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Why does trust matter in leadership?
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Jump to section
Why does trust matter in leadership?
How do leaders build trust with employees?
Leadership trust is a must-have for managers and other leaders. Working in a high-trust work environment improves employee engagement, well-being, and psychological safety. And all these areas impact employee turnover. So if you’re looking to increase employee retention, developing employee trust is an excellent place to start.
But building trust as a leader can be a gradual and challenging process.
The good news is that you can consistently build trust with employees and establish yourself as a trustworthy leader. We will take a closer look at the importance of trust-building, and we’ll discuss some ways to build trust. But first, let’s take a look at what leadership trust is and why it’s so important.
Trust is earned currency in every relationship. It builds human connection and provides the foundation for stability, meaning, and growth.
Workplace trust is a shared belief that leaders are committed, compassionate, and capable. When employees trust leadership, they anticipate that leadership will do what’s best for all involved. There’s also an expectation that leaders will be transparent with employees when their hands are tied.
In return, team members who trust their leaders tend to be more forthcoming, loyal, and often more trusting of the organization as a whole.
Effective leadership requires a range of skills and capabilities. And trust is the glue that binds them all.
These skills are even more important for leaders now.
The pandemic kicked off a new era of constant change. And change often challenges trust. To manage this new normal, outstanding leadership demands a blend of leadership qualities and styles.
The most trusted leaders must now inspire, embody, and encourage the following:
Recent studies confirm that building and maintaining working relationships in a high-trust organization benefits all parties –– employees, leadership, and the business. According to Paul J. Zak, author of Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies, people employed by high-trust companies report the following:
When trust is questionable or missing, however, these areas all suffer. Job performance slows down, employee engagement is low, and turnover is high.
Therefore, trust in leadership is crucial to a healthy workplace and sustainable shared success.
We’ve established the importance of trust in leadership positions. But how does a leader embody or encourage trust?
There is no simple one-size-fits-all answer. But there are several essential leadership skills and actions that help build trust in the workplace.
The first two leadership skills to master are self-awareness and empathy. Great leaders understand themselves and their employees as people. This humanistic approach to leadership leaves the ego at the door, making space for open communication and transparency.
This enhanced self-awareness also lets trusted leaders assess their decisions and reduce biases.
Additionally, these leaders embrace learning opportunities that develop these soft skills. They understand how fundamental they are to building employee trust.
Now let’s further examine how these two primary skills feed into the other leadership skills required to build trust.
There are several factors required to develop, earn, and maintain trust. This is true for both individual leader trust and organizational trust. Most sources agree that influencing factors include:
Each element may get evaluated separately or even situationally. However, a reliably balanced combination is indeed what fosters trust.
A recent Harvard Business Review study outlined the three behavioral elements of trust. It indicated that essential contributing factors include:
Yet another study suggests that building leadership and trust is a three-pronged approach. It consists of ability trust, integrity trust, and benevolence trust, in equal proportions.
When we look at the characteristics needed to build these three types of trust, we again see blended criteria. Competence, honesty, and relationship-building make a repeat performance in the factors listed below.
How do you determine which factors determine organizational loyalty and leadership trust?
Let’s take a look at what one organization did.
Today, Google consistently ranks as one of the best places to work. And it was not by accident.
Several years ago, Google realized that hiring brilliant people and allowing them to do their work might not be enough.
Up to this point, they had only anecdotal data signaling talented people were leaving the organization. They had an inkling that being a part of Google just wasn’t enough for each employee.
A designated team collected analyzed large amounts of data from performance reviews and employee engagement surveys. Their goal was to better understand what people valued most and expected from both leadership and the organization.
Google leveraged its own algorithms to reach informed conclusions from these surveys. They now had the data to support their hunch, and they were right –– the organization was suffering from a lack of trust in leadership.
Google recognized that understanding and responding to this information would positively impact engagement and retention.
There were eight primary initiatives that the organization would need to focus on to strengthen its levels of trust:
As a result, Google established formal leadership competencies to embody the eight behaviors. They also launched a widespread leadership development plan to evolve their organizational culture.
Google recognized that leadership trust is an earned currency. They also learned that building trust in leadership is a culmination of several contributing factors. Additionally, the company chose to prioritize and take action to better perform in these areas. They recognize the overall value and importance of trust in the workplace.
Let’s look at four strategies you can use to build leadership trust in the workplace.
Leadership trust is a must-have for anyone in a position of authority.
Now you know why it’s so important. Plus, now that you have a handful of strategies for building leadership trust in your own workplace, it’s time to put them into practice.
If you’re struggling with building trust, check out BetterUp personalized coaching. We help build leaders that accelerate team performance and engagement. And we can help provide you with the skills and mindsets needed to perform at your peak.
Develop your leadership and strategic management skills with the help of an expert Coach.
Develop your leadership and strategic management skills with the help of an expert Coach.
Rick Reddington is a BetterUp Fellow Coach & PCC. Coaching changed the trajectory of Rick's life, allowing him to discover who he was and who he could become, which values guide him, the passion of purpose, what matters most, and how he wants to contribute. As a Coach, he explores, challenges, expands, and celebrates this learning journey with each client.
Two of Rick's favorite books are
The Velveteen Rabbit and
The Portable Coach. The first is a tale about becoming real through the power of love, acceptance, vulnerability, and authenticity. The second is essentially a toolkit for remaining incredibly attractive once you have embraced the lessons about realness.
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