Much has been written about the lack of trust in today’s workplace. And no wonder: A 2023 Gallup study found that only 21% of U.S. employees strongly trust the leaders at their organization. Without that trust, there are real and detrimental outcomes: Employees disengage, innovation slows, and turnover increases.
But trust is a nebulous thing, and restoring trust once it has been eroded is a massive undertaking. “Instead of talking about and attempting to ‘build trust’ as if it were a new product, something external to the leader or a company, [leaders] should concentrate on building trustworthiness,” writes Fast Company contributor Ludmila Praslova.
“Consider a genuine, long-term friendship. It can’t be produced by telling someone ‘you must like me.’” she explains. “It comes from the experience of genuinely supportive behavior. Similarly, long-term trust, psychological safety, loyalty, and other desired employee or customer psychological outcomes cannot be commanded into existence. Trust must be earned, and this starts with trustworthiness.”
If one of your goals as a leader this year is to improve your trustworthiness and increase employee engagement, here are some areas to focus on:
1. Get honest about your weaknesses
Have employees expressed feedback about workplace frustrations or challenges, whether in-person, via an employee engagement survey, or in exit interviews? Being receptive to feedback—and articulating how you plan to act differently in the future is a key first step. Will you communicate more transparently? Prioritize employee wellness by offering new benefits? Hire more support for overextended workers?
“There are four elements that comprise trust: competence, reliability, sincerity, and care,” writes contributor and executive coach Sara Sabin. “Doing an audit in each of these four areas and seeing where you might be falling short is a start. Then, you can set some action steps you can take to improve.”
That said, building trust requires more than just making a public commitment, and there’s a real risk to promising change and then not following through. “The best way to show that employee input is valued is by using it to improve processes,” writes Praslova. “When employees see that the leadership operates with honesty and integrity, trust grows organically. On the other hand, if input-seeking is simply a checkbox exercise or worse, a trap, trust is crushed.”
2. Delegate more
Trust is a two-way street. Bosses too often have trouble trusting their reports to carry out a vision and get caught in the weeds, stunting their team’s growth and derailing progress.
“Some leaders are hesitant to delegate the details,” writes Chris Lipp, author and professor of management communication at Tulane University. “These leaders get stuck in micromanaging. The inability to delegate and the desire to micromanage are often states of disempowerment because they derive from fear. This fear saps our personal power, and it saps the power of those below us to contribute creatively.”
3. Plan before a crisis
Professional crises are bound to arise, and it’s important to have a plan before they do, writes behavioral scientist and contributor Art Markman. Part of that includes developing the outline of a communication strategy—to both clients and staff.
“Your communication plan must include the key audiences who will want information,” writes Markman. “Employees will want to know that key issues are being addressed, whether there is risk to their jobs, and any effect a crisis is likely to have on their daily work life. External stakeholders will want communications about any service disruptions or other influences a crisis may have on their experience.”
It’s also important to think critically about who you want on your team when a problem arises. Playing out different potential scenarios can help you respond more effectively when the real thing occurs—and give you a distinct advantage when it comes to maintaining trust among your team.
