Leadership Series | Begin with Trust

 


From gadgets to household items, to food items – we all have our own selected brands. It is because we believe and trust them.Yes, everything we do is based on TRUST. Trust is the baseline of any positive and healthy relationship. Hence it is very important to build it as well as restore it. Infact trust is the foundation of any leadership role.

So how do you build and store this leadership capital? In my leadership role, I have experienced 3 core drivers of trust; they are Authenticity, Logic and Empathy. Authenticity is when your people believe that they are interacting with the real you. Logic is when they have faith in your decision and competence. And finally empathy is when your people feel that you care about them. Hence these are the core drivers of trust. So, as a leader I would recommend that to build trust always align your words and actions.

I believe that in order to grow as a leader you have to begin with trust in the workplace. Here are 6 ways in which you can build trust and align your actions with your words:

1. Building trust comes from hard work
Remember trust can only be earned. It comes from conscious effort to walk your talk, keep your promises and align your behaviour with your values. Building trust is worth the effort because once trust is lost, it becomes very difficult to recover it.

2. Communicate openly
Even at difficult times like this, always tell the truth and not just what you think your people want to hear. Understand what your team wants to know and communicate facts accordingly while being considerate of their feelings and emotions. Always show support and try and understand your team members, even during a crisis. Trust me, it goes a long way in building trust as a leader.

3. Be an active listener
Actively listen to your team and then very carefully phrase your answers. Avoid being distracted by factors such as side conversations or technology.Always remember that your non-verbal body language speaks a lot. So use eye contact, head nods, facial expressions to convey your interest and show that you are actively listening.

4. Be consistent
Consistently doing what you say you’ll do builds trust over time – it can’t be something you do only occasionally. Keeping commitments must be the essence of your behaviour, in all relationships, day after day and year after year. 

5. Build in accountability
Never be scared of acknowledging your mistakes along with your successes. Your people see you as credible and a role model and hence will follow you. Always encourage honest dialogue and foster accountability by building in processes that become part of your organization’s culture, such as an evaluation of every project - positives, negatives, things to change and improve or a status report and next steps in each meeting agenda - tracking deadlines and milestones.

When trust is intact, your team will not only contribute but will also gift you their dedication, talent, energy and honest thought. I would like to conclude by saying that when trust is present everything goes well and when trust is lost any relationship is at risk.


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