I am getting a lot of emails talking about distrust in peoples teams and asking how to build trust and how to know if your people trust you…so this week will be Trust Week!🙂
Let’s start with how do you know if your people trust you? It’s important to keep in mind that if you don’t have trusting teams, it will be difficult to get a clear answer. You might have a person that will just say what they really think, but MOST won’t. Which means, you can’t ask “Do you trust me as your leader?” because someone that doesn’t trust you won’t be honest, they will tell you what you want to hear.
It’s better to approach it with questions like, “What is working in the team?”, “What isn’t working in the team?”, “Is there anything I can help you with?”…etc. From there, you take their suggestions and ideas and simply get to work. The best way to build trust is to be in action.
From there, you have to ask yourself if you are worthy of trust. Do your actions that happen with your leaders or peers that don’t involve the team, make you trustworthy? Do you take or give credit? Are you the teams advocate and protector or are they just cogs in a wheel? You have to be really honest with yourself here…otherwise, you aren’t putting yourself in the space of gaining and building on someones trust.
I hope this was helpful! Thanks for being here! Take care!
