Leadership and Trust
Dr. David Rafeedie
Fred had just been hired to be the team leader of a team that had been together for a while. Fred was all over the map. It was tough to pin him down on direction. His values were not clear to those around him. At times he was contradictory. He seemed to operate by a secret set of rules that he kept to himself. You knew when you violated one of his rules when he talked to you about it. The team members were constantly trying to adjust to what they thought Fred expected.
The one thing Fred did that was consistent—he was always busy. Some might say he is a workaholic. Always doing but never seeming to get anywhere. And if Fred wasn’t getting anywhere neither was the team.
Fred was shaping an unhealthy team culture that would undermine future strategic initiatives. He was not intentionally shaping the culture that way. But as the leader of the team, that was the practical result of the way he led. When a leader runs around like a chicken with his head cut off, directionless, and lacking a clear set of values that he operates by, it impacts the trust that his team will have in him, and some predictable responses take place.
Without trust, her team will not be on her side. They will not go above and beyond but will do what they must do. There may be an individual exception or two that are self-motivated and take pride in what they do, but if there is no trust on the team for a leader, even these valuable employees will not see themselves performing for the sake of the leader.
Without trust, the team will not be open with the leader. They will not initiate important conversations, and there is a danger the leader will not be aware of important information that would be important for him to know.
Without trust, relationships will always be shallow, and the leader will not be able to motivate or inspire her team or organization. She will come across as phony or manipulative if she tries. There will be a lot of inward, and invisible, rolling of the eyes from team members.
Without trust, the team will not hear the leader. Not literally, of course. They will hear the words the leader says, but there will be no desire to hear the heart behind the words. The leader will not be given the benefit of the doubt for motive or reasons for saying what she said.
To build and keep trust a leader behaves in a certain way and can do certain things that will engender the trust she needs to accomplish the mission and achieve the vision of the organization. She will be able to motivate her team and move them to the Performance phase of team development. https://davidthecoach.com/blog-1/2018/1/18/team-building-moving-your-team-to-maximum-effectiveness.
Here are the big three in building trust:
Authenticity is foundational to building the trust with your team that will enable you to inspire and motivate them to the Performance level. By authenticity, I do not mean speaking shallow bromides to give the impression to the team you are one of them. Authenticity looks and feels like something. It is tangible, and the individual team members will recognize it when they see and hear it.
Authenticity requires the courage to show weakness. Everyone has weaknesses. Your team, if you have been there for more than six months, probably know yours. The transparency to admit, maybe even laugh about, your weaknesses build the kind of trust a leader needs to motivate his team. Trying to hide your weaknesses is a fool’s errand.
Authenticity requires being secure and comfortable enough in your skin to be willing to say, “I don’t know.” Or the willingness to give away the credit. Or to accept someone else’s idea.
Another important part of authenticity is, say what you mean and mean what you say. Clarity, a strong set of values, and the ability to express each in communication and action will go along way to earn the trust of the members of your team.
Empathy is a fundamental emotion to for the leader to have to build trust with his team. Some come by empathy naturally, it is a character trait. For some, it takes work to build up the “muscle” of empathy. Responding with the right emotion to a team member’s expressed emotion is important. Sometimes the emotion is not expressed. An empathetic leader will notice if the team member does something that is out of character for them and check on them. Or they will notice if a team member’s energy level is not what it usually is and the leader will explore that with them checking to see if they are all right.
An empathetic leader will care about their team members well-being as much as she cares for accomplishing the task at hand. A healthy team more efficiently and effectively accomplishes tasks and goals. Caring for your team members as individuals is incredibly important. Valuing them for their intrinsic value as human beings goes a long way in building trust. Genuine empathy and care go hand and hand and go a long way in building the kind of trust a leader needs from her team. It doesn’t take much to motivate a team member when that team member knows the leader genuinely cares for them.
Knowledge is the third fundamental characteristic of a leader who has the trust of his team. A leader must know his stuff. To put it simply, you must know what you are talking about. That may sound like a no-brainer, but many times a leader will say what he thinks he should say without having the intellectual basis for saying it. It sounds right; maybe the leader read about it in a book or article, but she doesn’t understand it and can’t explain it or answer questions. It doesn’t take long for a team member to figure out the leader is out to lunch. It becomes obvious that she doesn’t know what she is discussing. An authentic leader would say, “I don’t know, let’s figure it out.” Or, “I will research that and get back to you, and we can see if it works for us.”
No team or organization will be healthy if there is no trust in the leader. Of course, the opposite is true too. No team or organization will be healthy if the leader has no trust in the team or an individual member of it. But that is a blog for another time.
What do you think?
Coaching can help you break through barriers that hinder your success as a leader. There may be some behavioral traits or tendencies that do not allow you to practice the fundamental characteristics mentioned above. Sometimes those tendencies are hard to identify. Coaching can help you nail that down and change. You will expand your capacity and the capacity of your team or organization. Email me at info@davidthecoach.com and let’s have a conversation and explore the possibilities.
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