People follow and get behind leaders that they trust. In The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, author John C. Maxwell lists trust as being the most important factor as a leader.
When trust is broken, attitudes change and it becomes difficult to gain back the respect and confidence that was once instilled into your team.
How do you build trust?
Trust is built over time by being consistent, competent, connected, and of good character with those you lead.
It’s like a savings account. Every time you exemplify these attributes you deposit trust in the bank. When you do things that are not congruent with being trustworthy (and you will, we aren’t perfect), then you deplete some funds from your trust account.
The key to maintaining trust with your team is having enough in the bank so that when you do make a mistake, your tribe will be able to look past the issue on account of a positive balance of good character.
The concept of building a bank of trust over time is important, especially if you are new to your leadership position. It’s also important to remember that just because you have been a leader for a long time, it doesn’t mean that you have built-up a big trust balance.
Building and maintaining trust is something that we need to work on every day, regardless of our leadership tenure.
Are You Building Trust?
Take a moment of self-reflection to ask yourself the following questions.
- Am I transparent in how I’m communicating with my staff members?
- Am I able to influence and maintain strong relationships and morale during a time of crisis?
- Are my team members able to question and challenge my ideas without fear of being reprimanded?
- Do those that I lead know where the team is going? Are they willingly accepting change as it occurs?
If you can’t answer “yes” to these questions, then perhaps you need to refocus on building more trust with your team.
T.R.U.S.T.
Last week, I asked my team to use the word TRUST as a five-letter acronym that described what it meant.
Here is what we came up with:
T = Truth, Truthful, Together, True to your Word, Teamwork, Transparency
R = Reliable, Responsibility, Respect, Resilient, Rock Solid
U = Understood, Upright, Understanding, Unity, Unshakable
S = Shared, Sought out, Safety, Service, Structure, Serve
T = Talk it Out, Tried and True, Thankful, Team, Truthful
All of these words describe the character of a good leader. They describe someone who takes on the responsibility of earning the trust of their team.
What have you done to earn trust in your account today?
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