How to build trust in your leadership

How do you nurture trust in your team or organisation?

What is relational trust and how does a leader grow or diminish this in a team?

How do leaders build trust?

These are questions that all leaders should take into consideration in the course of their daily interactions with their team. It is trust that sets the foundation for any cohesive and successful team. The question of how to build trust is an important consideration for experienced leaders and those who are new to their role.

Leaders who understand how to grow and maintain trust in their team, and take deliberate steps in building trust, will be more successful and enable their organisation to thrive. In essence, leaders who know how to build trust are essentially more succesful. This post, which is based on the book ‘The Speed of Trust’ by Stephen Covey, will provide you with some practical ways to explore how your leadership builds (or limits) trust.

We have developed a useful tool which you can take a copy of that will help you with your self-review and reflection. Our goal with this is to help you grow your leadership capabilities and build better trust in your school or organisation.

Does your team trust you and do you know what you do that helps build trust?

Do you know what you don’t do that you start doing, in order to build trust? What have you done about it…?

If you have not read it, the book ‘The Speed of Trust’ by Stephen Covey is well worth a read. It provides an excellent conceptual framework for how trust can be grown through deliberate actions and behaviours. Covey asserts:

“The ability to establish, extend, and restore trust with all stakeholders – customers, business partners, investors, and coworkers – is the key leadership competency of the new, global economy.”

Of course, the context in which we work as leaders is often fluid and changes, so whether you are involved in establishing trust, rebuilding trust, or extending it will very much depend on a number of factors. These might include:

• Being a new leader to your organisation where the staff miss the previous leader;
• Having been through an experience that challenged people;
• The degree to which people are authentic and communicate effectively;
• Whether people in the organisation have positive or negative intent in terms of how they support the leadership;
• How comfortable people are in the environment and the degree to which they are able to take on new ideas, approaches and adapt to change (or not).

In this post, I will introduce you to the 13 key elements of trust as Covey describes them, plus I will provide you with a tool to undertake some self-review of yourself and/or your team. As you consider these issues, and most importantly, your role as the leader, here are some questions to stimulate reflection and dialogue:

1. What is trust?
2. How do you know you have it, or not?
3. What builds trust?
4. What do you do that might build trust?
5. What diminishes trust?
6. What do you do that might diminish trust?
7. Do you think your team trusts you? Why or why not? What are the indicators of this?
8. What is the relationship between trust and effective leadership?

Covey believes that effective leaders are rediscovering the importance of trust as they see it from a new perspective. The traditional perception of trust being a soft, social virtue is no longer applicable, and leaders are learning to see it as a highly relevant, and critical performance multiplier.

Bear in mind that last point of the ‘performance multiplier’ can go either way – it can be magnified as the building of trust, or magnified as the diminishment of trust. If the latter, then trust is lost more quickly than it is gained.

Below is a summary of the principles which we’ve summarised from the book ‘The Speed of Trust‘ by Stephen Covey.

Courage is the ability to do the right thing even when it may be difficult. It is when you do what you know is right regardless of the possible consequences. This is sometimes referred to as your ‘moral compass’ and it is what guides you when times are tough or when making difficult decisions.

Intent (Character)
The Second Core is Intent. Intent comes from our character. It is part of our value system. It is how we know how we should act and what we hold as most important. Covey breaks intent down into three areas:

1. Motive is why you do what you do. The best motive in building trust is genuinely caring about people. If you don’t care and have no desire to care, be honest and let people know you don’t care. If you don’t care but want to care, start to do caring things. Often, the feelings will follow the actions.

2. Agenda stems from our motive. The best agenda is honestly seeking what is good for others. Notice that your agenda is much more than wanting what is good for others, but seeking what is good for others.

3. Behaviour is putting your agenda into practice. It is what we do based on what we intend to do and the outcomes we actively seek. Behaviour is where the rubber meets the road and beliefs are turned into action. Behaviour is important because it is what people see and judge. Telling someone you love them is important, but showing them you love them is critical to growing the relationship.

Covey gives three very sensible suggestions to help you monitor and improve your intent:

First, examine and refine your motives
Second, declare your intent
Third, choose abundance.

Capabilities (Competency)
The Third Core is Capabilities. Capabilities are “the talents, skills, knowledge, capacities, and abilities that we have that enable us to perform with excellence.” To help think about the various dimensions of capabilities, Covey uses the acronym TASKS:

T – Talents are the activities we are naturally good at and usually love to do. Covey believes that talents are more about our potential.

A – Attitude is how you see things and how you respond to situations emotionally.

