Trust: What Leaders Need to Succeed in Business
Written by Phil Geldart, Eagle’s Flight CEO
In this continuation of the “8 Principles of Leadership” series, I’ll discuss the ways you can build trust and therefore increase your effectiveness as a leader.
Relationships, Selflessness, and Sharing
Once trust is firmly established between individuals, then the relationship can focus on things of much more significant worth than when trust is absent. Troublesome topics, worrying concerns, and exciting futures can all be discussed with greater openness and confidence. As a result, the understanding that exists between the individuals concerned can go far deeper, and as it goes deeper, the relationship itself grows stronger.
For trust to truly be strengthened in a relationship, both parties have to be continually willing to trust the other, and with each opportunity give more of themselves to the relationship, each time assessing whether their trust has been maintained. When it has, confidence builds and more things can be shared. Trust is built, not earned; this takes time. Take every opportunity to display or demonstrate trust, and use wisely that which is entrusted to you.
Honesty
Honesty means that we have truly communicated not only the facts but also the essence of those facts. Honesty means that we have in no way dissembled or sought to present only an aspect of the truth, knowing that it will be seen as the whole truth, when we know in our heart that in fact the whole truth was not effectively communicated.
One of the traps that we can fall into is captured by expressions such as “Well, they didn’t ask about that,” or “Well, that would have just hurt them.” When you set out to be honest, the true test is whether or not the other person is left knowing what you know, and has the same amount of fact and information that you do on which to base their conclusions. If you hold things back, or convince yourself that maybe it’s not appropriate to share everything at this point, then you have perhaps not been entirely honest.
There can be no trust without honesty. Speaking the truth, and doing so with the appropriate tact, is essential to ensure long-term sustained trust, productive relationships, and worthwhile outcomes.
Integrity
Integrity within an organization is crucial to an organization’s efficiency. Individuals that cannot be relied upon to do what they say they will do require large amounts of wasted management time documenting, following up, reinforcing, notating, and reminding. Integrity must be the key mandate at all times and a key priority for all individuals. Integrity includes delivering on clearly articulated promises, and also on implied promises. For trust to exist in an organization, there must be a high degree of integrity among all those concerned, leading to confidence that commitments or promised results will not be compromised.
As you work to build trust with others, ensure that your personal integrity is high and that you look for the same in others.
Frequency
During the hectic pace of day-to-day operations, we often “touch base” with individuals, but we need to go further and “connect.” This is making the effort to take a few extra minutes wherever possible to make a personal, deeper connection than simply a passing hello. Clearly this is not required at all times, but it needs to be demonstrated that we recognize those we deal with are people with lives apart from work. When appropriate, move the conversation to include reference to these other, often deeper, priorities of the individuals you deal with. This demonstrates a frank concern for them as people, and is a component in building trust.
Make it a priority to meet frequently with those with whom you feel it’s important to build, and maintain, trust.
Selfless
When we are self-centered, what we are essentially saying is that we are the center of the universe and others must revolve around us. It is hard to trust someone who has that perspective, because it’s difficult to know whether they can be relied on to see other perspectives and to act with the interest of others in mind as well as their own.
Consequently, as we seek to build trust with others, we need to avoid becoming preoccupied with ourselves. Essentially, this means that we need to be mindful of others, their needs, their priorities, and their issues, and be able to respond to them. This is not to say that we should have little focus or attention on ourselves, but rather to say that all the attention and focus should not be on ourselves. We are inclined to trust those who we believe have our interests at heart. Doing so requires a degree of selflessness on their part.
Learn to see the priorities of others, and, as appropriate, consider placing them ahead of your own as you seek to strengthen the trust between you.
Share
Sharing is a demonstrated act whereby you take something which is yours and allow others to use it or have it. In doing so you are implicitly indicating that you trust that person will value what you have shared and appreciate it. You have also used your resources in some way to enrich them. Every time this happens, trust increases.
As with all of these aspects of trust, actions must be reciprocal if the trust is to grow and be sustained. If you are constantly sharing and others are only taking, then you will quickly feel taken advantage of, and trust will not grow, but be destroyed. You will begin to feel that you cannot “trust” the other to truly value what you are sharing as you intended. Sharing between individuals is a tangible way to put the desire for increased trust into action, and it is an important ingredient in building trust with others.
Trust is important to work relationships and affects your overall effectiveness as well as that of the whole team. Are you ready to learn more about the principles of leadership? Read the next article about getting things done.
