When we hear the word trust, we think of a virtue that is used to establish loyalty in social connections, whether it is religious or social. It has very little to do with business.
Trust is a difficult virtue to describe, yet we can tell when it has been broken.
With this comment, Warren Buffet, a leader and business mogul, effectively expressed the core of corporate trust: ‘ “Nobody notices when trust is prevalent, like the air we breathe. Everyone notices when it is missing.”
Some of the measures leaders can take to create trust:
Truthfulness
Leaders should communicate honestly and openly, with no hidden motive that could lead to suspicion. To foster trustworthy connections with team members, they should keep their word and strive to fulfil their obligations.
Responsibility
Taking full responsibility for all results demonstrates genuine leadership. Allow the team the time, space, and resources they require to complete their job, then step aside and trust them to behave properly.
Purpose
As a team leader, what are your goals? Is your mission in sync with your actions? It’s critical to have consistency between what’s said and what’s done. Trust grows when the team realizes they’re in the same boat as you on the task.
Steadfastness
The ability to stick to a set of goals is a prerequisite for being taken seriously. It calms team members’ anxieties when leaders are professionally competent and ensure that assignments are done and turned in on time.
Competence
Even if we like someone personally, if they aren’t capable of doing what we expect of them, our faith in them erodes. Leaders gain followers’ trust by demonstrating their capacity to do tasks successfully.
Trust is a must if we are to improve team relationships and productivity; it is up to us as leaders to develop it.
“The greatest way to find out if you can trust someone is to trust them” -Ernest Hemingway, author of “The Old Man and the Sea”
