Let's Talk About Trust, Baby!

If you happen to be a child of the 1990s, I’m willing to bet money that you heard a certain risque Salt N’ Pepa song in your head when you read the title of this newsletter! Ha! Mission accomplished.

When I’m facilitating on team effectiveness, leaders often ask if there’s a silver bullet: is there one thing a leader can focus on that drives outperformance, even in VUCA conditions? (What’s VUCA, you ask? Head to my newsletter on this!) While I don’t think there are silver bullets to complex challenges, I do think there’s one factor that’s worth focusing on first: trust.

Leaders who raise the level of trust on their team are laying the foundation for consistent outperformance…even if it feels like you’re working in a slow-motion earthquake.

Let me unpack this for you, starting with what the heck I mean by “trust.” We can get technical with this, or we can keep it practical. My practical shorthand for trust is the willingness to take risks: the risk to learn, the risk to fail, and the risk to challenge…to name a few of the key risks that drive high-performing teams.

Think about a key behavior of teams that win: giving each other feedback. If you watch a team member practice an important presentation and see an area that needs improvement, you have a choice on whether to approach them with constructive feedback or not. This feedback could make a difference for your colleague’s growth, and the team’s performance. On a low-trust team, you probably wouldn’t risk offering your teammate feedback. “I’m not sticking my neck out here…I don’t know if they’ll react poorly and harbor a grudge if I give them feedback!” We’ve all been there. But…think about the loss here. Now the team loses out on a chance for the presentation to improve and the colleague loses out on the opportunity to grow on the job. Trust enables the magic of feedback.

Consider another scenario: asking for a stretch assignment. As team leaders, we want our employees to expand their skills by trying new things and learning on the fly. But, if we are in an environment where there is no room to learn (which involves the possibility of failing), then it’s highly unlikely that team members will be courageous in their learning journey. Trust scaffolds learning and growth.

Trust is the foundation for high-performing teams because it unlocks healthy, productive risk-taking that catalyzes team outcomes. So, if you’re nodding your head while you sip that java, you’re probably asking what you can do to increase trust on your team. When I keynote and lead workshops on trust, I cover several do’s and don’ts for leading a high-trust team. Here are two of each:

Tips for maximizing trust on your team:

DO: Turn up the volume on empathy. Warmth and genuine care for your team will increase trust. Some leaders worry that this may signal incompetence…just remember, people do not follow robots through the fog of VUCA! Inspiring followership and cultivating durable trust requires a commitment to empathy on the part of the leader.

DO: Consistency…consistently. Consistency is about having your actions match your words. You should aspire to have a strong say:do ratio…if you say it, do it. Consistent leaders cultivate trust because their team knows what to expect. Even if a team doesn’t love all aspects of a leader’s behaviors/style, consistency allows the team to manage their own response and habits accordingly. Inconsistency erodes trust by creating doubt and anxiety across the team.

DON’T: Confuse being direct with being intense. Being direct is part of candor and is essential to leading a strong team. Sometimes, leaders confuse this with being intense. When you are offering feedback or running a tough meeting, it’s critical to be direct, but this doesn’t mean intense. Intensity is about the level of emotion in your words, body language, and tone. Managing this is so important to maintaining trust, as intensity can easily leave some employees feeling like they are personally being attacked or judged. The same message, delivered directly, but with low intensity, supports strong leadership without reducing trust on the team.

DON’T: Seek consensus (most of the time). When you’re leading through disruption and uncertainty, tough decisions often have to be made quickly and with limited information. I often hear leaders I coach share that they lost a bunch of time trying to get everyone on the team to agree on a decision. When I ask why they aimed for consensus, they sometimes reveal that they hoped this would make everyone feel better about being on the team. Seeking consensus can have the opposite effect and diminish trust. Team members can get frustrated with leaders who get stuck considering the breadth of perspectives and avoid making a clear choice. Trying to gain consensus is often exhausting for the team and can signal responsibility avoidance to your employees. It’s important to engage your team in ideation when there are key choices to be made, but leaders need to be able to make the command decision when time, budget, or other pressures call for it. The team will thank you for skipping the part where you circle the drain of consensus-seeking!

In the Alchemy of Talent, my model for high-performing teams, there are numerous talent catalysts that help teams win consistently. Over the years of reviewing new research, coaching teams through disruption, and engaging with people leaders across the globe, I continue to come back to trust as fundamental to team success. But, it’s not the only talent catalyst! If you enjoyed this newsletter, stay tuned for more in this series on the Alchemy of Talent. Our next talent catalyst is leading a team for belonging…