How to build trust as a leader and why it is crucial to make your team performant
How vulnerability can make people trust you
To write this post, I created a survey with the following questions:
I grew up thinking vulnerability is...
Today, for me, vulnerability is...
I grew up thinking trust is...
Today for me, trust is...
You’ll find the results of this survey while reading.
What is trust
Definition of trust
Defining trust is not easy; one thing I can say is that one aspect of trust is “the ability to predict a person’s behavior based on experience.”
We need experience to trust someone. Nobody can trust someone out of nowhere. Trust needs to be built. This is one of the reasons why we tend to trust the people we have known for a long time more than people we have just met.
How can we build trust?
The pieces to build trust
My survey found that trust is mainly associated with psychological safety.
I can trust someone when I tell them my secrets; I feel they won’t share that information with anybody. I feel safe sharing my feelings, fears, and vulnerabilities with someone I trust. I can also share something I am ashamed of and know that person won’t judge me. So I can feel safe from judgment, too. I can trust someone when I know they will provide honest feedback and their intent is for my good.
Trust is earned in the smallest moments.
How to build trust
I always remember “The Phoenix Project” book when I think about trust.
Specifically, the moment when Bill Palmer comes back to the company after quitting. At that moment, Steve Masters, the company's CEO, starts apologizing to the team and saying that the first thing to do to make things right is to start trusting each other. I still remember my feelings while reading that story. I thought I could never trust him. Then he said:
”… in order to have mutual trust, you need to be vulnerable.”
What vulnerability is not
My survey showed that some people believe that vulnerability is a weakness.
It is something we should hide. It is the weak part of us, and if we show that part to people, they will no longer believe in us. Some people also believe vulnerability is something to be ashamed of.
The truth is vulnerability is where people can truly shine.
What is vulnerability
The book “Dare to Lead” defines vulnerability well: “the emotion that we experience during times of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”
By that definition, it means that every time we experience uncertainty, we can feel vulnerable. Every time we take a risk, we expose our deepest emotions. Believe it or not, everyone experiences vulnerability. There is no way to avoid it; experience or wisdom cannot remove it. The only way to deal with it is to embrace it.
Without vulnerability, there is no exploration and no creativity.
Vulnerability and trust grow together
How do you know you can trust someone if you never risk to share something with them?
To trust someone, you need to be vulnerable with that person. On the other hand, you want to be vulnerable only with people you trust because you know they won’t betray your trust. It is like the chicken-egg story.
Trust is built on top of small steps of reciprocal vulnerability.
Vulnerability needs boundaries
It is very common to misunderstand vulnerability with oversharing.
You need to decide what you can share with whom. It is crucial to set both professional and personal boundaries. As a leader, you have responsibilities.
Sharing to wash your hands of those responsibilities doesn’t build any trust.
Why it is essential to build trust inside a team
Team members need to feel their team is a safe place.
They need to trust each other to share everything without fearing being judged or, even worse, punished. If people fear the consequences, they will try to hide their mistakes instead of looking for help. They need to trust their teammates to provide constructive feedback and to be accountable.
When team members trust one another, they can fully focus on work.
How leaders can build trust
During the Roman Empire, it was not uncommon for the army to remain loyal to their general rather than the king.
We trust our leaders when they fight everyday battles with us. We are all human beings, and we know even leaders haven’t all the solutions. What is essential is to provide our support to our team.
The book “Dare to Lead” contains a beautiful question leaders should ask when they don’t know how to help their team: “What does support from me look like?”
Most of the time, leaders don’t even know how to help. Let’s ask our team then. It's important for the team to feel involved. The question emphasizes the role of a leader in providing that support.
The best leaders can do is to remove another stone from the path.
Resources
This post was highly inspired by 2 books. I strongly recommend reading both.
Here you have affiliate links if you want to have a look.