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Transcript
Trust is important as a leader because if your people don’t trust you, why would they follow you? If they can’t trust you, why will they respect you? How much influence will you have if you’re not someone they can trust?
So trust is important as a leader.
So how do you build trust? Well, here’s a few steps.
1. Tell the truth
First, tell the truth. Pretty simple, right? But that’s a big one. You want to be someone who tells the truth. Not just to your team, but to other people.
Because if your team sees you lying to other people, then they’ll probably assume you’re lying to them as well. And when people catch you lying to them or others, that hurts their trust in you. I
f you want to be trustworthy, tell the truth, even when it’s hard.
2. Follow through on your commitments
Number two, follow through on your commitments. Be reliable. Again, another simple one, but important.
If you say you’re going to do something, but they can’t rely on you to do that, they always have to check and double check to make sure you’re doing what you said you’re going to do or following through, that you’re going to be there when you say you’re going to be there, that’s going to hurt their trust in you.
Why would your team stick their necks out for you if they’re not even sure you’re going to follow through in what you said you’re going to do? So make sure as a person, as a leader, that you’re reliable and you followed through on what you say you’re going to do.
3. Take ownership and admit mistakes
Number three, take ownership and admit mistakes. When you hide your mistakes, when you hide when you mess up and pretend it didn’t happen, or if you don’t know something and you pretend to know when you don’t know, that just hurts you because more than likely your people see it or they will see it.
And when they realize you’re lying about your mistakes or they see you hiding it to try to protect your image, that hurts their trust in you a lot. Don’t do that.
Instead, admit your mistakes. When you mess up, just say, “I messed up, I’m sorry,” and work to fix it. And the benefit to that is when you admit your mistakes, when you’re vulnerable and say, “Yeah, I messed up, I’m sorry, this is what we’re going to do to fix it,” it encourages others to admit their mistakes as well.
When you hide your mistakes, it tells them to hide their mistakes too.
4. Speak up when it’s hard
Number four, speak up when it’s hard. And this kind of goes with telling the truth because sometimes as leaders and just as regular employees, we’re in a position where we need to say something, but we’re afraid to.
Maybe everybody wants to make a decision to go a certain direction. Maybe the leader over you or the boss over you is saying they want to do something and you know it’s wrong. Or you know we should all do something different, but you’re afraid to speak up because of how they will react. Or you’re afraid to speak up because it might hurt your job or whatever it may be, so you stay silent.
What’s worse is then when you agree in the meeting, or whatever it may be, but then talk negative about it outside of it. That really hurts you and your trustworthiness.
Keith Farazzi in his book, Leading Without Authority, says that failing to speak up is an abdication of your responsibility. Simon Sinek in his book, Leaders Eat Last, says this. He says, “The most common display of a lack of integrity in the business world is when the leader of an organization says what others want to hear and not the truth.”
So be a person who speaks up even when it’s hard and then people will trust you more because of that because you’re willing to stand up and speak the truth.
5. Hold confidences well
Number five, hold confidence as well. And this makes sense too because if you talk about people behind their backs, if you share especially some kind of confidential information about people to others, then when they find out, that hurts their trust in you.
Not only that, not even if they hear you talking about them, if they hear you talking about other people, then they question, “Do they talk about me?”
When you do not hold confidences, when you share secrets, when you gossip, that hurts your trustworthiness as a person and as a leader.
6. Communicate openly and honestly
Number six, communicate openly and honestly. Sometimes leaders hold on to information and they do it for various reasons.
Sometimes they just don’t think people need to know. Sometimes it’s a power play. Sometimes they’re afraid and don’t trust what people will do with that information, so they don’t share it. The thing is, when you hide information, when you hold back information, it builds distrust in people.
Especially if a situation is going on and you don’t say anything about it, people will still talk about the situation, it just won’t be the truth. And it builds distrust because it looks like you’re hiding something, even if you’re waiting to get all the information.
So a good policy is to share as much information as possible when you can. Be as transparent as you can. And when you show trust to people with information, that builds trust back toward you. And it also just makes sense for people in their jobs because how can they do their best jobs and make the best decisions if they don’t have all the information?
7. Show trust
Number seven, show trust. When you show trust to your team, when you set clear expectations and set guidelines and offer the support and training and everything they need and then let people do their jobs, when you trust them in their jobs, that builds trust back to you.
Same thing with the information. When you share information, trusting them, that builds trust back towards you. When you try to control people, control information and don’t trust them, not only does it demotivate them, it also hurts their trust in you because of that.
So if you want to build trust, you also need to give trust.
8. Share the credit
Number eight, share the credit. Just as a leader, you need to take ownership when things go wrong, because, ultimately as a leader, you’re responsible for everything your team does.
You also want to share the credit because… think about it… think about the group project you may have been a part of and that you worked hard on. And then someone else is presenting and they take all the credit for your work.
How does that make you feel? Probably kind of angry because you put a lot of work into that.
It’s the same way if you take the credit for your team’s work. When you say, “Yep, it was me,” that hurts their trust in you because first of all, you’re lying because it wasn’t just you.
But secondly, you’re being selfishly motivated, and that hurts trust as well. When you put yourself aside, and you pass the credit to other people, that’s what makes you look good. That’s what builds trust with people. That’s what builds influence, because you’re not taking it for yourself, you’re giving it to others.
9. Be about serving your team
Number nine, be about serving your team, not yourself. You see, people see what your motivation is. If you as a leader are just about your career and what you can get out of your leadership position and your team, and you’re just using them or doing whatever you can do just to advance your career, then your team’s not going to trust you because they know your motivation isn’t them.
They know it’s not the mission, it’s on you.
But if you have a service mentality and you’re about serving the mission and serving your team and helping them be their best to accomplish the mission, that builds trust. People recognize your motive, so make sure you have the right motive.
And that will build trust.
