As a leader, building trust with your team is paramount. Trust is the foundation of any successful team and organization. It fosters open communication, collaboration, and a positive work environment. When your team trusts you, they are more likely to be engaged, motivated, and committed to achieving common goals. Trust also enables you to navigate challenges and conflicts more effectively, as your team will have confidence in your decisions and leadership.

In today’s fast-paced and ever-changing business landscape, cultivating a high-trust environment is essential for driving innovation, resilience, and long-term success.

It All Starts With Trust

Abbey Lewis

Trust is one of the most vital forms of capital a leader has today. Amid economic turbulence and global uncertainty, people are increasingly turning to their employers and business leaders as a source of truth, rather than their institutions and government officials. Trust, which can be defined as a belief in the abilities, integrity, and character of another person, is the foundation of most successful organizations.

The Benefits of a High-Trust Organization

A high-trust organization is one in which employees feel safe to take risks, express themselves freely, and innovate. Trust within an organization leads to easier task accomplishment through productive collaboration and communication. High-trust companies report significantly lower stress, higher energy, productivity, engagement, life satisfaction, and reduced burnout compared to low-trust companies.

How Leaders Build Trust

Leaders play a crucial role in building trust within their organizations. They set the tone for the culture and establish norms of behavior. If leaders aren’t focused on building trust – communication, collaboration, and innovation will suffer.

1. Be Transparent: Share information openly and candidly. Keep the team updated on company happenings and senior leadership decisions. Provide regular feedback on team vision and individual performance. Encourage open communication through formal and informal processes.
2. Be Authentic: Start with self-awareness to understand your values, strengths, and emotional intelligence. Show vulnerability by sharing lessons from past mistakes or areas of development. Embrace the journey of authenticity, acknowledging and learning from difficult emotions and situations.
3. Be Reliable: Follow through on commitments, ensuring actions align with words. Establish expertise by grounding ideas in evidence and sharing relevant insights. Demonstrate integrity and fairness by providing all team members with equal growth opportunities.

Try this: Implement regular one-on-one meetings where leaders can foster open dialogue and build connections with their team members. This practice encourages transparency, authenticity, and reliability, reinforcing trust within the organization.

Communicate Transparently: The Power of Open Dialogue

Martin G. Moore

Transparency is essential for building trust and fostering a high-performance culture. However, it’s crucial for leaders to understand the nuances of when and how much transparency is appropriate in different scenarios.

1. Transparency in Reporting: Always provide complete transparency when reporting upwards. This means sharing both good and bad news promptly to allow senior leaders to take necessary corrective actions.
2. Information Transparency: Share confidential information on a need-to-know basis. Protect personal and sensitive business information to avoid unnecessary confusion and maintain trust.
3. Transparency of Values and Behaviors: Be fully transparent regarding ethics and conduct. Address any misconduct openly to set a standard of integrity and ethical behavior within the organization.
4. Transparency in Decision-Making: Limit consultations to those with relevant expertise and those impacted by the decisions. Avoid involving too many people, as it can slow down the process and dilute decision quality.
5. Personal Transparency: Maintain professional boundaries. While it’s important to be open about who you are and your values, avoid sharing personal details that don’t contribute to a professional environment.

In every scenario, timing and judgment are critical. Ensure the information shared is accurate, relevant, and useful to maintain trust and integrity as a leader.

Try this: Create an “Open Office Hours” policy where team members can drop in to discuss any updates, challenges, or questions they have. This approach encourages open communication without the formality of scheduled meetings and allows for real-time feedback and interaction.

Leadership Development: Effective Approaches for Busy Professionals

Darja Kragt

Leadership development is essential for enhancing competencies and achieving better performance outcomes. However, finding time for development amidst deadlines, daily tasks, and meetings can be challenging. Here are practical approaches to incorporate leadership development into your daily routine.

1. Structured Learning: Dedicate a small portion of your time to formal learning. Identify key leadership areas to develop by reviewing performance feedback or 360-degree surveys. Focus on one or two competencies and set a time limit to avoid burnout. Engage in short, focused learning sessions to stay motivated and retain information.
2. Self-Discovery: Spend time observing and learning from other leaders. Find a leader who excels in areas you want to improve, and observe their behaviors and decision-making processes. Ask questions when appropriate and take notes on key insights. Reflect on how you can apply these observations to your leadership style.
3. Experimentation: Experimenting should be the largest part of your leadership development. Conduct small experiments to modify your typical behavior based on what you’ve learned from courses and observations. Try new approaches in different scenarios, observe the outcomes, and adjust accordingly. This iterative process will help you develop a stronger leadership identity.
4. Reflective Practice: Integrate reflection into your routine. Keep a journal to record your experiments, thoughts, and outcomes. Reflecting on your experiences will help you understand what works and what doesn’t, enabling continuous improvement.
5. Learning Beyond Work: Recognize that leadership development extends beyond the workplace. Roles such as parenting, community involvement, or volunteering also offer valuable leadership experiences. Reflect on these roles and apply the lessons learned to your professional life.

In every approach, consistency and dedication are key. By integrating these strategies into your daily routine, you can develop your leadership skills effectively, even with a busy schedule.

