John Pares, Senior Consultant at G.R.I.T shares his viewpoint on the role of Trust in Leadership.
TRUST : The Most Critical Leadership Skill
There is a lot of talk about psychological safety just now. It’s something that has really resonated with me through my career and I’m delighted it is now centre stage. But what does it actually mean? For me, it is all about trust.
The Concept of Trust
Trust, like respect, is a valuable gift, it cannot be demanded or expected but must be freely given. Nor, I believe, can it really be earned – you don’t earn gifts. However, unlike a gift, trust can also be taken away again very quickly! Trust is not as simple a concept as it seems, and needs some thought and reflection.
What Can You Do When You Receive a Low Trust Score?
Have the courage to ask for feedback. I had my own experience of misunderstanding trust when I did 360° feedback with my team, peers and manager on a major project. The trust score from my team was low and it felt like my guts had been ripped out. Personal integrity and trust are such strong values with me that I couldn’t understand the feedback. Of course, if you don’t understand, ask. So, I did.
The feedback was insightful. In meetings I felt I was really creating a safe space for my team to contribute, always asking, “what do you think?” before putting my own ideas in there. When I followed up on the 360 the consistent message was, “we hate it when we don’t know what you are thinking and don’t want to put our ideas forward in case, they are opposed to yours, or you think they are stupid.”
This was not a version of trust that I had even thought about but now I knew, I could do something about it.
We agreed together, as a team, that I would now share my thoughts, and then explain that I am open to suggestions and that I haven’t made my mind up yet as I really needed their expertise and experience. All ideas would be welcome, and we would discuss the best course of action before making a decision. Things improved dramatically, we got better solutions, and I got some great feedback about the feeling of trust. This is also an example of how leaders’ behaviour can have unintended consequences, or even the opposite effect to the one that is anticipated.
I called the type of trust in my story above “openness, transparency and vulnerability.” My team could trust me because they knew what I was thinking and why. They also knew that I valued their inputs.
Another example of how trust can be misunderstood came from an employee engagement survey, as the results in one company showed that the overall trust scores were lower than the benchmark. The reaction from senior management was shock and disbelief, “We can’t tell our employees everything, but we never lie to them. Why don’t they trust us?” It’s interesting that people often equate “lying” as the opposite of trust when, in fact, there are many forms of trust.
These two examples prompted me to investigate further and someone suggested I look at *Brené Brown’s book, “Atlas of the Heart” which had a chapter on trust. Brown explained seven types of trust to which I added mine as, interestingly, it didn’t seem to be covered in her list.
Here are her seven, using the BRAVING acronym, and my spin on them:
Boundaries
We all have boundaries and trust can go when we step over other peoples. It could be a physical boundary – not respecting someone’s personal space that could border on sexual harassment. It could be asking someone to work in an area that is not consistent with their values (e.g. asking a vegetarian to work with meat products). Another example would be asking someone to work late on a day when the schools finish early, and they have childcare responsibilities that they never compromise. How to restore trust?
Well, if you feel that you have crossed a boundary, step back, ask, and apologize.
Reliability
Don’t commit to things that you can’t, or won’t, deliver. This is one that I heard most frequently as a problem. “Don’t ask them, they are unreliable” is the same as “You can’t trust them.” It’s not just about over-committing your time; it can also be about competence. Do you have the skill? The “unreliable” tag is often an unintended consequence of trying to be helpful. It’s much better to say, “Sorry, I don’t have the time.” Even if it’s not the answer they want to hear, they will respect it and gives them an opportunity to find an alternative. An even better way to be helpful is, “I can’t do that, but I know someone who might be able to help.”
Accountability.
I used to have a slogan on my desk. “So you screwed up. Admit it, say sorry and fix it if you can.” Brené Brown says “own your mistakes” but I prefer this version! It’s so simple, and many people find it really hard. What’s more important, building trust, or protecting your ego?
Vault
This is a more obvious breach of trust, i.e. when someone tells you something in confidence, and you don’t keep the confidence. Of course trust is gone and they won’t make the same mistake again. There are also situations where confidentiality is assumed even if it isn’t stated. Even if you didn’t say that the annual performance review was a confidential discussion, it’s obvious that you shouldn’t make it public. I hope! There are also occasions where confidentiality is implied in a more subtle way, e.g. if someone tells you they have a problem with another person, but are working on resolving it. Be sensitive to these and, in this example, don’t tell others that these two people don’t get on.
