Geopolitical changes demand different challenges from business leaders. Uncertainty breeds anxiety, which leads to feelings of vulnerability. These conditions force leadership to, for example, second-guess decisions, causing frustration that culminates in low levels of trust.
Therefore, one can view trust as the new currency of our time. In The Speed of Trust, Stephen R. Covey argues: "By learning to establish, grow, extend, and restore trust, you can positively and significantly alter the trajectory of this and every future moment of your life."
By living a lifestyle of habitually practicing character traits such as trust and being trustworthy, we allow ourselves to embark on a growth and development journey required to thrive.
What are the principles of trust?
Trust in business can easily be compared to key ethical principles of leadership. The following principles can be regarded as the building blocks of trust:
1. Competence
High standards realise business goals. By being self-aware (your skills, limitations and experience), leaders should practice sound judgement to deliberately ensure the physical, social and emotional well-being of their teams.
It requires integrity to acknowledge when one does not have the required knowledge or skill to solve a problem. When the leader accepts his/her vulnerability when faced with a difficult decision and reaches out to colleagues for support and advice, trust, growth, and good judgement follow.
2. Integrity
This word flows easily from the tongue and is quite popular amongst politicians. Its true meaning is not always understood, especially when one starts to realise what it requires to live with integrity. In Further Along the Road Less Travelled, Author M. Scott Peck describes integrity as: "The willingness to endure discomfort for the sake of the truth." This demands courage and character to acknowledge when you are wrong, a very scarce commodity amongst current leaders; however, it's a powerful way to earn trust.
3. Respect
Respect for others is underpinned by self-respect. Leaders live virtuously. An unbalanced lifestyle cannot be hidden, and a balanced lifestyle is obvious. Leaders who respect themselves normally demonstrate respect for others.
4. Welfare
Leaders play an important role in creating and fostering a productive and conducive working environment for people to grow and thrive. These conditions enhance trust.
5. Responsibility
Leaders strengthen trust in their organisation's brand and higher purpose from the outside in, taking responsibility for their roles to also contribute to the communities and larger society in which they live and work. By setting this tone, team members are encouraged to be mindful of their actions and how they may impact each other and their organisation.
Why is trust important in an organisation?
An organisation's potential increases significantly if trust exists at all diagnostic levels (between individuals, within teams and interdependently throughout the organisation). According to a Harvard Business Review study, employees at high-trust organisations are:
- 40% less burnt out
- 74% less stressed
- 50% more productive
- 106% more energised
- 76% more engaged, and
- 29% more satisfied with their lives overall.
Trust is therefore critical in any team and organisation for employees to feel safe to express themselves freely, to take risks, experiment by making mistakes, where learning is encouraged. This creates a climate where teams collaborate more effectively, and tasks are accomplished effortlessly.
What are the problems caused if trust is eroded in an organisation?
On the flip side, low-trust organisations elicit office politics and infighting between employees. This results in information being withheld as the safety to share information has eroded, followed by slower and less effective decision-making.
Trust-building behaviour
Leaders' role in organisations to foster trust could not be overestimated. However, one can never assume that trust exists in a team. Leaders are catalysts for trust by firstly having an increased self-concept, as this leads to the tendency to trust others. This starts with the leader's level of self-awareness. Authentic leaders are comfortable with themselves by encouraging vulnerability, knowing what they value and how others perceive them.
Simultaneously, individual team members can promote trust by demonstrating trust-building behaviours within their teams, such as the following outlined in The Speed of Trust:
- Following through on commitments
- Committed to personal development
- Producing results
- Setting clear expectations
- Listening intentionally
- Showing respect
- Being transparent
- Correcting one's wrongs
- Showing loyalty
The value of practical intervention
Trust in organisations develops when values are shared and leads to feelings of safety. The value of trust exercises in a well-designed and facilitated team training programme serves to increase the quality of group development, and it builds a sense of community and team support. These facilitated programmes foster a high level of group cohesion to increase sharing, openness, acceptance and support of others.
Physical trust-building activities require a natural rationale for all team members' healthy participation, through expert facilitation. Taking part in such activities proves to the team in a concrete way that all participants can be trustworthy and that the team can rely on each other.
As trust is often seen as the glue that holds relationships together, it is the ultimate aim to establish good and clearly defined human relationships. During a well-designed team training programme, team behaviours must be measured before and after the programme.
Conclusion
Organisations need to be committed to building trust. This requires leaders to re-examine their team growth strategies by employing intentional initiatives to unlock their teams' performance. The team's commitment to growth and development is invaluable through regular follow-up, as without follow-up, "team behaviours could revert back to baseline levels within 6 months" (Priest, 1994).
If you're interested in learning more about how to apply expert facilitation at your law firm or workplace, TBi - Team Building Institute specialises in organisation transformation at your law firm or any other workplace.
About the author
With over three decades of experience, TBi drives positive change in the way employees feel, think, and behave. Learning and change are created through expert facilitation. This could be achieved through a customised approach, designed to address key areas:
- Talent optimisation and management:
Maximising the potential of your workforce to drive operational efficiency and enhance productivity. - Individual, team and organisational development:
The cultivation of essential skills and capabilities at individual, team and organisational levels, through fostering a culture of continuous improvement and learning. Helping organisations strengthen internal relationships enhances overall performance. - Tech, AI and systems adoption:
Staying ahead in today's digital era. - Change management:
Change is inevitable, but how its managed makes the difference between success and failure.