Successful Management Requires Trust

Managing a team successfully requires more than technical competence, as anyone who’s ever had a bad manager can tell you. Equally important is leadership and open communication (among other things). One often overlooked characteristic critical to these two former qualities is trust. By building trust with those you manage, you can elevate your potential for success and get more out of your employees. This will be first in a series of posts on the role of trust in management, the benefits it provides, and methods you can employ to build this critical quality.   Today I’ll discuss what trust is and why you, as a manager, should strive to build it with your team.

What is trust?

While there are many interpretations of what trust is, there are common elements that run through anyone’s definition of trust.  Many new-age management texts discuss and define mutual trust as the shared belief that you can depend on each other to achieve a common purpose.  I prefer the well communicated definition outlined by Paula J. Caproni in The Practical Coach as it immediately clarifies the relevance of trust to management and the workplace.  As Caproni puts it,  trust is

“essentially a leap of faith - that some things will remain as they are or ought to be, that other people will not take unfair advantage of us, and that we will not be harmed by the organizations in which we invest our future.  In short, trust helps us face the inevitable risks of everyday life so that we can rise above our fears, take productive action and experience tranquility and happiness.”

Putting ourselves in the position of an employee, this definition really helps shape the importance of building trust within an organization.  Employees operating in an untrustworthy environment are prone to let their fears best them.  They will sit on information, minimize risk-taking and only put in the minimum requirement of effort as their primary goal will be protecting their job rather than advancing the organization.  Why roll the dice if you fear they are loaded?

The management benefits of building trust

Other, more prolific authors have written extensively about the benefits of building trust with your employees, but I think the benefits really boil down to the following three key points.  You want to build trust because doing so:

1. Attracts loyal followers

Build a reputation for being trustworthy and people will want to work for you.  In addition, your employees will be less likely to question your authority (though a little critical thinking never hurt anyone) and will be more likely to defend your actions should they come under attack.  Furthermore, your employees are less likely to partake in selfish actions as they won’t want to dishonor the trust you’ve established.

2. Increases employee productivity

As trustworthy relationships decrease stress and increase creativity and emotional stability, your employees will enjoy their work more and be better at it.  In addition, by having consistent and predictable manager (critical aspects of trust that I’ll discuss in a later post),  employees will be more willing to take reasonable risks to advance the organization without fear of exploitation or injustice.  Finally, individuals in a trusting relationship are more willing to give one another the benefit of the doubt.  Thus, fewer conflicts arise and group members are freer to worry about the tasks at hand and not the fear of reprisal by a colleague.

3. Enhances team communication

Receiving undistorted information (especially bad news) is often key to prevent or solve crises.  If employees fear reprisal (’don’t shoot the messenger!’), that information is less likely to passed along in a timely fashion to those capable of acting on it.  Furthermore, employees that trust one another are more likely to share knowledge as they don’t have to fear being scooped by their counterpart.  This enables rapid intellectual development on a project as ideas are merged and improved through the collaborative process.  Finally, perhaps most importantly, trusting employees are more willing to speak openly to their boss, even in a critical fashion, enabling response and adaptation of management tactics to keep things running smoothly.

So as you interact with your colleagues consider the role trust plays in your relationship.  Think about establishing a stronger, or more trustworthy, association with them and reap the rewards.  In follow up posts, I’ll discuss ways you can build trust with others.

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January 13, 2009 | Management 

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