It is important to build trust and confidence in team members
Trust–and its close-collaborator, ‘confidence’ are key ingredients for building people loyalty that is the bedrock of every successful business. If a workplace is able to foster a strong sense of trust amongst their co-leaders & team-members, they can see umpteen benefits viz. increased productivity, enhanced creativity, improved morale and efficient working as a team. Successful businesses are built on shared confidence & trust which creates better relationships to sustain success in the long term. As the foundation of all relationships is trust. Trust is a willingness to agree with another’s viewpoint and confidence in his/her actions based on another team member’s perspective. Higher trust amongst team members leads to better team bonding which translates into superior organizational performance. Without each party trusting one another the ability to come to an agreement or consensus on an issue is always going to be compromised. According to global people performance research findings, Trust leaders are more than 2.5 times more likely to be high performing organizations than Trust laggards. When employees have a high level of trust in management and the organization, the company becomes significantly better at achieving its business goals through superior mutual understanding and team bonding.
“He who does not trust enough, will not be trusted.” ~ Lao Tzu
Why are trust and confidence important for co-leaders?
Quoting Mac Anderson, “If employees feel you don’t trust them to do their jobs correctly and well, they will be reluctant to do much without your approval. On the other hand, when they feel trusted, that you believe they’ll do the right things well, they’ll naturally want to do things well and be deserving of your trust.”
Aligning your words with actions & retaining top talent are key pillars for building trust with employees and for an organization’s success. According to a study from Willis Towers Watson, trust and confidence in senior leadership are one of the top drivers of employee retention. Its often said that what leaders say and do has the most important impact on they are perceived in their organization. Superior strategy backed by trust and well thought through actions are critical to earning employees’ trust & retaining the trust by engaging them in a mutually win-win manner within the organization & even outside the organization. Starting with the leader, it takes deliberate actions and involvement at every level to create a deep bond of believability that encourages employees to put forth the effort needed to make trust building and sustaining it a viable proposition for everyone. Building mutually sustainable trust & confidence at workplace leads to better ROI and continued revenue growth.
Innovation is taking two things that already exist and putting them together in a new beneficial manner, that boosts user delight in a cost-effective & pragmatic manner. Trust is the driving force that fuels innovation. This happens when leaders leverage cooperation, confidence & willingness to understand their employees & co-create new ways to do the old things better in an intelligently innovative manner as everyone is invested in everybody’s well being, thanks to the wellspring of mutually shared trust. Employees that do not trust or respect senior leadership are less likely to be engaged in their work and are less productive on the job as a result. Disengaged employees are also more likely to leave the organization for a new job, leading to higher employee turnover that can prove to be costly for an organization.
Some important steps which should be taken by leaders to build trust are aligning actions with words with better people main points understanding, steadfastly committing to regular follow-ups, being supportive & consistent.Leaders must be competent at their jobs and have the experience to excel. Nothing builds distrust quicker than if employees believe that their leader lacks experience and the required expertise to lead & innovate consistently with zero errors and maximum productivity. Leaders need to have high emotion quotient and should practice mindfulness. They need to be sincere towards work, society and fellow employees to gain respect & trust for everyone, voluntarily.
Trust is thus a two-way street. If you believe in your employees enough to hire them, trust them to do their jobs and avoid micromanaging them at every step of their allotted tasks. Above all, take enough time to fully understand & appreciate fellow employees. Face to face interactions is the best way to communicate so that you can correct & motivate them when needed. Last but not the least, Consistency of confidence-building actions builds better mutually accepted trust. Performing at consistently high levels of quality & creativity meeting all your commitments are the key to reaping ‘trust benefits’.
“IT TAKES YEARS TO BUILD TRUST AND A FEW SECONDS TO DESTROY IT.”
By Mallika Kumar- Brand Strategist & Holistic Marketer
posted on LinkedIn on April 30, 2018