Tipping the Scales in Your Favour

5 ways to build trust as a business leader

What do people say about you when you’re not in the room? ?Would your team and close colleagues describe you as having their best interests at heart?? Someone who is both inspirational and with integrity?? Do you make it safe for them to take risks, develop new skills and try out new ideas?? Do they believe that you will keep your word and deliver on your promises?? In other words, do they trust you?

Larraine Solomon & Stuart Maister share 5 ways you can build trust as a business leader.

In an increasingly turbulent and uncertain world, trust is a critical currency for a successful business leader. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, people are increasingly turning to their employers and business leaders for a source of truth, rather than the media or Government.? For many people, their employer is the most trusted institution.

While strong, trust-based relationships underpin high performing teams, conflicts are inevitable, especially in budget-constrained environments. ?Disagreements about work, ego clashes, poor communication and stretching targets can all take a toll, even in the most cohesive teams, and trust can be an early casualty.

So how can you build and maintain strong, healthy trusted relationships?? Here are five ideas to be a high trust leader within your business.

1.???? Be intentional about building trust

Many business relationships are transactional because the focus of every interaction is on delivery. The questions all start with ‘what’ or ‘how much’. ‘What do we need to do, by when?’? The move to video meetings has accelerated this. ‘Hi, what do we need to achieve in the next 30 minutes?’

Little or no attention is paid to the relationship that underpins the delivery. This relies on questions that begin with ‘how’ and ‘why’. ‘How shall we work together?’? ’Why do you want this done?’ ‘How can we do this better?’

Invest time in building trust before getting into the specifics of delivery can be the foundation for long term, sustainable value creation. It should be a deliberate, approach that is as important as closing the deal or delivering the project.

2.???? See trust as a two-way street

As a leader, you want to be trusted - by your team, peers and those to whom you report – and you want to trust your team and have them trust each other.The key mindset here is that of interdependence rather than power. It changes the culture when that is the basis of engagement.

If the interdependence is not recognised, and the focus is on transactional performance, then this usually results in blame, defensive behaviours and poorer results.

By checking in regularly about how you’re working together in addition to what you’re delivering, you set the tone about what is important. It will mean any problems can be better tackled, and opportunities more fully exploited.

3.???? Ensure Clarity

Lack of alignment creates mistrust. Different expectations, conflicting strategies and approaches all lead to the destruction of trust and poorer performance. That is why Clarity is so critical.

Provide clarity by aligning the objectives of everyone involved, so that people work towards the same agenda, together. For example, when an HR Director works with a Supply Chain Director, then each simply doing their job will not create trust. Ensure there is total clarity about each other’s goals and strategy, and synthesize these so that there is alignment and a single focus.

This principle applies when recruiting and developing your team. Alignment will turbocharge performance and show who does or does not fit.

This is the first of three dimensions in the Trust Triangle, which is a useful tool designed by Stuart Maister (one of the authors) and Kevin Vaughan-Smith. Our book, ‘Choose Trust’, is due to be published by Economist Books next year.

4.???? Decide on the Character of the relationship

The second dimension of the Trust Triangle is Character. This is about achieving your agreed ambition through the behaviours of those involved.

Most technical or delivery issues can be improved when the behaviour of those involved is seen as trustworthy; and the opposite is also true.

What are trustworthy behaviours? In workshops we encourage people to identify these for themselves, and then to call out in detail what this means in practice in the context of their relationships. This helps people identify likely scenarios and agree how they will tackle them together. Over time we have identified five key Principles of Behaviour which serve as a useful starting point: consideration (or fairness), courage (or proactive trust), honesty (or openness), loyalty (or commitment) and ambition (or thinking bigger).

In a high trust relationship, those involved behave in ways which are in line with these principles and do so consciously and consistently.

5.???? Agree the Capabilities of the relationship

The final dimension of the Trust Triangle is that of Capability. If people just fail to do the job, they damage trust. That’s true in any transaction.

But being intentional about the relationship allows you to go much further. It means you look at how much more you can achieve together and identify what the combined capability of those involved looks like. High trust relationships allow people, teams and businesses to work together much more collaboratively, and that raises their collective potential.

This dimension is also about the way the relationship is managed and governed. Are we capable of developing a much higher trust foundation for our relationship and how can we ensure this is sustained?? It’s a great topic for discussion during regular meetings.

?"Trust is like love. Both parties have to feel it before it really exists."

Simon Sinek, well known author and speaker once said: “Trust is like love. Both parties have to feel it before it really exists.”?? Once it exists, and if it is proactively maintained, it is a glue that holds people and team together, allowing people to perform at their best.? In a competitive environment, spending time building trust will tip the scales in your favour.

If this resonates contact [email protected] or [email protected] to discuss further.

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