“I trust you.”
When it comes to building trust in relationships, someone has to make the first move. One person has to be willing to step out, be a little vulnerable, and place trust in another person. Is it risky? Yes! Without risk there isn’t a need for trust.
So in a work setting, who makes the first move, the leader or the follower? Some would argue that trust has to be earned before it is given, so that places the responsibility on the follower to make the first move. The follower needs to demonstrate trustworthiness over a period of time through consistent behavior, and as time goes by, the leader extends more and more trust to the follower. Makes sense and is certainly valid.
I would argue it’s the leader’s responsibility to make the first move. It’s incumbent upon the leader to extend, build, and sustain trust with his/her followers. Why? It’s the leader’s job to create followership. It’s not the follower’s responsibility to create leadership. In order to create followership – influencing a group of people to work toward achieving the goals of the team, department, organization – trust is an absolute essential ingredient, and establishing, nurturing, and sustaining it has to be a top leadership priority.
When you make the first move and say “I trust you,” through word and deed, you accomplish the following:
- You empower your people — Being trusted frees people to take responsibility and ownership of their work. Trust and control are closely related. We don’t trust others because we want to remain in control and over-supervising or micromanaging employees crushes their initiative and motivation. Extend trust means letting go of control and transferring power to others.
- You encourage innovation — When employees feel trusted they are more willing to take risks, explore new ideas, and look for creative solutions to problems. Conversely, employees that don’t feel trusted will do the minimum amount of work to get by and engage in CYA (cover your “assets”) behavior to avoid catching heat from the boss.
- You tap into discretionary effort — Trust is the lever that allows leaders to tap into the discretionary effort of their people. People who feel trusted will go the extra mile to do a good job because they don’t want to let the boss or organization down. Being trusted instills a sense of responsibility and pride in people and it fuels their efforts to succeed.
- You free yourself to focus in other areas — What happens when you don’t trust your people? You end up doing all the work yourself. Leadership is about developing other people to achieve their goals and those of the organization. Does it take time? Yes. Is it hard work? Yes. Is it worth it? Absolutely! Develop and build trust with your team so that you can spend time on the critical leadership tasks that are on your plate.
Let me make an important point – I’m not suggesting that leaders extend trust blindly. It’s foolish to give complete trust to someone who isn’t competent or hasn’t displayed the integrity to be trusted. I’m talking about extending appropriate levels of trust based on the unique requirements and conditions of the relationship. Leaders have to use sound judgement in regards to the amount of trust they extend and it usually begins with small amounts of trust and grows over time as the person proves to be trustworthy. But the point is, someone has to make the first move to extend trust in a relationship.
Leaders – It’s your move.
Great article! In my book, I talk about the foundation of leadership is trust. Thanks Randy for being the champion of Trust Leasership!
Thanks for your feedback Cheryl! I agree with you…Trust IS the foundation of leadership!
Randy
“It’s the leader’s job to create followership. It’s not the follower’s responsibility to create leadership.” I am soooo tempted to turn this line into a big banner but I’m not sure it would be appreciated in my workplace 😉
LOL! Maybe that’s why you’re there Dominique, to show them a better way?!
Have a great day,
Randy
Thank you Randy for sharing Your thoughts on this topic. Trust its always a key factor in any relationship. I can understand that the big companies leaders of today, were able to grow in the same proportion they were able to trust and empower those who cooperated with them in building the vision of the business at each stage of the process. But what about those people in business who are still holding their growth potential, not because they don’t trust others but because they are failing to let go micromanaging. What would you suggest when you see so much potential to grow but you also see managerial behaviors that are expressing fear to loose control and at the same time show resistance to people’s competences, instead of helping people to use their gift and competences for the benefit of the company.
Thanks for your comments Maria. You bring up a difficult situation that many of us face in the workplace.
My first thought is that it requires a conversation between the employee & boss, where the employee negotiates for the level of autonomy he/she needs and establishes clear expectations of the boss’ role in the given project/goal/task. Depending on the level of trust in the relationship, the employee may need to start with small amounts of autonomy and then work toward gaining larger amounts.
Thanks for adding to the discussion.
Randy
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Well absolutely agreed with the content and concept of the article, but i want to know how much a corporate culture affect upon practicing trust. I mean, when there is shabby org. culture in which considering decentralization and showing trust in subordinates to encourage them to make decision and take initiatives being the incompetence of the manager. What one can do? How to react, I had an experience of the same thing in my previous organization and left it. Is it all that option available to a leader, who made all its efforts, build the teams, trained subordinates and made decision makers and one day he found himself misfit in the environment of conservatism and orthodox. Please suggest.
Regards
Mansoor Ahmed
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