Trust is one of the critical challenges for any manager. Everyone talks about managers need to trust their teams better. 

But is it really the problem? That managers don't trust their teams? Is it the real issue why we have misaligned teams and a high churn rate of people? Not even mentioning the popular term of quiet quitting...

I don't think so.

I think the problem is that we don't understand trust. 

There are five fundamental insights we need to understand about trust.

First, trust is a two-way street.

It is not just the manager that needs to trust their team. It is the team as well that needs to trust their manager.

Problems happen when there is miscommunication. 

You promise something, and you won't deliver. A new product strategy will come - but in the end, it won't.

You expect something, but you don't obey the same rules. For example, you expect sharp and prompt schedules, but you are the one who's late for meetings.

If you show unpredictability, your team won't rely on you. So there will be an issue of trust.

Second, trust is a reflex. 

You can't learn to trust. But you can practice methodologies, design your approach and commit to it. 

But in the best-case scenario, you can influence trust only in an indirect way. It works almost like a reflex. Much of it is biological, by the way.

Therefore, the first step is to be self-aware. 

Understand that if you do something, it will influence the value of trust in the organization you manage.

My friend, Jan van der Spoel, who is a trust-consultant, has a saying: "We say what we think, what we do, what we feel." Trust gets hurt if we have a misaligned distance between what we do and what we say.

Third, you can't implement trust. You can earn it.

There is no process to implement trust. It is an indirect effect of other techniques. You can only earn it. 

What you can do is create processes that facilitate the indirect effect.

I wrote a lot about how to create transparency within teams. 

Transparency and the 5-levels of access are one way to establish processes for trust. 

Fourth, trust is mandatory. 

Without trust, you have an army of problems. 

Information won't be shared fully because people don't trust each other. 

Gossip will arise. Office politics take place. 

Goals and objectives won't deliver because teams get misaligned. 

And in the end, it will have direct effects: people effectively (resigning) or indirectly (quiet quitting) leaving your organization. 

Therefore, you need to deal with trust. You can't skip it. It is fundamental for survival and success.

Lastly, establishing a more trustworthy environment is a leadership challenge.

When most of your team comes on board, they are alert. The first days are vital. They observe the playground and decide if they can trust the place. 

The challenge for leadership is to create a culture that quickly gains the trust of newcomers, then facilitates & supports the ongoing trust within the teams.

Things you can do are vast.

• Create transparent processes so everyone can follow anyone's work.

• Create a welcoming onboarding process that wins the trust of new ones.

• Create better feedback culture where communication and honesty are essential.

• Minimize the signs that can hurt trust: aggression, pressure, irregularity, and flaming impulsiveness. Anything that puts people in defense mode can hurt trust. 

Trust is hard to gain. It is super easy to lose. Winning it back is almost impossible.

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I had a wonderful and inspiring conversation with Jan van der Spoel on this topic this week on Leadership Anywhere. If you want to learn more about trust, I highly recommend listening to the episode.

Peter

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