Pension reform, budget cuts, restructuring, doing more with less. . . all of these modern-day public sector realities have had a tremendous impact on the level of trust in our organizations. Gone is the era of lifetime employment. Today, organizations consider themselves lucky to retain an employee for five years. And, when we analyze the reasons for this change of landscape, most of the data points to one issue: employees don’t trust employers and employers don’t trust employees.
Patrick Lencioni, in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, says the number one dysfunction of work groups is “the absence of trust.” Yet, many public leaders don’t consciously build trust. Managers, supervisors, and organizational leaders who work with employees on a day-to-day basis are in the best position to develop trusting relationships on behalf of the organization.
Never before has the issue of trust-building been more of a challenge. How do you start to build or rebuild levels of trust in your team? To regain and maintain trust levels, consider the impact of several factors.
First, be honest and authentic in everything you do. And, while honesty sounds like the obvious answer, we are all struggling with the tendency to evade critical questions, especially when they are about issues that are so challenging like service levels, budget cuts, and reorganizations. Not knowing the answer, our human tendency is to evade. This natural behavior—avoidance—erodes trust over time.
Besides being honest, you can build trust on your team by making your expectations clear and ask for what you want. And, when your teammates meet your expectations (or exceed them), strongly acknowledge it. We all thrive on recognition and feedback. We thrive even more when we know we are hitting the mark. Of course, leading by example is a necessary tenet to building trust. However, what leading by example means to one person may not be the same to another. If you expect others to value your contribution to the team, you need to show them that you value their contribution. Kouzes and Posner, in their landmark book, The Leadership Challenge, say that, “Modeling the way creates the kind of credibility leaders must have to be effective in today’s ever-changing organizations.” Model the behaviors you expect in others.
Finally, trust-conscious team contributors are vulnerable. They are not afraid to share their perspectives, to expose their failures, and to seek help from others. The strongest teams are not those who have been together for the longest amount of time. Rather, the strongest teams are those that are not afraid to tell the truth. Being completely open with each other and willing to support each other’s hopes and fears makes for the strongest teams. Finally, trust is strengthened when the entire team is on the road to continual improvement.
Such efforts include a regular audit of the team’s progress. Openly explore what might erode trust among team members. Regular trust audits, accompanied by an honest look at the organization’s changing culture, can aid the group in creating a trusting environment. What’s trust got to do with it?
In summary, trust:
• Leads to honesty and authenticity in each member’s contributions
• Is dependent upon clear expectations of each other
• Grows when team members model trusting behaviors
• Requires vulnerability on the part of each team member
So, you see, trust has everything to do with it.
