How to Repair Broken Employee Trust with an Apology

As any good manager knows, trust is harder to build than it is to lose, so it should be carefully protected.  However, even the best managers make a mistakes and do something that breaks an employee’s trust.  Sometimes it’s intentional and we later regret it.  Other times its unintentional and we may not even be aware of what’s occurred until it’s pointed out by someone else.  Regardless, rebuilding trust is a vital skill - perhaps it should be called an art - that can help resolve these situations.

Have no illusions: you cannot successfully rebuild trust without an apology.  While some might be tempted to wield authority and demand respect, a more successful tactic is to swallow a bit of pride and issue a sincere apology.  If done skillfully, an apology can repair even the most damaged relationships and lay a solid foundation for future positive associations between the parties.  At the very least, issuing an apology illustrates that you believe the relationship is valuable and worth continuing.  Of course, for it to be effective, both parties must share this belief.  If not, your efforts will fall on deaf ears (though if you’re really good, the apology can convince them otherwise).

In general, a successful apology takes responsibility for the action that broke the trust and employs empathy and sincerity.  But the best apologies have these additional elements:

Keeping Commitments, The Foundation For Trust In Business Relationships

Contrary to what most people believe, trust is not some soft, illustrative quality that you either have or you don’t rather trust is a pragmatic, tangible, actionable asset that you can create - much faster than you probably think possible. - Steven R. Covey,  author of The Speed of Trust, The One Thing That Changes Everything

Although we may strive to live by certain ideals, we’re not perfect.  Nobody is.  We often struggle with complicated situations personally and professionally.  Our intentions are  complex.  We are bound to make mistakes.  These mistakes, especially those related to trust can have far reaching consequences.  Fortunately, fostering and maintaining trust is also one of the easiest things to do (in my humble opinion).

Build Organizational Trust

In our continuing series on the role of trust in management, we’ve discussed the management benefits of building trust with your employees and described how interpersonal trust can be built.   However, interpersonal trust can take a great deal of work to build and oftentimes even more to sustain.  While such efforts are worthwhile, a more effective manager will also build trust fostering and sustaining mechanisms into the organization.  These “institutional norms, policies, procedures and structures” promote trust throughout the organization (Caproni 2001).  As a result, it’s easier for all parties involved in the organization to establish strong, trusting relationships which in turn yields more efficient and productive organizations.  Read on for more about how to build organizational trust.

Developing a Trustworthy Personal Reputation

As a manager, much of your professional success will be determined by your reputation, particularly in the case of motivating employees and solving internal team conflicts.  We’ve previously discussed how building a trustworthy reputation is essential to succeeding on these fronts.  However, to garner such a reputation, you must, believe it or not, first build trust with people.

Building trust as a manager isn’t necessarily an easy thing to do - often times the deck is stacked against you as many employees, jaded by years of bad experience, automatically distrust those in charge. Fortunately, there are some tried and true methods you can employ to establish and maintain a trusting interpersonal relationship. In particular, these five steps can dramatically improve the level of trust your employees have in you:

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.

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