Verb – To believe that someone is good and honest and will not harm you, or that something is safe and reliable.
It is one of the (if not the) most important elements to being a leader and building teams. Leaders who fail to build and maintain trust will lose the faith and support of their teams and lose their followers. A leader without the trust of their team won’t be the team leader for long.
There are differing perspectives on whether trust is gained or earned. I’m of the school that trust is given until someone breaks it. Once broken, earning my trust back is very hard. The other school of thought is that you have to earn someone’s trust. There’s no right or wrong answer to these perspectives, I believe it is shaped by each individual’s own experiences. I was curious to learn what the leaders within my team believe, so I recently took a poll. I had assumed they would be around 50/50 and I couldn’t have been more wrong. Out of 55 leaders who participated in the survey, 50 (91%) said that trust was earned.
Regardless of whether you give trust unless it is broken or people need to earn your trust it is critical to build trust with your team. As a leader it is a good idea to assume your team needs to build trust in you, not that you automatically have it just because of your title. Trust can and should always be strengthened over time. There are day to day behaviors and actions that will help grow trust. Simple things like being honest with the team, doing what you say you will do, and showing the team that you have their best interest at heart will all go a long way in building and maintaining trust.
However, leaders can and should do more to nurture the trust with their team and between team members. With 91% of the team I lead saying trust is earned, it is critical I learn how to build that trust. This wasn’t something I thought about in my early days as a leader. It wasn’t a concern of mine until I was asked to read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni. And the reason I didn’t focus on it was I didn’t understand the importance of trust, that’s a topic for another blog post though.
We were asked by the VP of Global Services and Support, Sanjay Singh, to read the book prior to a leadership summit. I had no idea at the time that this book would come to influence my leadership style as much as it has, and it still does today. Trust is the foundation of building good teams and the absence of it is why teams fail. The lack of trust prevents team members from being vulnerable and honest with each other. It also prevents team members from admitting when they are wrong or to ask for help when they need it.
How do Leaders Build Trust?
The book shared a great recipe of how to build trust. It is quite simple actually, get your team members to know you and to know each other. You might be asking, “Scott, how do you do that?” At team meetings, usually offsites where everyone is in person (remember the days of in person meetings?), I have asked each team member to share the answers to 2 questions:
- What is something from their past, something that they consider to be formative and influenced who they are today, that no one on the team is likely to know about them?
- Where did they consider home when they were growing up?
When you as the leader really listen to the answers, to what many people consider these “ice breaker” questions, you can learn a lot about your team. Go into this exercise ready to hear what they say. These two questions reveal a lot about a person. You will start to see why they have a certain view or perspective on issues and you will learn what is important to them. Some example of the things that I have learned include
- People growing up in military families and frequently moving as children.
- People who were so afraid to fail that they pushed themselves hard in school.
- People being trapped in cultural traditions and norms from which they felt they had to break free.
As the leader I answer the questions too. I usually share that I had to overcome amblyopia (aka lazy eye). I also share that I nearly lost my left index finger, cutting it open on some glass like a banana peel. Somewhere in my father’s house there’s a picture of a very young me in glasses, an eye patch, and a bandaged hand putting this all together in one epic photo.
For this year, when we met virtually during the pandemic I had the team do something a little different. Each team member sent in a picture of something that represented their past and another picture representing something they aspired to do in the future. Everyone then took a quiz guessing which picture was submitted by which teammate. Sadly, we didn’t do very well on the quiz, but that was only half the exercise. We then had each person share what their pictures meant. We learned about people’s hobbies including learning to fly, playing the bagpipes, cars, and a NYC Columbus Day Parade Marching Band Champion. This last one was mine, Go East Meadow High School Jets! We learned about courageous whistle blowing blogging, favorite hangouts (both past and future). I even learned something new about myself as I searched for my aspiration. I want to do something inspiring others, like giving a TED Talk.
Each time I have run these exercises I can see apprehension on the faces of the team. They have to trust me enough going into these exercises to take them seriously and know there is a good reason that I am doing them. Afterwards, the team always shares that it was a good experience and that they learned a lot about their teammates. After each time I have done things like this I see the team forming new bonds and creating or strengthening trust. Trust that allows them to be more vulnerable, honest, ask for help, and support each other. I also know that they see the benefit in doing this too, which builds their trust in me as their leader.
