Building Trust Inside Your Team

Mutual trust between managers and team members improves performance, helps people to interact better, and reduces employee turnover. [2]

Trust is the most important factor in building effective business relationships and networks. [3]

Teams built on trust achieve better financial performance, employee productivity, and service quality. [4]

Trust can even improve sales performance. In a case study in the U.S., the difference in annual sales for high-trust vs. low-trust managers was $3.16 million. [5]

Trust is essential to an effective team because it provides a sense of safety. When your team members feel safe with each other, they feel comfortable to open up, take appropriate risks, and expose vulnerabilities.

Without trust, there's less innovation, collaboration, creative thinking, and productivity. People spend time protecting themselves and their interests – time that should be spent on group goals.

Trust is also essential for knowledge sharing. A study published in the Journal of Knowledge Management found that trust was a key element in a team's knowledge acquisition. [6] Put simply, if your team members trust one another, they're far more likely to share knowledge and to communicate openly.

How To Build Trust With Your Team

Lead by Example

To build trust within your team, you need to lead by example. In this clip, you can hear former U.S. Navy Captain and leadership expert Mark Brouker speaking about the importance of modeling trust.

Your team members are always watching and taking cues from you. So, take the opportunity to show them what trust in others really looks like. In particular, focus on the following:

• Be conscientious. Make plans, set goals, and follow through on them with self-discipline and determination. And prioritize being organized and reliable.
• Be accountable. Know exactly what’s expected of you and fulfill all your responsibilities. As a manager, you’re accountable for the work of your team, too. So, be fully involved, energetic, rigorous, and supportive.
• Be confidential. Protect other people’s personal information, and all other sensitive data. Set up clear records, and check that everyone knows and upholds their responsibilities regarding information handling.

Communicate Transparently

Practice transparent communication. This means the open and honest exchange of information between managers and their team members. It includes: 

• Communicating clearly and truthfully about organizational goals, changes, and decisions. 
• Emphasizing the importance of accessibility and the timely sharing of relevant information.
• Encouraging feedback and ensuring that employees feel heard and valued in the decision-making process.

Make sure that you model positive behavior here. Whenever you have important or relevant information to share, do so as soon as you’re able to. Demonstrate that open communication is important to you by consistently and openly communicating with the group.

Find Common Ground

Lay the foundations for trust by finding “common ground” with your team. This helps you to communicate better, understand each other more, and use the things that connect you to start building trust. 

When people have things in common, they’re better at forming strong working relationships. And when it comes to managing teams, trust is influenced by how much attention a manager pays to the interests and wellbeing of their people. 

Meet regularly, so that all team members have a chance to talk about their progress, discuss any problems, and talk about their lives if they want to.

Don't Play "Blame Games"

When people work together, honest mistakes and disappointments happen, and it's easy to blame someone who causes these. However, when everyone starts pointing fingers, an unpleasant atmosphere can quickly develop. This lowers morale, undermines trust, and is ultimately unproductive.

Instead, encourage everyone in your group to think about the mistake in a constructive way. What can you all do to fix what happened, and move forward together? And how can you make sure that this mistake doesn't happen again?

Discuss Trust Issues

If you manage an established team that has trust issues, find out how these problems originate, so that you can work out a way to overcome them.

Trust is qualitative, and difficult to measure. But factors include:

• Communication
• Collaboration and cooperation
• Feedback and support
• Conflict resolution

Consider giving team members a questionnaire to fill out anonymously. Ask them about the level of trust within the group, as well as why they think there's a lack of trust. Once you've read the results, get everyone together to talk about these issues (but make sure that you respect the anonymity of the survey!). And because these conversations can be tricky, you might consider bringing in a facilitator to help.

For six tips to help you build trust in your team, check out the video below.

Building Trust in Remote Teams

If you manage a virtual team, treat your team members as you would if you were working face to face. Be on time for conference calls or chats, and let your team members know when you'll be absent or on vacation.

Follow through on the promises you make, and set an example for everyone else. Keeping your promises is essential in a virtual team. Positive follow-through builds trust quickly and can raise the entire group's tone and expectations.

Schedule an online "meet and greet" if it's a new team, to help everyone get to know one another. Ask everyone to write a paragraph or two in their online profiles about their expertise and skills, their personal history, and their interests, and use chat or instant-messaging applications to keep the channels of communication open. You can learn more about this in our article Five Ways to Build Rapport Online.

Rebuilding Trust

So, how does trust get broken? Common reasons include:

• Acting and speaking inconsistently.
• Striving for personal gain over team success.
• Withholding information.
• Telling lies, or only the partial truth.
• People not opening their minds to new ideas or innovations.
  

If you're working in a situation where trust has been broken, keep in mind that it's going to take time to rebuild it.

First, it's important to be open about how trust was lost. Sit everyone down, and acknowledge the situation. This can be a difficult conversation, especially if the betrayal of trust was severe. If you're nervous, prepare for the conversation using role-playing, which is a particularly effective technique for practicing how you'll handle difficult conversations.

Next, encourage people to talk openly about what happened and how they feel about it. Allowing everyone to express their pain, anger, or frustration is a big step towards letting it all go. This difficult conversation might cause conflict within the group, especially when loyalties are split. Learn how to resolve team conflict before the session, so that you can help to neutralize arguments and allow the team to talk effectively.

If trust was broken because of something you said or did, then take full responsibility for what happened and apologize sincerely. Let people know that you understand that you've lost their trust, but that you will work hard to gain it back again. Again, make sure that you "walk the walk" here.

If trust was broken because of something someone else has done, then meet with that person individually. Try to help them understand how their words or actions have impacted trust in the group. If possible, get them to take responsibility for what they have done, and apologize to the people affected.

Frequently Asked Questions

Trust fosters collaboration, open communication, and innovation, helping teams to achieve better performance, productivity, and job satisfaction.

Managers can build trust by setting a positive example, being accountable, communicating transparently, and showing commitment to the team’s goals and wellbeing.

Share information openly and promptly, be clear about organizational goals and changes, and encourage feedback so that team members feel heard and valued.

Focus on constructive problem solving rather than blame, encouraging team members to learn from mistakes and work together on solutions.

Identify trust concerns, and then hold open discussions to address issues collaboratively, ensuring confidentiality and respect for all viewpoints.

Let's Act

Start building trust in your team today by leading with transparency. Schedule an open meeting to share updates, invite questions, and encourage honest feedback. Show your team that you value open communication, setting the foundation for a culture of trust and collaboration.

Work with your team to create a team charter, setting out ground rules and expectations about how you work together. If you’ve already got one, revisit it and make sure that it has the right elements to foster high levels of trust in the team.