S – Skills are the things we’ve learned to do well. Covey points out that is is easy to get so comfortable with our skills that we don’t explore or fulfill our talents.

K – Knowledge is what we know and continue to learn.

S – Style is your unique way of doing things. It is intimately tied to your personality. Whether you can change your style is perhaps something up for debate; you may be able to alter it, yet completely changing it – I’m not so sure.

How to Increase Your Capabilities

While these three tips might sound simple, the practice of these is more of an art form than a science.

First, follow your strengths and your passions. Second, remain relevant by continually increasing your knowledge and improving your skills. Third, know where you are going. The people you lead will follow if you know where you are going and you show this. If you don’t believe in you, they won’t either!

Capabilities (Competency)
The Third Core is Capabilities. Capabilities are “the talents, skills, knowledge, capacities, and abilities that we have that enable us to perform with excellence.” To help think about the various dimensions of capabilities, Covey uses the acronym TASKS:

T – Talents are the activities we are naturally good at and usually love to do. Covey believes that talents are more about our potential.

A – Attitude is how you see things and how you respond to situations emotionally.

S – Skills are the things we’ve learned to do well. Covey points out that is is easy to get so comfortable with our skills that we don’t explore or fulfill our talents.

K – Knowledge is what we know and continue to learn.

S – Style is your unique way of doing things. It is intimately tied to your personality. Whether you can change your style is perhaps something up for debate; you may be able to alter it, yet completely changing it – I’m not so sure.

How to Increase Your Capabilities

While these three tips might sound simple, the practice of these is more of an art form than a science.

First, follow your strengths and your passions. Second, remain relevant by continually increasing your knowledge and improving your skills. Third, know where you are going. The people you lead will follow if you know where you are going and you show this. If you don’t believe in you, they won’t either!

How to improve your results

There are a number of ways which you can alter your focus in order to improve your results. Taking responsibility for the results is critical to success, rather than the activities that lead to the outcomes/results. This is crucial, especially if the team doesn’t meet the desired goals for whatever reason; step back and analyse why not so you can improve next time.

Focus on the outcomes themselves, rather than the process by which you are aiming to get these outcomes. This will drive quality and enable others to see you focussing on the ‘end game’ or the ‘big picture’. Focus on expecting to achieve the goals and this will help you and your team translate them into action.

Make sure that the results are achieved. All too often with leaders I work with, I see them set wonderful aspirational goals and develop action plans, only to fail to monitor the success of the action plan. Leaders who fail to monitor and finish, diminish their credibility because the team doesn’t experience the success of the results. Monitoring is like saying ‘I believe this is important, so am prepared to support you in an ongoing way’.

The 13 behaviours that grow trust

Imagine a bucket full of water that has holes in it and you are trying to plug those holes. Each time you interact with someone, you are either taking your finger out of one of these holes or worse, creating another hole!

The easiest way to fill up the ‘trust bucket’ is to stop taking water out of it. Examples of these sorts of behaviours include: passing the buck, avoiding important conversations, being perceived as disrespectful, being disloyal. These sorts of behaviours damage and diminish trust and over time, the bucket empties. Knowing that different behaviours affect different people will also help you to avoid emptying the trust bucket – what is positive for one person may not be for others.

The following are 13 behaviours that will enable you to strengthen trust and ‘fill up the bucket’:

1. Talk Straight
Effective leaders state their mind in an artful way. They are tactful in how they approach different issues and are able to state their views in such a way that it is right place, right time, while being ‘appropriately assertive’. This gives the right impression and fills the bucket of trust and it creates transparency.

Being a straight talker doesn’t mean you hurt feelings and destroy relationships though; it means you build capacity and strengthen relationships through your honest, up front and ‘appropriately assertive’ manner.

2. Demonstrate Respect
Valuing your people and respecting them will fill the ‘trust bucket’. The adage of the Golden Rule applies here: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. If your actions show you care then people will notice. Respect is demonstrated in the “little” things we do each day.

3. Create Transparency
Effective leaders create a culture of transparency. This means telling the truth in a way that can be verified. This means showing the principles of honesty, openness, integrity and authenticity. It is based on doing things in the open where all can see. There are many ways in which transparency can be grown, from improving your organisational systems, through to directly focusing on culture.

4. Right Wrongs
From time to time people will make mistakes, even the leader. If you fix your mistakes and own up to them you create a belief that you can be trusted to come through. To what extent do you cover up mistakes or do you take responsibility for them?

