Building Trust in the Workplace

Trust is a vital ingredient for every successful relationship we have. If you can’t trust someone, it just doesn’t work: you second-guess every interaction you have, and tend to disbelieve what they say until you’ve checked it out. In the workplace, this means you’ll be wasting valuable time in validating what that person says and does – and often you’ll end up doing their jobs yourself, because it’s just simpler and easier all round. That means more stress and workload for you, less efficiency, an unproductive atmosphere, lots of missed opportunities for creativity and collaboration – and overall an unhealthy team that’s not performing as it should.

So how to go about creating and nurturing that trust from the outset? Here are my tips for laying those foundations, and nurturing that trust as your relationship grows.

Lead by Example

This is fundamental to everything. If you want to trust, you need to be trustworthy yourself, and demonstrate the behaviour in yourself that you want to see in your team. So if you set timescales for a job that’s important to them – creating rotas, agreeing annual leave, setting objectives – make sure you deliver when you say you will.

Being open and clear in all matters is just as key. Defined roles and responsibilities, expectations and development paths all show your team what they need to do to perform – which gives them ownership of their job, with space to flourish, and the knowledge that you’re there for them if they need help.

And don’t forget to take a little time to trust yourself! Think about what drives you and what you’re aiming for day-to-day, and in life overall, and how that shapes your approach to work. Remembering the reason you’re there will help you to think more empathetically about where your team are coming from as individuals too.

Create a Safe Space

To operate well, your culture of openness needs to offer your team regular opportunities to communicate with you and each other, without fear. Everyone needs to know they can express themselves, in meetings and one-to-one, even if the subject is a difficult one. Start by setting regular meetings as a team and with them as individuals. These should be the most important and non-negotiable times in your calendar.

Allow everyone time to speak and be heard, and don’t shy away from the difficult topics: make those tough conversations the norm, with all the support they need to deal with any fallout. This will encourage them to bring problems to you, especially when they see you can be trusted to help them figure it out.

Embrace Mistakes

It will happen: things will go wrong from time to time, and this should be embraced, not censured. There’s a lesson in every mistake, and when you demonstrate to your team that this is the attitude you take rather than disappointment and immediate discipline, they will be far more likely to accept responsibility when it’s appropriate – which will ultimately mean you can rectify and move past the problem far more quickly, in the most positive way. This will breed trust in your fairness as a leader as well.

When Things Go Wrong, Assume the Best

It can be natural to assume that someone’s actions are coming from a negative place – they intended to mess things up, or they’re trying to sabotage what you’re doing. The truth is that most people are trying to do their best, just like you – and when things goes wrong, it’s likely to be down to a lack of communication or something that was out of their control. Assume that they didn’t intend it to happen, and that they are as disappointed in the failure as you are. This will grow the trust that you’ve got each other’s backs as a team, and that you’re all committed to the same success.

As you get to know your team, your trust in them will naturally deepen. You’ll find out what motivates them, and what they’d like to achieve in their work and in their broader life. You’ll find out their strengths and weaknesses, and where you’ll need to give them more support. It can take time – but put all of this into place from the start, and you’ll become a team that thrives on mutual trust in no time.