Year after year, we see a trust decline in leadership in all walks of life. To fix this, the go-to response is a commitment to more communication and transparency. While this helps, it is usually not enough. An absence of trust is an indication that something is broken or missing, which may not be fixed by being more transparent.
For example, if a stranger walked up to you at a bus station and asked you for $50. He needs the money to resolve an urgent matter. In your hesitation, you are probably wondering what the urgent matter is. To be more transparent, he says he needs the $50 to pay for a drug prescription. I think the probability of you responding positively to this request is low. What if someone at your office made the same request. I guess the probability of giving the money to a co-worker is much higher. Why is that? After all, both of them were transparent.
The point is, while the stranger went a click down to provide more information, it probably wouldn't have changed your decision. Why? The person is unknown. You don't know their credibility, history with the truth, reputation, etc. For your co-worker, you know a bit more. The more you interact with a person, he/she moves from the stranger (low trust) to the transactional/friend territory (higher trust). Simply put, interactions foster trust.
When leaders try to foster trust in their organizations, the default is to become more transparent and communicate more. The problem with this strategy is that trust is viewed as a two dimensional concept. Trust in reality is multi-dimensional. For example, if a leader rolls out a new vision or business strategy and senses resistance, the issue might be due to any or all of the following: Do people believe in the vision? Will the current culture support this vision? Do the people know enough about this leader to have blind faith in this vision? Do people believe in the leaders capability?What is the leaders reputation? Are we resourced for this? Does the leader care about me? The answers to these questions will determine the engagement levels of employees and the success of such initiatives/strategy.
While it is impossible to check all the trust boxes, you need to check enough to overcome resistance and gain commitment. Being transparent is just one box. The key to checking more trust boxes is giving your people many opportunities to get to know you, and you know them. Think about it. You didn't get your spouse/partner to say yes by sending only emails (times are changing (smiley face)). You spent quality time together. Each interaction built trust and confidence in the relationship. Similarly, leaders need to create opportunities to build the trust bank of their employees before making withdrawals.
Great leaders know how to touch the hearts of their people before asking for a hand.
Leaders that take their organizations from good to great have mastered how to take trust leaps. As Rachel Botsman puts it, "A trust leap is when we take a risk to do something new or to do it differently from the way that we’ve done something before". For trust leaps to happen in your organization, it is important to understand that people buy into the leader first, before they buy into his/her vision/strategy. Before you are tempted to talk about being more transparent, ask yourself if you are checking enough trust boxes in your organization.
Share your thoughts and let's grow together. How do you build and measure trust in your organization?