You Gotta Have Trust!

Among the myriad attributes of outstanding leaders, one consistently stands out — trust. You can have a clear vision, a solid strategy, excellent communication skills, innovative ideas, and a talented staff, but if people don't trust you, you will not get the sustainable results you want. Teams and organizations that have a leader who inspires trust perform better, with higher morale, retention, innovation, and loyalty. Without trust, drama often arises, so things don't get done effectively and efficiently. When trust is low on a team, making decisions takes longer. Issues get revisited over and over and — let's face it — are rarely resolved. Low trust leads to more stress, skepticism, frustration, and high turnover. I've been there. Have you?

As Patrick Lencioni notes in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, trust is the fundamental element of teamwork. Teams that don't trust each other don't share everything that's going on, don't get to learn everything about an issue, and isolate themselves into silos. In Lencioni's view, no team is really a team until its members fully trust each other. So, getting the trust issue right is the critical initial step for all leaders.

As the saying goes, "Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair." Successful and healthy workplaces are built on a foundation of trust. When work relationships are rooted in trust, organizations see effective communication, greater innovation, and overall staff satisfaction. However, when trust is broken, the work environment becomes toxic. If employees don't trust their colleagues or their leader, they feel unsafe or that no one has their back, and they spend more energy on self-preservation and job hunting. Plus, they are not able to perform to their potential, and that's a real loss to themselves and to the organization overall.

Why Trust in Leadership Matters More than You Might Realize

Leaders play an essential role in the smooth running and ultimate success of any organization. They unite staff and motivate them to work toward a shared vision. Leaders also engage their colleagues and ensure nobody gets left behind as the organization evolves. The right leader can build morale, encourage confidence, and initiate action. But without trust, a leader can never really be effective and inspiring or ultimately successful. Stephen Covey and Douglas Conant write that "cultivating a high-trust culture is not a 'soft' skill — it's a hard necessity." Research shows that 45 percent of employees identify lack of trust in leadership as the most significant issue affecting their work performance and that trust is the "primary defining characteristic" of the best workplaces.

Leaders can lose trust when they decide to withhold important information from staff. Trust also suffers when staff believe that leaders are not doing what they said they would, in accordance with the organization's values and goals and without explanation. Great leaders are aware of this because they understand the critical necessity of trust for organizational success.

One of the biggest mistakes a leader can make is to assume that others trust him/her by virtue of the title. Trust is not a given. It must be earned, and it takes time to cultivate. Leaders who ignore the importance of trust and don't take the necessary time to build it do so at their own peril. Lack of trust reduces transparency and communication. Reduced transparency and communication lead to fewer innovative ideas and actions, as well as to a lack of agility and responsiveness to constantly changing conditions. When staff lack trust in leadership they often avoid communicating with leaders out of fear of retaliation or simply because they feel that good communication isn't worth the effort if leaders can't be trusted to be transparent.

As a leader, you are trusted only to the degree to which people believe in your ability, consistency, integrity, and commitment to deliver. The good news is that you can earn trust. Here's how:

• Be clear about your mission, purpose, expectations, and even your daily activities. Leaders who are clear about expectations will likely get good results. When we are clear about priorities, we become productive and effective. Understand that people trust what is clear and mistrust ambiguity.
• Have clear accountability standards. If people don't know what is expected and being measured, then they don't really trust. They become cautious and wary. Good leaders lay out exactly what the goal is, what the deliverables are, the budget, and the time frame. An important extra step is to make clear that everyone is accountable to each other, including you as the leader. The more accountable everyone is to each other, the stronger the trust and the better the outcomes.
• Be compassionate and empathetic. Think beyond yourself, put yourself in the other person's position, and don't underestimate the power of sincerely caring about another person. People tend to be skeptical about whether someone really has their best interests in mind. We put our trust in those who demonstrably care about others.
• Lead with integrity. Your words, actions, decisions, and strategies create the organization's culture. Be honest and treat people well. Be sure to praise the contributions of others before your own. When you make mistake, be quick to say so and do all you can to remedy it. People notice and trust those who do what is right and admit when they are wrong.
• Keep learning. Stay current on new ideas and listen to your staff's ideas about different ways to do things. People have confidence and trust in those who lead with relevance and flexibility, not in those who arrogantly believe that their way is the "right" way. Be humble and learn from others.
• Build solid relationships. Trust is fundamentally about relationships, and relationships are best built by establishing genuine connection. Ask questions, listen intently and with curiosity, and show gratitude — it's an important characteristic of exceptional leaders.
• Be prepared to give up control. Empower your staff by recognizing their contributions. Listen to what they have to say, and build their ideas into the organization's plans whenever possible. Recognition increases trust between leadership and employees. If you want your people to support organizational goals and support leadership in trying to achieve them, even in times of great demand or uncertainty, they need to know leadership is listening and values and appreciates their ideas and positions. By empowering your staff, you create a positive cycle of motivation, flexibility, innovation, and productivity.
• Demonstrate commitment. People believe in those leaders who grapple with adversity, emerge from it, and sacrifice for something larger than themselves. Commitment builds trust and loyalty.
• Be consistent. Doing what you say you will do (whether big or small) and being even-tempered regardless of the situation provides people with a level of comfort and certainty to focus on the job rather living in fear that you might explode. Consistency builds a positive workplace culture and stable value system. People trust and follow a consistent leader.
• Be aware that when trust is betrayed, people must go through a healing process — and it takes time. Be quick to forgive and to ask for forgiveness. Then return to focusing on the future and re-earning people's trust.

Creating and building trust requires a consistent effort, but it is critical work for leaders. Take care of your people. Great leaders recognize that trust affects everyone all the time. It is at the foundation of every communication, every goal, every project, and every interaction and relationship. As the leader you have to be diligent about following the elements of trust because people who work in high-trust environments thrive and the organization advances. We all want that, don't we?

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Joan F. Cheverie is Director of EDUCAUSE Institute Programs at EDUCAUSE.