Integrity
This is lost when you say one thing and do another. It also happens at the organizational level. If the reality inside a company is very different from the nice things they say on the corporate website, don’t be surprised if your employees don’t trust the senior leaders. The key is to practice your values, not just state them. People are influenced by what you do much more than by what you say. I once had two senior stakeholders and reflected that, if they had asked me to do something against the company rules, but don’t ask any questions. For one of them I would have said, “yes” without any doubt that it would be the right thing to do, for the other the answer would have been a firm, “no.” The reason was (lack of) integrity.
Non-judgement.
We can both ask for what we need, talk about how we feel and ask for help, without judgement, ie to listen without making assumptions about the person’s motivation or taking it personally. Also bear in mind that many people find it really difficult to express their feelings and may do it clumsily. I’m told by my psychologist son, that anger often arises from fear. I had an example when I was new into my first Production Management role, and an Operator started angrily shouting at me on the shopfloor. I said, “let’s not do this here but find a quiet place where we can talk properly.” It turned out he was upset about a safety issue that he had raised multiple times and had not been resolved. I was now able to act on it.
One of the Supervisors wanted me to go straight to HR and get them to deal with the unacceptable behaviour. The Operator had probably been dwelling on this issue and building up the courage to say something. He knew, by shouting at me, that he was risking disciplinary action, so it must have been really important. If I hadn’t exercised non-judgement, I would never have found out about the safety issue. The situation was also a great insight into the culture I was inheriting in my new department, and it started to build trust both ways, as I knew that they would raise difficult topics, and they knew that I would listen and act.
Generosity
This one is all about how you receive information and is particularly important in the current reality of electronic communication when we cannot get the visual and tone-of-voice clues that come with face-to-face communication. In short, put the most generous interpretation on someone’s words and actions. Think about the following two possible reactions to the same Email. One will help to build trust, the other will create or escalate a poor relationship.
“This person is being so aggressive and it’s not my fault, I’m going to give the same back and see how they like it.”
“This Email has clearly been written in haste, they must be really overwhelmed and stressed. I wonder if I can help.”
In addition to these seven, I add my eighth from above: Openness, transparency and vulnerability
I would also add the following three:
Support
Your people will trust you when they believe 100% that you will support them. When you get that phone call from the boss saying, “I just heard from Sales that one of your team is too busy to service an urgent order,” do not phone your team member and overrule them. The correct answer is, “I know them well, they are the expert and will not have made this decision without a good reason, possibly because it would compromise several other urgent orders. I can find out the reason, and get a shipping date from them, but I won’t tell them to expedite it just because one sales manager is shouting louder than the others.”
Set people up for success.
This is straight out of the HOP manual. First of all, visibly commit to their success and then, as a leader, help them to be successful. In my experience, people will do almost anything for you, if you do this for them.
Mutual trust
Trust is so powerful. If you show trust in others, they will feel it and will probably trust you back. If there is someone in your team that you don’t trust, you need to understand why. You either need to fix the problem or, if they really cannot be trusted, they can no longer work in your organization, or at least in your team.
In summary, building trust is a critically important competence for leaders and I hope that the above examples help you to understand how you might achieve it.
Stephen Covey was one of the author’s who had a very powerful influence on my early career. One of the best bosses I ever had displayed the following Covey quote behind his desk: “Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic”. It’s not easy but, if you do nothing else, do that and you will build trust.
So I have ruined Brown’s acronym, and didn’t even get to a nice round ten but, if you want trust and psychological safety, you need to turn it up to eleven!
About John Pares
John joined after 35 years’ experience in the food and chemical industries. He has had a diverse career including Engineering, HR, Operations and EHS. He has led a major greenfield manufacturing investment in Hungary, and managed a global EHS function. His speciality is culture change and has delivered safety culture change programmes across six continents.
He regularly speaks at conferences on the subjects of Safety Leadership, Culture Change and Wellbeing in particular how poor mental health can be a a root cause of safety incidents.
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