Trust: The Critical Factor in Leadership

The newspapers are riddled with stories of deceit and deception

from leaders in both the commercial and government sectors.

Leaders everywhere face the challenge of disenfranchised and

disengaged employees, who, in many instances, attribute these failures

in leadership to anyone in a leadership role. More than ever, leaders at

all levels of the organization must recognize the perceptions people

have of the state of leadership in todays organizations and, if they

want to lead effectively, rebuild trust in the ranks of employees. When

employees trust their leaders, they engage in the work and the organization,

buy into organizational changes and transitions, and operate

from an inclusive, collaborative perspective.

In this article we explore

trust in todays organizations,

distrust in the workplace,

the concept of rebuilding trust, and

how to build trust.

Although this article paints a dismal picture of trust and distrust

in organizations and illustrates the implications, it also offers leaders

ways to build (or begin to rebuild) trust to foster a more

engaged workforce. Trust is the foundation on which

employee engagement is built.

Trust in Todays Organizations

Trust in todays organizations, particularly in the

public sector, is at an all-time low, and the reasons are

many and varied. We examine three perspectives, including

how command-and-control leadership styles

are perpetuating distrust among rank-and-file employees,

the reasons for distrust in work groups, and how

promotion processes have not positioned individuals to

succeed as leaders.

Command-and-Control Leadership

Command-and-control leadership has been traditionally

viewed as the way leaders could get the best

performance from their employees. Over the past few

decades, this notion has been put aside, as more peopleoriented

leadership practices have achieved results and

provided countless other benefits. Concepts like empowerment,

emotional intelligence, collaboration, and

engaging leadership have been slowly and steadily moving

into the practice of leadership. However, a number

of leaders, still operating from this outdated paradigm,

have not evolved with the needs of organizations and

workforce. When power rather than empowerment

is the cultural norm, people disengage. Too many leaders

still operate with this command-and-control mentality,

and in doing so, have created cultures of fear, resistance,

disengagement, and distrust.

Self-Protection

On the one hand, the public sector has improved the

transparency of the performance of organizations and

leaders through score cards and surveys. However, transparency

has not realized its full potential, and the push

for transparency has led to increased self-protection.

Some leaders fear that if the true state of their organizations

were known, they would be viewed as ineffective.

Therefore, rather than transparently surfacing and

discussing organizational issues and seeking a coalition

of those committed to tackling them and changing the

status quo, leaders protect their legacy by withholding

information, filtering information to the public, and silencing

critics by marginalizing and politicizing others

perspectives. The true state of the organization may be

unknown to the outside world, but employees are acutely

aware that issues and challenges are buried and hidden.

In the absence of honesty and transparency, the

workforce has come to expect their leaders to engage

in this self-protection and not tackle the issues head on.

Whether it stems from the inability to or disinterest in

tackling tough issues, fear of labor union reprisal, or

simply avoidance, not facing the real issues fuels a pervasive

distrust in organizational leadership. Rather than

deal with poor performance, leaders hide or move the

performer.

The reason that this hide-or-move mentality fuels

distrust has to do with employees expectations that

good leaders

do not shy away from tough issues,

do not allow poor performance to continue,

break down barriers that threaten success, and

provide a vision where all employees can

contribute.

Rather than inspire and empower individuals to perform

more effectively while eliminating poor performers,

many leaders have acquiesced. They have encouraged

control and compliance rather than engagement

and adequacy rather than excellence. This incongruence

between what is expected of leaders and what has actually

happened has fostered a deep-rooted distrust in

leaders integrity.

Technical Promotions

A group of people sharing an office distinctly differs

from a team of people collectively working together toward

a shared goal. Teams share the belief and trust that

they are bound together by more than the walls of the

office. Fostering teamwork among individuals requires

more than technical expertise; however, many people

have been promoted into managerial and leadership

roles on the basis of technical expertise and length of

service rather than their ability to form a cohesive team

and shared vision among their employees.

Technical competence increases employees trust in

their managers abilities, but it does little to help build

cohesive, collaborative, mission-focused teams. The

practice of promoting people on technical merits only

loses sight of the entirely different skill set that effective

management and leadership requires. This promotion

practice has contributed to employees perceptions of

ineffective leadership throughout the organization.

However, this portrait of organizations is not complete.

