Are you capable of building Trust?

Isn't trust the single most important thing in both personal and professional life both for having fulfilled and successful life? The very question we need to face is ‘how can we build trust’? Or 'are we capable of building trust'? Here are 3 hard ways to become trustworthy.

Fulfill Your Promises: No matter what, we must fulfill our promises that we do to others.

In case, we are unable to fulfill promises due to genuine reasons, we must immediately let the person(s) whom we promised something know that we are unable to fulfill it/those with sincere apology. Often, we feel we cannot fulfill our promises due to genuine reason, so it’s okay not to convey our sorry or apology. It isn’t. May be our reasons are genuine and valid that we failed to anticipate while we made promises, yet we must apologize and say sorry as the person(s) whom we promised are expecting our delivery based on our promise.

Not only that we need to ask what type of difficulties they are likely to face due to our failure. Further, if they face negative consequences due to our failure to meet promises, we need to compensate as much as we can. Again, if we are unable to compensate duly, we need to seek apology with explanation why we cannot compensate.

So, next time, if you as line manager cannot fulfill your commitment to your team member or peer or supervisor, please first apologize for not being able to meet your commitment, then ask him or her what he/she may face due to your failure, and then offer compensation for that.

Give Before You Get: We want to gain more in every transaction we encounter. Apparently, the more we get, the more we become happy. So, to get more, we do everything possible. That’s common psychology for getting more. In reality, we cannot get more if we do not give more. We must start giving whatever we have. We must help others that we can. With every opportunity, literally! Only then we will be able to project ourselves as persons caring for others’ cause or benefit. Then others will reciprocate us in all facets and we will get more in life by the synergies people will create in our life. Also, when we can do something for others, our body disseminates hormones that makes us happy and positive. As a result, we do better in whatever we do. So, to build trust, let’s start giving more and more.

Be Authentic: We have probably heard it many times that we cannot hide our emotion no matter how we try. Our body expresses our inside feelings via body languages. If we aren’t authentic in our behavior or thinking, we expose ourselves to bigger risk of being ‘untrustworthy’. Yes, people may not accept negative feedback immediately after you feed them back, people will eventually appreciate your authenticity over time and you will become a reliable and trustworthy person. We all face difficult time to communicate bad news or our inability to do something for other. Still we need to convey the truth we carry. Also, many tend to agree with ideology or action in private or public just to be agreeable with others that they are not convinced. This makes someone inauthentic. Such person can never be trusted. Being agreeable without being authentic does not yield trust.

So to summarize we must fulfill our commitment, give more, and be authentic to create a trustworthiness relationship with the people we interact.