Trust must permeate the workforce culture.
As companies must be fast, adaptable, agile, and courageous to compete, one of the most important elements is the ability to trust.
By IW Staff for Industry Week
According to Amanda Setili, author of Fearless Growth: The New Rules to Stay Competitive, Foster Innovation, and Dominate Your Markets, trust is more important than ever before because without trust, “you will never create the deep engagement and sense of safety people need to take risks, disagree, and innovate.”
Employees must be able to trust leaders—and vice versa—as well as each other. Trust must permeate the entire culture. And because trust begins with leaders, Setili says it’s important to make sure we’re not inadvertently doing things to squelch its presence.
The slideshow reviews eight common trust-squashing mistakes leaders make.
Not Asking for Help
When things go wrong, your impulse may be to keep information to yourself, hoping the problem will go away. This not only damages trust, it vastly reduces the chances that the problem will be resolved quickly, since problems swept under the rug tend to get worse, not better. Better to tell it like it is. Just say, “I’ve got some bad news to share.” (You may actually feel a surge of relief just to have said the words.) Then explain what the problem is and suggest two or more alternative actions that might be taken to address it.
Not Doing What You Say You Were Going to Do
This is basic, yet many leaders break their promises as a matter of course. This can have a devastating effect on trust. Trust builds slowly over time, and it takes only one broken promise to lose all the ground you’ve gained.
“If you promise an employee you’ll provide the resources she needs to get a project done, and then you leave her in the lurch, why should she work hard for you in the future?” says Setili. “She won’t. Employees trust us when we act predictably and consistently with what we promise. Think carefully before you make a promise, because it’s crucial that you fulfill it, or at least communicate why you are no longer able to do so.”
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