Leaders build trust in their teams by being open and honest with their teams, letting their teams get to know them and helping the team get to know each other.
And if that doesn’t work, I guess you could always go back to trust falls 😉.
| Icons made by Freepik</a> from www.flaticon.com |
Thank you for this one – the topic of trust has been on mind mind for a while know 🙂 Among many other aspects I wonder who is responsible for the trust between team and its leader? Should the leader be somehow checking if it's there or is that a shared responsibility, much like in most relations? And what if the trust is missing but the leader is not aware of that?
BTW: a TED Talk is one of my dreams too, especially TEDx NYC!
Hi Scott, Jaff Hasan here. Thanks for posting this!
It is especially important to earn trust with up to 5 generations in the workforce now. A leader needs to make a personal connection to each team member as everyone has his/her own communication preferences, motivating factors, comfort with public recognition, etc.
The examples you shared are great team-building exercises, and I like how you don’t have these exercises just once, but sprinkled intermittently to strengthen the bond.
Happy Holidays!
I was so excited when I woke up to a new post. I love that you give some practical examples of how to build trust. Both of them require people to be vulnerable. Being so requires some degree of trust. Have you ever had someone who lacked that trust and was more apprehensive to participate than others? Or perhaps refused to participate?
Hi Scott, thank you for sharing. I find it is really valuable. In my observation, some people are likely to trust others initially, until others prove not trustable; some people are likely to trust nobody as if there is psychological barrier. It is really great point that you need to get to know person deeply by well crafted questions.
Trust is a two way street, so it will always fall on both people. I would put a little more accountability on the leader to take the initiative. Leaders absolutely should be taking steps to check on trust, things like just checking in with people and asking questions can help identify lack of trust.
I'll share what can happen when trust is lost and the leader isn't aware in a future blog…it usually isn't good :-(.
Awesome to hear we share a dream.
Hey Jaff, thanks for reading and joining the conversation! You are so right about needing to build a relationship with each team member. And learning what motivates them, how to communicate, how they want to recognized, and so much more is key. What makes one person happy might make another person upset.
I have run these exercises with multiple teams and over many years. I also make sure that my 1 on 1 meetings start with talks about the person not work as often as I can. Really caring about people helps strengthen trust.
Usually these exercises were run with teams that were together already and are just meeting in person for the first time. Thankfully, I haven't had anyone resist being vulnerable. People are often apprehensive about it. I almost always go first so that reduces some anxiety too.
With a lot of my teams I have them read The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team. That gives a shared context on why it is key to get to know each other.
Thanks for the insightful comment. I wish I knew who said it, you are showing as Unknown unfortunately. Apparently there is a profile bug in blogger, you can fix it by visiting https://www.blogger.com/switch-profile.g.
I have had experiences where people didn't trust me. That doesn't work out in the long run and we have almost always gone separate ways. I'll share more on that in a future blog.
I look forward to that blog then! Will you include also any advice on what the non-leader can do? If it's a two way street (I agree!) I imagine there is something the other side can do as well 🙂
Good question Klaudia, I will try and answer it in the blog. Though the focus will be on what the leader can do. It will depend on what magic happens when I start writing the post 😁.
Thanks for the insights and the practical advice Scott! I've been part of teams where you know you are safe and that the team has your back no matter what, and others where you feel like they need to protect yourself from the team. There's a world of difference between the two when it comes to productivity, innovation, growth, and even mental health.
I've discovered that trust can also be nurtured by constantly reminding the team the things we have in common, such as a team's or organization's mission and vision, or a common goal. One exercise I tried recently with a team I lead is to have each member do their own elevator pitch for the team and why they choose to be a part of it. It was really inspiring to hear everyone's commitment to the team's success, and there's also a renewed sense of trust as a result of the exercise.
It's a terrible feeling when the team feels unsafe and well, not like a team. It's absolutely night and day compared to a safe team that you know has your back. I've been very lucky in my career to be a part of more safe than unsafe teams by a wide margin.
Oh, I like that exercise of the elevator pitch. How did it go? Do you think everyone was bought in?
BTW, you are showing as Unknown unfortunately. I'd love to know who this is. Apparently there is a profile bug in blogger, you can fix it by visiting https://www.blogger.com/switch-profile.g.
Looking forward to trying out your most recent virtual exercise with my team.
Please let me know how it goes!