Trust

I have a terrible history with flat tires.? Doesn’t matter the car or local. I always seem to find nails, and have been likened to a "nail metal detector" by my wife.? This past week, the dreaded low pressure sensor went off for one of the tires on my car.? My heart sunk and I could feel my blood pressure rising.? Where would I find the time to go to a dealership to replace the tire during a busy week?? How would I endure the inevitable ribbing from my wife and family about my tire problems?? As I was fuming over all of this, the sensor went back to a normal range.? I don’t know whether I was relieved or exasperated.? In my “raging against the machine,” I had clearly forgotten that it was cooler outside in the morning, and colder tires tend to display lower pressure readings (an example of Charles’s law in chemistry).? With that said, only one of the tire sensors was low when all of them should have been low and alarming below the threshold for normal pressure.? After some further interrogation, I discovered I didn’t have a flat tire, but rather a faulty tire pressure sensor.?

The reliability of my tire sensors had been in question before.? As a result, I have learned to be sceptical of the sensor readings, and frankly I don’t trust them. I believe my eyes, seeing the tire is flat or not, rather than relying on the senor.? Said another way, an inconsistent tire sensor had compromised my perception of trust in its reading.? This highlights an important concept with trust.? In order for us to trust something, we have to believe that it behaves consistently. It appears this observation comports with the literature. A 2019 Harvard Business Review article noted that three elements are necessary for trust: positive relationships, good judgement/expertise, and consistency (Reference). If you are looking for a much deeper dive into the relationship between consistency and trust in social psychology, check it out here (Reference). The upshot, is that there are clearly many rubrics that break trust into different components that are both emotional and logical; however, the majority of the systems include some measure of consistency and how it impacts the relationship between leaders and team members.

USF Tampa General Physicians has spent considerable time and attention with our organizational development thought partners at the telos institute related to this issue of building trust in our team structures. As a new company, we exist in a rapidly growing and complex academic health system, in a rapidly changing city and market, and in a rapidly changing healthcare industry. As such, building trust with our team is mission critical to our success. Our experience supports the hypothesis that engaged leaders working hard to be steadfast and consistent with team members enhances trust. It is also clear that if you see a leader behaving erratically and inconsistently, it makes it REALLY hard for team members to trust you as a consequence. We are fortunate to have a leadership model called AKTiVe, developed by John D. Couris our health system CEO that we all train on, simulate, and try to emulate in all we do as leaders. AKTiVe stands for leading with authenticity, kindness, transparency, and vulnerability. By modeling these leadership traits as a leader, we aim to enhance team member engagement, psychological safety, AND trust.

The need for trust is a timeless truth in leadership, and we believe trust is enhanced by being consistent with our AKTiVe model. But how to do that? For me, communicating clearly, concisely, and on a predictable cadence is important. Team members need to rely on their leaders for situational awareness and useful information. It's a kindness for me as a leader to be respectful of our people's time, their attention, and their email inboxes. Meetings need to be informative, impactful, solution focused, and occur on a reliable cadence for the affinity groups selected (and followed up with clear summaries). In our communications and meetings, we need to be authentic, transparent, and vulnerable; when we are not perfect as leaders, we need to own up to it, apologize, and move on. Like so many things, this is easy to talk about but so difficult to do. How are you building trust through consistency? Are you saying one thing and doing another? As we close out this busy work week, let’s all examine whether we are doing a good job behaving consistently as leaders.? If you are “skeptical of the reading," give AKTiVe a try!? It works, and I believe it will help you to build trust in those you work with, support, and lead.?