Trust is a two-way exchange, for leaders and followers. But let’s focus on trust from a leadership perspective. For me, trust is largely about believing that a leader will do what is best for his followers or group. In our context, trust is about doing what’s right to keep others safe, especially when they are vulnerable to a given risk and the potential for injuries.
But we have to understand that trust is a multi-dimensional facet of leadership which can be built or eroded along various dimensions through:
- Competence pertaining to a job – overall knowledge, skill and ability
- Integrity – doing what is right for the safety of one’s people
- Care – connecting with individuals on a personal level, communicating concern and respect
- Example – modeling the way – day-in and day-out – task by task, in small and large ways
- Collaboration – being approachable and open to the thoughts, ideas, and recommendations of others.
It’s also important to realize there’s a natural bias to remember “trust-eroding experiences” to a larger extent than “trust-building experiences”. As the old adage goes, it’s easy to lose trust but very difficult to get it back. Certainly, for our workers, bad experiences that erode trust typically last longer and overshadow the brighter side of trust building experiences. We should always keep this particular bias in mind. Even more, a leader’s competence and integrity standout more significantly when it comes to trust-eroding behaviors. And when it comes to trust-building actions, a leader’s care and concern become more significant. There it is again – caring leadership is critically important with regard to building trust.
Leaders have to work hard to build and maintain trust when it comes to safety. And we need to be ever-mindful that trust is delicate – it’s fragile. Leaders have to be diligent to maintain it, rather than allow it to erode. When trust erodes it’s much harder to engage and lead people toward and through our safety-related goals and objectives.
Once again, realize that trust is built or eroded in a number of ways and through a number of dimensions that can occur simultaneously, related to: our competence and knowledge; our integrity in doing what is right to keep people safe – even in the midst of productivity challenges; through the degree of care and concern that we express toward each other in our communications and respectfulness; through our everyday example or modeling – in small and large ways; and by our degree of collaboration and openness in working with others, obtaining their input, and acting accordingly.
Trust is fragile and challenging to maintain. Work hard to build it, and maintain it, because once the erosion begins it may be extremely difficult regain.
Lapidot, Y., Kark R., Shamir, B. (2007) The impact of situational vulnerability on the development and erosion of followers’ trust in their leader. The Leadership Quarterly 18, 16-34.