Trust and Credibility
Sometime during your professional career, you may have heard trust and credibility can be difficult to develop but easy to destroy. This rings true to anyone who is or has been in a leadership position. Trust and credibility are just as important to corporate reputation as the quality of products and services, according to the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer. Unfortunately, many companies do not practice true authenticity geared toward trust, instead they try to build their organizations based on what they think employees want to hear.
If you are in a position of leadership or you are fortunate to be a mentor you have the ability to raise a company to its highest or bring it down to its knees very quickly simply by how you talk and treat others. Trust can be very subjective based on a judgement you make with the other person you have a relationship with, but once trust is gone it is gone forever. Credibility on the other hand once lost can be regained after an honest mistake but they usually go hand in hand.
Research has shown that about 49 percent of employees trust their management and only 28 percent believe CEO’s are a credible source where they can go for information. Knowing these statistics is quite disappointing especially when I go to a facility expecting to build trust.
Coming from an environment in manufacturing and continuous improvement, ideas always swirled around in my head and going to my supervisor never bared any fruit with respect to change. Through the years of my career, one important lesson I learned as an individual in a leadership position was I must gain trust and credibility in those that have great ideas. Below I will outline 3 simple questions that has worked for me and was built into a solid template I used in many facilities all over.
When I meet with each individual separately I ask:
“What are your strengths and weaknesses?” Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and the significance to asking this question is to somewhat qualify or validate that the individual and team they are a part of, has been built for their personal growth and companies success. This also gives me an inclination of where I can assist them in their career path to which will aid them in eliminating their weakness. Putting this professional at ease, letting them know by developing their skillset is paramount to their growth.
“Tell me what process you follow to do your job?” This has always been a question that has intrigued me because no matter how many folks I speak with, especially when they work in the same area, I get varied processes. My main focus here is to take notes and refrain from adding personal thoughts. We will compare and review these processes in later internal meetings down the road when as we start moving forward with improvements.
"What are your ideas to improve your work area or process?" This is by far my favorite question for obvious reasons. I see their face light up and a smile on their face because I know a question such as this is the last question they thought they would be asked. When I was green in the business, if you just asked me this one question, I would have been quite happy. If a company is not improving and thinking how they can be more competitive, they will remain stagnant and this is by far the best way to accomplish that goal.
As mentioned in the beginning of this article, obtaining trust and credibility does not come easy and has to be worked on consistently but you must put in the effort because the rewards clearly outweigh the risks. Remember this one saying, “The Tongue is a small thing, but what enormous damage it can do.” (James 3:5) Be careful what you say and how you say it because developing strong relationships and earning sustainable trust and credibility, will elevate you to be a high performing leader not to mention help your company become even more successful.