Building trust in your business, with your customers and company culture, is a key component of long-term success. Honesty is a critical leadership quality, and leaders are in charge of harboring trust while maintaining stability within the work environment. If you are a business owner, CEO, or executive, the trust you cultivate with your team members will be the driving force behind their success in your business. A high-trust environment breeds additional benefits, including increased engagement and loyalty, reduced turnover and stress, and feeling secure in the workplace, which can boost morale. All of these benefits will help lead to greater success for your company.
Like any close relationship in life, trust must be earned. Trust means ‘uncompromised by doubt’ or a firm belief in one’s character. Trust requires reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing, i.e. confidence. With trust, you create meaningful relationships with others and with yourself.
“Leadership is an achievement of trust.” – Peter R. Drucker
How do you build trust in leadership? We’ve put together some key best practices to focus on to enhance trust in the workplace. Keep reading to learn more.
How To Build Trust In Leadership
As a leader, you earn trust from your team by first focusing on self-awareness and empathy. Self-awareness helps to shed away any personal biases or fixed opinions that could hinder healthy work relationships. Empathy is the ability to truly connect with people, through understanding and compassion–and leaving the ego at the door. Here is a good mantra to use for empathy: “Empathy requires knowing that you know nothing.” – Leslie Jamison, 30. It’s easy to fall into the trap of “I know what is best,” but by adopting a curious mindset and remaining flexible, you will be able to connect easily with others.
Stay curious with those around you, ask interesting questions to get to know them, and don’t be afraid to be personal when appropriate. Your team wants to connect on a human level, not just within the boundaries of their 9-5 job.
It takes a lot of humility to embrace these two qualities, and they will do wonders for your workplace relationships and in building trust within the team. How else do you build trust in the workplace? Here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Be open and transparent with your communication
- Create new positive experiences with team members (team outings/company celebrations, team wins)
- Find ways to connect with your team on an individual level
- Keep and follow through on commitments
- Look for synergy whenever possible
- Provide clear feedback including what works and what doesn’t
- Be open to suggestions, feedback, and concerns
- Inspire creativity
- Always come prepared when meeting with your team
- Be on time (e.g., meetings, meet-and-greets, or casual lunches with colleagues)
- Treat everyone with respect
Building trust in leadership takes both time and effort, but the rewards are unlimited. Just remember: effective leadership requires knowing how to build and keep trust, whether it’s with individuals, on teams, or across the organization. It’s up to you to lead the way!
Connect With Other Leaders
If you are looking for a community where you can connect with other business leaders, CEOs, and executives, contact BOAR today. We host monthly masterminds, live events, workshops, networking, and have the best guest speakers who inspire our community every day. BOAR is a community for top leaders to spread knowledge, give back, and grow both personally and professionally with other top leaders. Grow and evolve with BOAR today.