Strengths Based Leadership: Trust
Strengths Based Leadership by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie offers four basic needs followers’ have in order to get behind a leader: trust, compassion, stability, hope. We’re sharing our stories featuring these basic needs as leaders of millennial individuals and teams throughout 15 years of management experience.
“Whatever you decide to do, I trust you.” I remember distinctly the moment those words came out of my boss’ mouth. Not because they were empowering words that helped me feel like a brilliant employee, but because I didn’t believe them. My immediate internal response was, “No you don’t. You definitely do not trust me.” Because everything I had experienced up to that point—her completely rearranging elements of an event I had already set up, criticizing the choices I made after saying she had no opinion, negatively comparing my work to that of a previous employee, to name just a few—showed me her words held no meaning. It was obvious she didn’t trust me at all. And, as a result, I didn’t trust her.
When it comes to leading others, trust is a crucial component. And, it goes both ways, the leader needs to trust the follower and the follower needs to trust the leader. Research conducted by the Gallup organization states that the chances of employees being engaged at work when they do not trust the company’s leaders are just 1 in 12. In contrast, the chances of employees being engaged at work are better than 1 in 2 if they trust the organization’s leadership—a more than six fold increase.
Telling employees, “you can trust me,” might seem to be a good way to gain their trust, but it’s not really a way that’s going to work. Unfortunately, no quick-fix-miracle-drug has been developed to instill trust in people. Trust is a characteristic with no value unless it is earned, through observation and experience. An employee needs to be able to experience honesty, integrity, and respect from you before they will trust you, which is something that only takes place over time.
Most of my experience managing employees has been with millennials in their first job out of college. I remember trying to figure out the best way to develop a positive, life-giving relationship with my direct reports, while still getting them to do their jobs, and it always came back to trust. I recently asked a former direct report if he trusted me and felt that I trusted him, and why. He said yes, after initially being very intimidated by me (whoops!), he trusted our working relationship. He gave me a few reasons why--including one I hadn’t even considered--noting, “from the start you seemed fairly intelligent, but you weren’t a know-it-all. You made me feel like I was contributing in some way with my thoughts and ideas. Because of that, it seemed like you trusted me, and that made it really easy to trust you. It just kept growing the more we worked together.” Like many millennials, he appreciated the assurance his thoughts and ideas actually mattered to the organization. Knowing he was contributing to the larger whole made a tremendous difference in his ability to trust me and what we were trying to do together.
I could also share numerous stories of when I didn't effectively bring trust into a supervisory relationship--micromanaging employees into oblivion. However, I've tried to learn from my mistakes (and my experience of a not-so-trusting boss) in order to build a foundation of mutual honesty, respect, and integrity over time. Inspiring trust from an employee can take any number of different forms, and the key is to demonstrate trust in more than one way, small building blocks toward a greater whole. Asking them to offer their opinions and feedback, giving them the time and space to fail, allowing them to take new ideas and approaches and run with them, sharing about your own places of vulnerability and flaws, and getting to know a bit about who the person is outside the office are just a few examples.
Trust is something that must be seen, (not just heard), that only grows with a healthy dose of attention.
Janie Stuart is a coach with 18 years experience managing young employees and volunteers in the non-profit sector.
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