In Leaders We Trust

Trust.  Almost invariably, we have all experienced someone who betrayed our trust.  Perhaps they lied.  Perhaps they undermined us.  Perhaps they threw us under the bus to protect themselves.  While we often treat it as simple, trust is really a complex set of expectations, and we're often unaware of some or most of them.   

Trust is a critical and foundational need of successful teams that leaders cannot afford to be unaware of.  It is essential to the success of a team, and while bosses are either oblivious to it or fake it, most leaders nurture trust instinctively or intuitively.  This usually works relatively well, but focusing intentionally on establishing and strengthening trust can be remarkably powerful. 

Trust is not as simple as it sounds, though.  Ask different people about trust and what breaks trust, and you'll often get different responses.  For example, some may say a friend that stands them up fairly regularly is breaking their trust, while others will say that they can trust their friend to stand them up more often than not.  Trust is a social construct that has different components that are more or less important in different contexts. 

If you look across research in marketing, social-relationships, leadership, etc., you'll see trust broken down and labeled in slightly different ways, but there are essentially 4 consistent elements - Integrity, Competency, Benevolence, and an element of Consistency that cuts across each. 

Leaders pride themselves on their Integrity, which involves, honesty, dependability, accountability, and adherence to personal and shared principles and values.  Leaders are honest about their intentions, actions, values, etc.  They hold themselves accountable to their promises and responsibilities, and they welcome their teams and co-workers to hold them accountable, too.  They do not deflect responsibility or pin blame on their teams or another manager.  Focusing on long term goals, instead of short term wins, allows them to see past momentary set-backs and recognize them as opportunities to improve rather than failures.  In turn, they nurture this same behavior in their teams by treating mistakes as opportunities to grow instead of mistakes to be punished.   

Competency refers to whether or not the manager has the skills and knowledge to successfully fulfill their responsibilities and achieve the long term goals of the company.  While most bosses may appear to have competency, many do not, yet they are often skilled at masking themselves and putting on a façade of competence.  These bosses tend to rely on the competency of their team and then take credit for it.  There's another distinction between bosses and leaders regarding competence, and that has to do with how leaders intentionally help develop and elevate the competencies of those they lead.  Bosses do the opposite; they try to suppress them so as to protect their position and façade of superior ability.  But in order to establish trust, a leader has to be viewed as competent, and trust is enhanced when leaders intentionally enhance the competencies of their team. 

Benevolence is also an essential component of trust.  Team members must believe that their manager values the team's and individual member's best interests equal to their own.  They must trust that the manager will not sacrifice individual team members or the team's success for their own success or ambitions.  Leaders tend to protect their teams, even when it may not be in the leader's best interest.  For example, leaders will push back against unfair labor practices or refuse to terminate the employment of a valuable team member when the justification is unreasonable or unjust. Leaders are trusted not to take credit for the hard work, creativity, etc. of their team, and they even share credit for their own work with the team.  Another aspect of the benevolence of leadership involves treating team members with compassion, particularly in the context of mistakes and crises, be they personal or professional.  Leaders understand and value the fact that their teams consist of complex and fallible people, each with their own context and dignity.   

Touching on each of these is the element of Consistency.  While anyone might demonstrate these elements occasionally, leaders do so consistently.  And when they fail to, leaders acknowledge it, accept responsibility for it, and take action to correct it.  Without a consistent sense of integrity, competency, and benevolence, teams cannot establish an enduring sense of trust.