While distrust has crept into the cracks of organizations

and made a home, some leaders earn trust and

foster environments that engage employees. There are

simply not enough of them.

Transforming a bureaucratic, technically focused

culture requires leaders at all levels to become adept at

building trust and becoming more engaging. This means

developing individuals leadership capabilities before

they get promoted and believing that employees at all

levels can lead. Employees need role models with the

technical and leadership capabilities that live up to their

expectations of effective leadership.

Distrust in the Workplace

Distrust in the workplace has serious implications

for employee morale and engagement, productivity,

turnover, and the financial vitality of organizations.

Consider the following pitfalls.

Employee Morale and Disengagement

Distrust lowers the morale of employees as it saps

the passion and integrity associated with being part of a

group of people working toward a common mission or

goal. When distrust is pervasive or the organization and

its leaders lack consideration, employees withhold their

enthusiasm and commitment. When employees believe

that leadership doesnt consider their needs, they are unlikely

to extend trust and give their discretionary effort.

Employee engagement has a high correlation with their

willingness to put in extra effort.

An executive in one of our recent programs shared

a story about two different peers interactions with their

direct reports. One of the direct reports distrusted his

supervisor, intentionally holding back his effort and not

giving his best. The other employee had developed a solid

relationship built on mutual respect and trust. The latter

employee stayed late to finish important work, volunteered

for assignments, and gave her best effort every day.

The formula is relatively simple: when leaders look

out for employees, employees extend trust to their leaders.

When leaders only consider their own interests,

employees protect themselves by withholding their

discretionary effort. Distrust fosters disengagement, as

exhibited by mere compliance and a lack of caring, passion,

and connectedness.

Turnover

Employees direct supervisors have the biggest influence

on their workplace performance, ability to succeed,

and overall workplace satisfaction. In organizations

where distrust is pervasive, employees are more likely to

leave. The cost of turnover is estimated as the equivalent

of an entire years salary of the employee who left. In

other words, turnover is expensive.

Even when employees do not leave, distrust fosters

disengagement. Productivity stalls when employees give

without receiving anything in return. Absenteeism increases,

sick leave skyrockets, and health care costs rise.

Even worse, employees disengagement weighs on the

organizational culture like a stone.

The Data

Distrust has financial and productivity implications.

It slows down the pace of progress and bogs down even

the simplest actions.

Consider the micromanager who checks every piece

of work by his employees. What could be accomplished

if the supervisor trusted his teams capabilities? How

much are those extra hours of checking work adding up

to? What opportunities are lost? If you take the hourly

wage of the micromanager and multiply by the number

of hours wasted each month micromanaging, costs

add up to thousands of dollars per month. Consider the

cost if micromanagement is a cultural norm within your

organization: tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars

wasted. The cost of distrust can quickly balloon to millions

of dollars per year in large organizations.

Research by Gallup and other organizations has

shown that employee disengagement is costing organizations

billions of dollars per year. If trust and consideration

are the foundations for employee engagement,

how much is disengagement costing your organization

in terms of lost productivity, turnover, absenteeism, and

increased health care costs? What if every person in your

organization used three extra sick days per year to avoid

coming to work? The ripple effects, and their associated

costs, are staggering.The simple fact is that distrust not only saps the way

people feel in an organization, it is fiscally irresponsible.

The good news for leaders is that trust can be built.

Building Trust

Contrary to the myth that trust takes years to develop,

leaders can quickly take action to build (and rebuild)

trust in the organization.

First, building trust requires intention. Trusted

leaders intentionally take the time to establish the

trust in relationships with employees, and employees

know there is trust because they observe and experience

it. This trust fosters a sense of connection. Leaders

whom are not trusted dont garner as much discretionary

effort.

Warren Buffett said, Trust is like the air we

breathe. When it is present, nobody notices. When it

isnt, everybody notices. The most effective leaders

realize that trust is the mortar that holds their organization

together and serves as the foundation for moving

an organization forward.

Second, leaders must realize that building trust requires

more than words. While leaders intentions serve

as a foundation for trust, they must recognize their

trustworthiness is judged by their actions. One participant

in a recent leadership development program at our

organization shared this notion: If my employees do

not see me doing anything differently and experience

my intentions through my actions, they arent going to

notice a difference. They need to see it in terms of actions

and consistently demonstrated behaviors.

