Three focuses to increase your trust capital because asking for it won’t work
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Your Success as a Leader is Driven by Just One Metric — Trust
Three focuses to increase your trust capital because asking for it won’t work
Despite the long hours we had worked to pull it all together, the team was all smiles at the end of the customer presentation. They had that slight uplift around their eyes and rise at the corner of their mouth as they pulled down the demonstration equipment, and we sat for a debrief.
We had conducted several hours of demonstrations across a range of topics, and each person had to contribute in their special way. We took the time to acknowledge the individual contributions of the team and to describe their specific qualities that we had seen have a direct impact on the outcomes of the demonstration.
Despite it being late on Thursday afternoon, having worked hard over the last two weeks to make sure we were successful, and hearing genuine positivity from the customer. We knew we could get better.
This is one of the roles of a leader, to make sure that people see the value they bring in getting hard things done well, but that there is always an opportunity to learn. I call it balancing genuine care and challenge, and it is an element of the trust focus I call ‘Clear Expectations’, one of three crucial trust foci for all leaders to remember.
I’ll expand on the role these three trust foci play in building trust as a leader and the significance of trust as the platform for your success.
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Clear Expectations
I have failed at this one previously. Trust can be lost easily in a situation where you are not meeting each other’s expectations. So I found a tool to help me through it. But if you are purposeful, you can grow this trust foci. I’ll step through the tool, but first, my failure.
Disconnects
It was my job to provide information to a meeting that started at 8 am every Monday. The meeting organiser needed the details to work through his agenda, which resulted in deciding on a few key activities to be completed during the week. The problem for me was that the system I relied on to get the information didn’t update from the previous week till 8 am on Monday. As such, in the first four weeks of this meeting, I was 10 minutes late with the latest information. My colleague grew increasingly furious with me. I couldn’t work out why — the latest information was important to making accurate decisions, and they knew that the system didn’t update till 8 am.
It wasn’t until we sat down and had a conversation guided by a simple tool that I realised something I did not understand. They prioritised timeliness.
When I was untimely, I displayed disrespect for their meeting and disrupted the flow by entering late. I discussed that, for me, the most accurate data was the most important, and they countered that in their experience, Friday’s information was current enough for this meeting 70% of the time. I argued that my reviews each morning highlighted enough changes for the new information to be worthwhile. As such, I was prioritising the accuracy of the information.
Through the guidance of the method below, we ended up working out that the meeting could actually be held at 8:30 am, and we could both be happy. A compromise that meant I was never late to the session again, and priorities were set from the most relevant information.
Clarity
This is a simple but effective process to provide clarity in any relationship.
Each person uses a two-column sheet with the headings ‘I request’ and ‘I offer’. These are completed ahead of time or at the same time (I find having time to think on it works better). Use these columns to write what it is you truly need and what it is you are willing to offer (be specific! Don’t leave room for assumptions). Comparing this to the other person’s columns (request 1 to offer 2, and offer 1 to request 2, etc.) will identify where you are assuming something or need something that a person is not willing to offer. Here is an example pertinent to a supervisor-worker relationship. These are specific requests and should focus on what is important to you.
Author image: An example of the use of the I request/I offer table. Remember to be as specific as you need.
After talking through the comparisons, the value comes in talking about disconnects in each person’s requests and offers. What am I requesting that you are not offering? Is it something significant to me? Is it something that doesn’t mean that much to you? Can you offer that in this relationship? If not, at least we both now know.
Each of my direct reports and I have completed this activity, and for each, I request for us always to try and get better. To learn and grow together. This request was the one that triggered the open dialogue about improvement after our customer presentation, and it is beneficial for growing trust in the team. When you act in line with those requests, you act with clear expectations, and then you gain trust.
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Minimise the Say-Do Gap
This trust focus is coupled with the previous but magnifies the small moments of communication and mutual accountabilities.
I have found that I have a great deal of respect for those people that keep their say-do gap really small. I once had a boss who helped me understand this. I coined the phrase, ‘he was a great boss outside of his office’.
This boss was an incredible thinker, articulate and charismatic. When he was in a meeting he had an uncanny ability to sift through the detail and get to the heart of the problem. He was able to communicate in a way that can settle unease, and bring clarity to those that didn’t quite get it yet.
In those meeting rooms and presentations, he was a phenomenal leader. Inspirational even.