5. Show Loyalty
An effective leader will stick up for his or her team, even when times are tough. This will grow trust and ‘fill up the bucket’ quickly. Covey believes there are two main ways to show loyalty to your team. Firstly, it is to ensure you give credit to others over yourself. Acknowledging the contributions of your team, especially when this is done publicly in the right way, will grow trust. Secondly, always speak about others as if they are present.

Talking about others behind their back in a negative way is really just gossip and will diminish trust across the team. To what extent do you give credit to others? To what extent do you speak about others as if they were present?

6. Deliver Results
The fastest way to build trust with your team is to deliver results. Results give you instant credibility and trust. Covey says that this is based on competence and it grows out of the principles of responsibility, accountability, and performance. Delivering positive results turns cynics into believers and establishes trust in new relationships. It also restores trust that has been lost due to lack of competence.

It’s interesting to note Covey’s definition of leadership: getting results in a way that inspires trust. To what extent do you get results that inspire and help people feel a sense of accomplishment?

7. Constantly improve
Effective leaders are never satisfied with just the results – they seek to constantly improve them. This is similar to the Japanese concept of Kaizen – or ‘continual improvement’. Constantly evaluating the quality of the outcomes will lead to new ideas. These ideas must then be implemented so that people see the improved results. It is not enough merely to evaluate; we must improve next time and get better outcomes.

Covey suggests two ways to get better. First, seek feedback from those around you. Second, learn from your mistakes. I would suggest a third – to cross-reference your thinking and the feedback with quality research.

8. Confront Reality
This is one of the hardest tasks for new leaders to face – how to deal with difficult situations. Usually, these situations in organisations will involve other people, so the skills of developing artful conversation are critical for being an effective leader. This involves being honest and upfront about the difficult issues we face. How well does he/she face reality and deal with difficult situations as the leader?

9. Clarify Expectations
It is important to focus on a shared vision of success from the start. If we do this then we are ‘starting with the end in mind’. If a team doesn’t have a clear goal or clear expectations for what success looks like, then the results may not be as expected and trust could diminish. One simple strategy I encourage leaders I work with is to always state their purpose, intention or the goal of a decision or meeting process, this engenders trust.

10. Practice Accountability
Have you ever heard a leader you know say something that indicates they are taking personal accountability for something?

According to a 2002 Golin/Harris poll, “assuming personal responsibility and accountability” was ranked as the second highest factor in building trust. Great leaders build trust by holding themselves accountable first, then holding others accountable.

This also means you must take responsibility for any poor results, and hold people accountable for their results. To what extent to do you exercise and grow personal and organisational accountability?

This fits nicely with the ‘coherence framework‘ developed by Michael Fullan and his colleagues where he talks about the importance of securing internal and external accountability.

If you would like help developing accountability in your leadership practices, please get in touch – we can help.

11. Listen First
You may have heard of Covey’s 5th habit of effective people, which is: ‘seek first to understand, then be understood’. Using an inquiring approach when discussing issues that are important to your team or clients is a useful approach for developing this.

Leaders who jump too quickly into ‘giving advice’ will often miss the point and risk diminishing trust in others. Do you listen first before speaking? Have you ever spent time doing an audit of how much you talk compared with how much you listen? Get in touch if you’d like help with this.

12. Keep Commitments
According to Covey, this behaviour has the largest impact on trust. This is because when you keep a commitment it builds hope and develops trust.

Your commitments can develop you or destroy you, but either way, they will define you.

The implication of this is to be very careful with what commitments you make; when you make them, always ensure you meet or exceed them. A failed commitment is like punching a large hole in the ‘trust bucket’ and this applies not only to small commitments (eg. meetings starting or finishing on time) as well as larger commitments (meeting a deadline for assessment).

13. Extend Trust
The previous 12 behaviours are about you being trusted, whereas this one is about you being trusting. This can be difficult if you don’t know your people; however, it is important to be able to judge how much trust you can give people based on their past performance and character.

Are you a trusting leader? To what extent do you extend trust to those who have earned it?

A self-review tool to help you analyse how trusted you are

This diagram shows the results from a Google Form which I have devised as a result of the 13 behaviours that build trust. It enables you to complete some self-review yourself or to gather some anonymous data from your team. There is a range of ways you can use this idea to help gain useful feedback to use to improve your leadership.

This first diagram shows the results from an individual graph:

Focussing on these 13 behaviors and actively growing trust across your organisation will enable it to thrive in the modern world, create better outcomes and make a more fulfilling workplace for your team. We hope these ideas help you with how to build trust.

If you would like help identifying which elements to grow in your practice that build trust, or reviewing the ‘trust quotient’ in your organisation, please get in touch. Our range of specialist leadership supports get results.

References
The Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
Coherence by Michael Fullan