When leaders behave congruently with their espoused

visions and model the types of performance

they expect of others, employees see they are willing to

lead by example. Through intentional action and an empathetic

approach considering how others view their

trustworthiness, leaders can begin to act in ways that

build trust rather than break it. Lets explore the key actions

leaders can take to build trust and rekindle workforce

engagement.

Practical Actions

By exhibiting some key behaviors and actions, leaders

can build, or rebuild, trust with employees. For simplicitys

sake, lets group these behaviors into three categories,

each of which is necessary for increasing trust

and fostering workforce engagement:

Communication practices

Character

Balanced competence.

Communication Practices

Leaders who want to build trust need to be aware

of how they communicate. One way to build trust

with people is to speak with transparency. When communicating

with others, be willing to share the facts,

but also your thoughts, reactions, and feelings and why

you think or feel that way. When spoken authentically,

communicating the what and the why illustrates

a leaders willingness to have tough conversations and

to demonstrate the human side of ones own authentic

perspective. To further increase trust, leaders should ask

for others perspectives and listen deeply to what is said

and not said. This notion of transparency is particularly

important during face-to-face conversations, where

people observe the leaders body language to help interpret

the message.

Organizational, team, and individual performance

should not be closeted. The more leaders openly and

honestly talk about performance, including their own,

the less defensive employees become when discussing

it. Leaders who discuss performance, balanced with the

care and thoughtfulness in helping others achieve success,

create environments that address both the task- and

person-needs of the workforce.

Some leaders believe they are the lone voice for

setting direction. Although statements and affirmations

are important in communication, leaders who want to

build trust must allow for mutual influence. A question

at the right time can be more important than an answer.

Leaders who inquire about others perspectives and extend

trust to others expertise earn trust back. This is

not to suggest that leaders disavow their responsibilities;

rather, it confirms their need to involve others in decision

making.

In terms of the frequency of communication, leaders

should consider sharing twice as much as they think

is necessary. An absence of information leads people

to jump to conclusions. People are certainly capable

of thinking for themselves, but leaders must recognize

how important information is to people. People who

believe they lack a very important piece of information

are likely to feel tension and stress. Communicative

leaders build trust by communicating more frequently

to ensure that others are informed rather than being left

to infer.

More effective communication fosters trust. Leading

by example demonstrates a leaders character.

Character

One of the best character-driven ways to build

trust is for leaders to keep promises and commitments.

Keeping promises demonstrates integrity, a key factor in

peoples willingness to follow. Naturally, people do not

want to follow those who lack integrity.

The most effective leaders show humility and are

not afraid to share their human side. For example, a

leader is willing to share feelings on a topic, inquires

when someone is visibly upset, and openly admits making

a mistake. In a command-and-control environment,

being people-oriented is perceived as weak; however,

in todays organizations, people expect their leaders to

demonstrate both intellectual and emotional intelligence.

Rather than being seen as a weakness, it is reassuring

to see a leader who cares about people and, at

the same time, is committed to helping the organization

achieve results.

One of the fastest ways to diminish success is to act

incongruently with what you expect of others. If leaders

expect others to perform forthrightly, leaders must

do the same. This congruence between what one says

and what one does is a sign of trustworthiness.

Balanced Competence

To garner trust from others, leaders must demonstrate

both technical and leadership competence. Leaders

must maintain technical knowledge and skills and,

in parallel, seek to enhance their leadership capabilities.

This isnt to say that leaders must be experts in everything,

but they must have enough technical credibility

to earn their employees respect.

Moreover, good leaders recognize technical and

leadership competence in others and acknowledge it by

extending trust. Micromanaging decreases trust, while

extending trust to others fosters a sense of empowerment.

This is important as employees perceive the trust

extended to them as a sign of care and interest in their

success.

Leaders who want to build trust, increase engagement,

foster change, and transform the bureaucracy realize

that every interaction with others is an important

opportunity to build trust.

Moving Forward

Change is the current mantra, and leaders who want

to lead others through change and have it endure must

understand the importance of trust. Banishing an ineffective

bureaucratic culture from the public sector and

instilling in the public a sense of trust starts with leaders

at every level of the organization.

We need effective and engaging leaders who understand

the importance of trust and are willing to step into

roles where building trust is part of the job. The most

effective leaders understand the importance of trust and

recognize it as the foundation of interpersonal relationships,

team and organizational leadership, workforce engagement,

and sustainable workplace change.