or moderate levels of initial trust appeared more likely to gain increasing levels of trust over time. This was more so when the leaders exhibited certain behaviours including focusing explicitly on values, taking time to develop individual relationships with team members, clarifying ethical standards, communicating in a high-quality way, and actively developing team members.
Action: Make sure there is sufficient time in one-to-one and team meetings to focus on development and building relationships. For example, the support/challenge framework is a powerful way to get to know each team member and for them to get to know you – as well as clarifying the ‘rules’ for working with each other. DOWNLOAD the support/challenge framework here.
REFERENCES
West, M. (2015). Leading cultures that deliver high quality care [White paper]. The King’s Fund and Lancaster University Management School. https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/74379/1/2015_04_30_MBHT.pdf
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