Trust: A leap of faith

“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.” Stephen Covey

When a father throws his child in the air, the child doesn’t cry while coming down, knowing for sure that he shall be caught by his father, come what may. This is Trust and in this particular case is innate and doesn’t develop due to a wonderful induction, inspiring engagement or awesome appraisal. But it’s not the case, when it comes to Employees trusting the Organization that they work in, or their Boss or vice versa. That trust has to be earned the hard way, passing through the ruthless grinder of time and tests. And once lost, it’s veritably impossible to regain it, especially in its earlier form. 

Trust is like air, when it’s there, no one makes a lot of hoopla about it, but when it’s not there, everyone gasps and wants to abandon that space with panic. Its absence is far more discomforting than its presence providing succor. Many a team have disbanded, plenty of Organizations have gone belly up, just because they were missing a key ingredient called TRUST.

There are just a few elemental forces that hold our world together. The one that’s the glue of society is called trust. Its presence cements relationships by allowing people to live and work together, feel safe and belong to a group. Trust in a leader allows organizations and communities to flourish, while the absence of trust can cause fragmentation, conflict and even war. That’s why we need to trust our leaders, our family members, our friends and our co-workers, albeit in different ways.

One dictionary definition of trust is “feeling safe when vulnerable.” When we depend on a leader, family member or friend, we can safely feel vulnerable, and we need trust to manage the anxiety of this feeling. When trust is present, things go well; but when trust is lost, the relationship is at risk.

As a leader, you want the people in your organization to trust you. We often see that trust is a leading indicator of whether others evaluate them positively or negatively. But creating that trust or, perhaps more importantly, reestablishing it when you’ve lost it isn’t always that straightforward. When your team member knows one thing “His Boss has his back”, he can and shall achieve wonders under the umbrella of trust, as he shall go all out in his tryst with destiny, rather than worry, what if he doesn’t succeed. 

Trust is always blind and not conceitful and scheming, hence to be able to have blind trust, we as leaders have to sweat and toil a lot, to be able to create that environment for everyone else to flourish and fulfill all the untapped potentials.

Trust is hard to define, but we do know when it’s lost. When that happens, we withdraw into our shell, diminish our energy and the level of engagement with the people around them. We go on an internal strike, not wanting to be sympathetic to the person who we feel has let us down. 

In contrast, when the trust level is high, people reward it by giving more than ever before. But, more often than not in Organizations where there is lack of open channels of communication, people feel that their distrust is not safe to share. So, a leader or loved one may be slow to discover that they have lost a person’s trust.

If we ever lose trust, it’s imperative to establish free, frank and unbiased communication to understand the cause of this trust exodus and then with urgent impetus work all cylinders firing towards rebuilding it, lest it becomes a pandemic.

On the positive side, trust makes people feel eager to be part of a relationship or group, with a shared purpose and a willingness to depend on each other. When trust is intact, we will willingly contribute even beyond what is expected of us, not just by offering our presence, but also by sharing our dedication, talent, energy and honest thoughts on how the relationship or group is working.

In the Armed Forces, the trust is most sacred and elevated, as you sit in that ambush with the trust that your Buddy if needed shall take a bullet for you. This is the purest form of trust and if achieved outside of the Olive-Green Brigade, can make Champions out of Average Joes and take performance of teams through the roof.

A patient, many forgotten years ago used to trust his Doctor on the same pedestal as God and would without question or doubt follow the doctor’s advice on the path of recovery. Gone are those days when God wore white, and every word, every action of Doctors, is always under the scanner and trial by social media precedes the ones which happen more than ever before in courtrooms.

We lost it drop by drop and now the jar of trust is almost empty, and we pay the consequences through every one-star review, nasty email, court notice, broken bone, burnt hospital across the globe. So now more than ever, its pertinent to understand what builds trust and give our all, together to ensure we keep this air in plenty and flourish with its nourishment.

Six Building Blocks of Trust

Reliability & Dependability: If you are true to your word and fulfills all commitments, you shall be trusted, while constantly ditching your team members is a recipe for disaster. Whenever your associate reaches out to you for help and you have a habit of backing out, then next time they shall not depend on you and as a fallout stop trusting you.

Transparency: If the Management has a habit of having hushed meetings, hiding everything from their Teams, trust goes downhill very quickly while the opposite happens when there are clear channels of communication, with the Leader taking the ownership to share the future course without ambiguity. 

Competency: Even if you are good hearted and empathetic to your fraternity, if you don’t back it up with sheer competency in your domain, you won’t earn the trust of your fellow colleagues. Capability is a layer which one has to compulsorily don if one wants to earn the trust of others.

Sincerity, Authenticity & Congruence: No amount of sugar can hide the bitterness of nefarious intentions which finally reveal the true side of some leaders who not just lose face, they lose trust forever. You can’t get away with saying something and later on doing something else. Allow others to speak, contest your stand and remain aligned to the Mission, more so in difficult times.

Fairness: The world doesn’t revolve around the needs of one, but of all, and the day our leaders realize this, their actions shall concern the well-being of the greater good, not their very own and shall translate into everlasting trust.

Openness & Vulnerability: If you are wrong as a leader and have the openness to admit it, your brethren shall be able to challenge you when they feel you are veering off course. A leader who is “never wrong” never gets the truth from others. Yet a timely apology or admission of being wrong is a powerful weapon to build or rebuild trust.

Trust a leader who is able to create positive relationships by staying in touch and being concerned for others, generate cooperation, resolve conflict and give honest feedback. Also use good judgment when making decisions, walk the talk and anticipate and react well to problems.

The relationship between the Truster (decision maker in trusting) and the Trustee (one asking for trust) shall depend on many factors of their traits and behavioral aspects. The Truster, if is risk averse shall find it uneasy to trust quickly, hence you see Japanese being not easy to trust others while Americans having a propensity to taking risk so also trust easily. Well-adjusted people with high levels of confidence that nothing bad shall happen to them, also end up trusting easily versus anxious people. People with higher relative power over the trustee, shall find it easier to trust, compared to a Truster, who has little authority as this vulnerability breeds mistrust.Whenever the stakes are high, chances of trust diminish in those circumstances, as everyone looks at scapegoats, exit doors and pass the parcel game takes over. Similarity in core values between the Truster and Trustee also tends towards trustful relations as you own up the other person due to a sense of kinship. If the two parties involved have alignment of interests, trust is a reasonable response while trust is missing in teams where everyone is self centred as in such cases the Manager has never demonstrated concern for others’ interests than his own.

Because trust is a relational concept, good communication is critical. Not surprisingly, open and honest communication tends to support the decision to trust, whereas poor (or no) communication creates suspicion. Many organizations fall into a downward spiral as miscommunication causes employees to feel betrayed, which leads to a greater breakdown in communication and, eventually, outright distrust.

Trust is a measure of the quality of a relationship between two people, between groups of people, or between a person and an organization. In totally predictable situations the question of trust doesn’t arise: When you know exactly what to expect, there’s no need to make a judgment call. The turbulence of Outsourcing, Mergers, Downsizing, changing Business Models and as we have seen recently Global Pandemics, creates a breeding ground for distrust.

Hence it is upon all of us to ensure that as we weave the fabric of progress with our teams, with the thread of trust remaining ever strong, also unbroken and given all the care and attention, it so truly deserves.

Happy Trusting!!

“To earn trust, money and power aren’t enough; you have to show some concern for others. You can’t buy trust in the supermarket."

? His Holiness the Dalai Lama