As we start the process of recruiting a new team member this week, trust becomes front and center of our conversations.
Not only is trust one of our core values, we know it to be the basis of any team performing at its best. It is the element that keeps everything together. When it exists in a team, momentum is powerful, and anything is possible. The opposite is also true. When trust is missing, team cohesion and desired results start to fall apart.
What does it take?
Getting others to trust you and each other isn’t something we can ask or force. It starts with leaders shifting their mindset and focusing on their ‘being’ state.
Striking the right balance between being and doing will create enough space to consider how you want to ‘be’. This will help you to understand what impact trust has on you and those that surround you.
It is about consistently demonstrating the following key characteristics and putting in place good habits, enabling these to spread throughout the team and organisation.
- Vulnerability – being genuine, humble, admitting and owning mistakes, thereby creating a safe environment for others to do the same.
- Acceptance – Withholding judgment, seeing the potential of people and situations, leveraging strengths, and supporting development.
- Alignment – Speaking and acting in a real and authentic way and in accordance with what’s been promised. Being congruent with who you are and what you do.
- Connection – building and sustaining strong relationships where people feel seen, heard, and valued, they feel belonging and inclusion.
It is not enough for leaders just to be technically strong – they need to be able to build trust within the organisation, as well as outside it.
TRUST is critical for your customers and community
Geoff Healy, BHP’s chief of external affairs, said in Canberra in 2017 that the disintegration of trust in industry had reached ‘a tipping point’ and that many Australians perceived business as ‘complacent … and untrustworthy’.
It is no longer enough to focus on remediation, action plans and ‘mopping up’ after a situation has occurred. We must ensure a solid foundation of trust first and foremost, which will lead to a greater connection with our employees, stakeholders, customers, and communities.
As the last element of our IMPACT Model, TRUST is a vital component that completes it. Without trust, it is near impossible to build an impactful high performing team and you will have a difficult time implementing and leveraging all the other elements.
If you are committed to building trust and creating powerful momentum in your team, I’d love to work with you. It’s insightful, energising and is critical to maximising your team’s potential.
Michelle