One senior leader doesn’t trust another. That is the unfortunate reality in many executive teams. The reason? Senior leaders need to act in ways that help their own functional area, be it accounting or manufacturing … but those very behaviours sometimes lead to issues in the functional areas of their peers.
In some cases, the culprit is not their organisation or department and its needs but the simple fact that leaders demonstrate self-serving behaviours because this is natural to their personality and character. And occasionally organisations even reward senior leaders who behave in a self-serving way. These words of warning are from the smartblogs.com website.
Workplace trust is …
Trust may be defined as having confidence in another person’s actions without any guarantee of subsequent desired behaviour from that person. There is some risk involved in such trust because one might not get what one needs from the person concerned.
Are leaders of organisations trusted today? Not as much as would be desirable. A relatively large number of employees say “I don’t know” when asked whether or not they trust their leader. We may assume, however, that this response basically means “I don’t trust my boss but won't openly admit it.”
Trust impacts organisational performance
For many people, trusting their boss is essential to their job effectiveness. In other words, trust is vitally important. Studies suggest that high-trust organisations significantly outperform other organisations in terms of customer retention, ethical behaviour, predictable financial results and profit growth. Employees in high-trust organisations believe their bosses make decisions in a consistent, predictable and transparent way.
Building trust
This requires intention and attention. Ask employees for input on decisions that affect them and give them context so they understand your decisions. Provide them with opportunities to develop. Admit your mistakes and encourage people not to be afraid to raise issues.
-jk-