5 Proven Leadership Practices That Build a Culture of Trust

It is well-documented that leaders set the direction and culture for their organizations. One of the most important aspects of being an effective leader is establishing a culture of trust. In the his HBR article, Paul Zak, shared the following research on the importance of trust within organizations.

Compared with people at low-trust companies, people at high-trust companies report 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, 50% higher productivity, 76% more engagement, 29% more satisfaction with their lives and 40% less burnout.

This research confirms the incredible return on investment that a culture of trust brings an organization. Organizational trust is a direct reflection on how much or little an organization’s employees trust their leaders.

Establishing trust as a leader is complex because leaders need to make hard decisions and take actions that can be unpopular or perceived as negative by one or more employees. One does not have to be in a leadership role very long before being confronted with the need to push an aggressive timeline, implement a last-minute change in direction, restructure the organization, say no to a desired promotion, provide negative feedback, give a lower than expected salary increase, or lay off employees. These are just a few examples of where leaders must make tough decisions that serve the greater organizational good and can have a negative impact on how others trust them. This is the double bind that all leaders must address.

At the end of the day, leadership is about influencing others. A leader will never be capable of establishing lasting influence with their employees without building trust. Below are 5 leadership practices that help leaders build, establish and maintain trust with their followers.

1.     Deliver Results

I often see articles and posts that focus solely on the important relational aspects of leadership effectiveness (kindness, empathy, listening, understanding, etc.) but not giving equal weight to the need for a leader to be effective at delivering results. This can create an unbalanced view of leadership because for an employee to truly put their trust in a leader they must believe the leader can get the job done, while maintaining positive trusting relationships

James Zenger published a fascinating survey that supports the notion that leaders need to deliver results and build trusting relationships. His work shared the results of a survey of 60,000 employees to identify how different characteristics of a leader combine to affect employee perceptions of whether the boss is a “great” leader or not. Below are some of the results.

• Results-oriented leaders are rated as good leaders 14% of the time
• People-oriented leader are rated as good leaders 12% of the time
• Leaders with both strong results orientation and social skills are rated as good leaders 72% of the time

The combination of being able to be effective at achieving results and building relationships seems to be the secret sauce of leadership success.

2. Me vs. We Outlook

Leaders who understand that leading others is a privilege understand that leading, first and foremost, is about service. This service orientation is the foundation of trust. In his book, Trusted Advisor, David Maister writes about research on how a person’s self-orientation as perceived by others is the most important factor in either losing or building trust. Self-orientation refers to the focus you have when engaging others. In particular, this refers to whether your focus is primarily on yourself and your needs, or whether your focus is on the needs of others or the group.

Do the people you lead believe you understand and have their best interests at heart, or do they feel you are trying to leverage the situation for selfish gain? To build trust, a leader must approach their leadership situation with behavior that demonstrates a self-orientation of “we” versus “me.” Below are some of the ways that leaders can create a “we” orientation with those they lead.

• Engage and Develop Others
• Live the Values Every Day
• Share the Credit
• Delegate Authority
• Frequently Ask Others for Feedback

3. Addressing Star Performers That Have Bad Behaviors

Research shows that the more valuable an employee’s work is to the organization, the more leaders and co-workers are likely to overlook questionable behavior. This means leaders are more apt to turn a blind eye to a high-performer who delivers strong results but treats people poorly or acts in ways that don’t align with the company values.

I have coached leaders who are aware that an individual on their team exhibits bad behaviors and because the person is considered a star performer the leader is concerned about addressing the issue due to potentially losing expertise or ability to bring in money. The problem with this thinking is that leaders don’t clearly see the damage that is being done to their culture and their credibility as a leader. The Harvard Business Review shares the following results on research about how much impact tolerating toxic employees has on other team members performance.

• 80 percent of employees lost work time worrying about the offending employees’ rudeness
• 78 percent said their commitment to the organization declined in the face of toxic behavior
• 66 percent said their performance declined
• 63 percent lost work time in avoiding the offender
• 48 percent decreased their work effort

It is the leader’s role to set the standards and address bad behaviors that don’t align with the companies’ values or ethics. Leaders are the only ones who can do anything about a high-performer’s toxic behavior. Leaders that don’t take a stand clearly demonstrate that results are more important than their people, values and ethics.

4. Encourage Healthy Challenge Of The Leader’s Perspectives

In my work with teams, I can always get a quick read on the overall health of a team by observing if team members are willing to openly have a different opinion or even appropriately challenge their leader’s perspective. If team members are willing to appropriately challenge their leader’s perspective it is a good indication that there is a high degree of trust and respect for all opinions regardless of titles. This doesn’t mean the leader doesn’t have an appropriate level of authority on decisions but it does mean the leader has created a culture where team members can share and challenge perspectives and ideas in pursuit of finding the best answer.

Google recently shared their research that supports the importance of leaders creating a team environment of trust and respect for team effectiveness, called Project Aristotle. In studying more than 100 teams, the one factor that stood out above all others was a team culture characterized by psychological safety. The strongest teams weren’t filled with the brightest minds or the hardest workers; the #1 thing that led to team success was psychological safety defined by the following characteristics:

• Team members were skilled at reading emotions based on nonverbal cues. If someone appeared down, others showed concern and support.
• Each person spent roughly the same amount of time speaking during conversations—showing value for all perspectives.

Thanks to Google for sharing its internal research, we have a better understanding of what makes a team excel. Google’s data-driven approach highlighted this fact: the teams that excel at delivering results are the teams that respect one another’s emotions and are mindful that all members have something valuable to contribute and should have the opportunity to be heard.

5. Establish Clear Goals and Roles

Noel Tichy, professor of management and organizations at the University of Michigan, in his research on team conflict at General Electric found that approximately 96% of team conflict is caused by unclear goals and roles. Even though a vast majority of team conflict is because people have unclear or misaligned goals and roles, most of the time this conflict is interpreted as an interpersonal issue. This means people will often blame others and make judgments in the form of viewing others as unreasonable, ineffective, lazy, not caring, dishonest, or some other conclusion that can quickly erode team and organizational trust.

To minimize interpersonal conflict and increase trust and performance, it is critical for leaders to establish a foundation of goals and roles that are clear and aligned for achieving both results and positive relationships. Without this foundation trust will always be a systemic issue. Taking the time to ensure clarity and alignment of goals and roles is a critical component in building trust within a company.

For leaders to be successful in creating an environment of trust in the midst of ongoing changes, complexity and challenges takes deliberate focus and action. These 5 practices will help leaders create a culture of trust where employees feel safe, included, and valued. What other leadership behaviors have you seen work to build leadership trust?

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