But, inside his office. When he needed to review documents, release information, and process leave applications. He was unreliable. Things seemed to take much longer than he said to complete. His work was always of a high standard, but rarely delivered when he said it would be.
I found him very frustrating. It took me a while to realise that I admired him for what he could do, but it never overcome the fact that I didn’t know when he was going to give me what I needed. He had a wide say-do gap when it came to meeting expectations, and I didn’t like it.
He kept showing a gap in what he said, and what they did. I now try and keep my say-do gap as small as possible, and I have noticed that the leaders that I really admire keep their say-do gap very small.
It builds trust.
The leaders and team members that I trust are those that are careful about what they promise and commit to because they acknowledge the value of this in building trust. When they admit they will miss the outcome they stated, they are very clear about when it will be completed so that they don’t miss twice.
This commitment to doing what they say, and minimising the say-do gap, is exceptionally important. It also applies when a leader asks a team to do one thing, but then they do another. This is another action disconnect. If you want to build trust, you must keep this say-do gap small.
Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash
Lead with Trust (and Vulnerability)
Jim Collins, the famed business and leadership author, talked about the trust lessons he had learned from his greatest mentor, Bill Lazier. Bill told Jim about the trust wager, and this concept has always stuck with me.
After being burnt by someone Jim had trusted, he asked Bill if he had any advice. Bill gave Jim the concept of the trust wager. He said, “When you meet someone, you have a choice to make. You can choose to believe they are trustworthy, or you choose to believe they need to earn your trust”.
“If you choose to believe they are trustworthy, you may get burnt, but they also may rise to your belief in them. You’ll be amazed how many times they do.” Bill called this leading with trust, offering it up as the starting point, and maintained that you were more likely to get a positive result than a negative one.
I believe this. It is amazing how often you can challenge someone with your trust, and how often they will rise to it. Doing this takes courage.
Believing someone can be trusted is the first step, the next is showing them that you do trust them. This takes even more courage and requires you to lead with vulnerability.
I try and lead with vulnerability, in the right place and at the right opportunity, I will share the time I failed at something. Or describe what it is I am struggling with right now. Perhaps describe my uncertainty about what to do next. Each of these moments is an instance of showing that I am not perfect. I can and have made mistakes, I am still learning and trying to get better, and it is okay to talk about it.
This type of vulnerability creates opportunities for trust. Those moments are additional trust wagers. In giving that information, you are exposing yourself to the chance of ridicule or mockery. But, as Bill said, if you lead with trust and show trust to them, you will learn that most of the time it gets you their trust in return.
Photo by Sharon Pittaway on Unsplash
Keeping trust
Good leaders recognise that trust comes from competence, reliability, and character.
Can I trust you to make good decisions?
Can I trust you to do what you say?
Can I trust you?
Or as I have heard it put; can I trust you with my career, with your word, and with my credit card.
If a leader can be clear in their expectations and understand the expectations of the team. If they can keep that say-do gap as small as possible and they can show their character by leading with trust and vulnerability. Then they can demonstrate they can be trusted and will trust those around them.
If a leader can achieve this, they are growing their trust metric, but they need to remember my other favourite analogy about trust from Brené Brown.
Brené uses the analogy of the trust jar, based on an experience she noticed during her daughter’s early schooling. Her school class had a marble jar on the teacher’s desk. When one of the kids did something well, a marble went into the jar, and when it was full the teacher through a class party. It incentivised the behaviours the teacher wanted to magnify. However, if one of the kids did something outside of the behaviours the teacher wanted to see, she took a marble out for every child in the class.
Brené uses this story to discuss trust. It takes a lot of little moments to fill a trust jar with marbles, but it only takes one poor moment to remove a lot of them. Leaders need to remember this and know that each of these foci can allow for incremental gains in trust, but if you breach the expectations you have articulated, you can remove a great deal of trust from the relationship.
So, be clear about the expectations you have of each other. Minimise your say-do gap, and lead with trust (and vulnerability) and you can continually move the trust needle in your relationships.
Leon writes about leadership and personal development. He is inspired to create high-performing teams and grow leaders; he blogs, mentors and coaches leaders and future leaders from across industries. Editor of Sparks Publication, a publication aimed at transferring a spark from the writer’s mind to the soul of the readers.
By Leon Purton on June 14, 2022.
Exported from Medium on December 22, 2023.
