Trust sits at the base of any relationship - whether it's an organisation, buyer and seller or client and supplier - the strength, sustainability and productive capacity of the relationship will be determined largely by the trust that exists and is experienced.
Leaders occupy positions of trust. Some leaders are trusted and others are not. Leaders who are not trusted still get things done, of course. They just have a more limited range of influencing levers they can use. They may, for example, be able to demand compliance, but they won't be able to demand creativity. The trusted leader, on the other hand, will be able to both demand compliance and elicit discretionary creative effort.
Because when we trust someone, we bring more to the relationship - we risk more, we give more, we create more. Stephen M.R. Covey (son of Stephen Covey of 7 Habits fame) calls it "the speed of trust" - the response we give when we feel we can trust someone, a product, a group, an organisation.
So what is trust? And how does it relate to leadership?
The Organisational Trust Index identifies five dimensions of trust in organisational life. Each of these are things we measure - consciously and unconsciously - in our day to day lives in organisations. And so each of them are ways in which our behaviour as leaders either builds up or erodes the level of trust within our circle of influence.
The five dimensions of trust
- Competence - Not necessarily that the leader is the "best" at whatever work is being done, but certainly that they display competence in achieving the team's mission or purpose, particularly in the way they manage the team's work and the team members as they do the work.
- Openness and honesty - We look for appropriate amounts of information being freely shared, for sincerity and for accuracy of information.
- Concern for employees - For us as individuals and as a team. Sometimes we call it relationship behaviour or empathy.
- Reliability - Consistent and predictable behaviour and performance. It's hard to trust when others' behaviour is unpredictable.
- Identification (shared goals, values, norms and beliefs) - Evidence that you as the leader do indeed identify with our shared goals, that you share similar values, norms and beliefs. These are the things that reassure us that we are connected to our work at a level deeper than just command and control.
And trust is measured across a range of behaviours - behaviours we consciously and unconsciously display every day. So every day we are building or eroding the trust others have in us. The good news is that most of us want to trust our leaders - we will look for positive signs and we'll forgive fallibility.
The rewards for building trust are too great for us to ignore. The costs of eroding or losing trust are equally great.
So what can you do this week to build trust?