Try this: Start a daily leadership journal where you record your learning activities, observations, and experiments. Reflect on your progress weekly to identify areas of improvement and adjust your strategies accordingly.

When Empowering Employees Works, and When It Doesn’t

Allan Lee, Sara Willis, Amy Wei Tian

Empowering employees can significantly enhance their job performance, job satisfaction, and commitment to the organization. However, this leadership style is not always effective in every situation or with every employee. Understanding when and how to empower employees is crucial for leaders.

1. Empowering Creativity and Citizenship Behavior: Empowering leadership is highly effective in boosting employee creativity and citizenship behavior. Employees are more likely to generate novel ideas and engage in behaviors that benefit the organization beyond their job requirements, such as helping coworkers and volunteering for extra assignments.
2. Building Trust: Leaders who empower their employees are more trusted by their subordinates. Empowering leadership fosters a sense of autonomy and control, aligning employees’ jobs with their values and increasing their confidence and trust in their leaders. This trust reduces uncertainty and enables employees to take on more risks without feeling vulnerable.
3. Cultural Differences: Empowering leadership has a more significant impact in Eastern cultures compared to Western cultures. In Eastern societies, some hierarchical norms can enhance the acceptance and effectiveness of empowering leadership. In contrast, Western cultures may view extensive care and concern from leaders as intrusive, leading to weaker effects.
4. Employee Experience: Empowering leadership benefits less experienced employees more than those with longer tenure. Newer employees are often eager to seize opportunities and make a good impression, whereas experienced employees may not respond as positively to increased autonomy and responsibility.
5. Routine Task Performance: While empowering leaders can positively influence routine task performance, the effect is not as pronounced as with creativity and citizenship behavior. In some cases, empowering leadership may increase job stress and burden employees, negatively impacting their performance on routine tasks.

Try this: Implement targeted empowerment strategies based on your team’s needs and cultural context. Focus on empowering employees in areas where it is most effective, such as fostering creativity and building trust. Ensure that the level of empowerment aligns with employees’ experience and expectations to avoid overburdening them.

Enhancing Leadership Through Gracious Communication

Sally Susman

In today’s world, a host of issues, such as lack of focus, high-speed interactions, and political polarization, are eroding our connections with one another. Despite these challenges, leaders can strengthen relationships and foster a positive work environment by communicating with kindness. This approach, termed “gracious communication,” involves small gestures and a demeanor that foster connection and understanding.

1. Break Down Defensiveness with Graciousness: When entering potentially acrimonious situations, start with kindness. For instance, beginning a tough meeting or a hearing with a sincere “Thank you for inviting me” and a smile can disarm hostility and open lines of communication. While anger may sometimes seem justified, it is rarely effective in changing minds or fostering creativity. Graciousness, on the other hand, shows maturity and courage, leading to more productive problem-solving.
2. Give Credit Where Credit is Due: Recognizing and appreciating others’ contributions can engender trust, loyalty, and enthusiasm. Simple acts of gratitude, such as writing thank-you notes or publicly acknowledging achievements, can make a significant impact. This practice also enhances your own creativity and maturity, as it shifts the focus from self-promotion to genuine appreciation of others.
3. Provide Space and Clarity: Always give the other party time to prepare for discussions, especially for serious or unexpected news. This shows respect and allows them to engage more constructively. For example, instead of ambushing a colleague with a question, ask if it’s a good time to talk and provide some context. This approach helps in calming the other person and sets a clear agenda for the conversation.

Try this: Implement a practice of starting meetings with a few minutes of positive feedback or gratitude. This sets a positive tone and encourages a culture of appreciation and respect.

Ways Humility Can Undermine Your Leadership

Tony Martignetti

Humble leadership, characterized by a willingness to admit mistakes, share credit, and appreciate others’ contributions, is built on self-awareness and respect for others. While this style fosters increased employee engagement, trust, and collaboration, it can sometimes hinder a leader’s effectiveness. Here are three ways humility can undermine your leadership.

1. Perceived Indecisiveness: Humble leaders often prioritize consensus over swift decision-making, which can be misconstrued as indecisiveness or a lack of conviction. For example, Sunil, a tech executive known for his humility, faced criticism for delaying critical decisions to seek consensus, which cost his company a lucrative market opportunity. Effective leaders must balance humility with assertiveness, making and standing by strategic decisions even when consensus is elusive.

Try this: Establish clear decision-making frameworks, defining when and how input will be gathered and who has the final say. This approach ensures inclusivity while maintaining decisiveness and clarity.

2. Hindered Career Advancement: Consistently deflecting praise or giving all credit to the team can diminish your visibility and political capital, essential for career growth and influencing organizational decisions. For instance, a general manager who attributed a successful project solely to her team missed opportunities to highlight her strategic leadership.

Try this: Practice dual-promotion by acknowledging your achievements alongside your team’s contributions. For example, when recognized for a successful project, say, “Thank you. I’m proud of our collective effort and want to highlight my team’s innovative approach.”

3. Limiting Team Development: Humble leaders who avoid delegating tasks to not overburden their team may unintentionally stifle their development and overwhelm themselves. Effective delegation is crucial for expanding the team’s capacity and resilience.

Try this: Delegate strategically, focusing on empowering your team to handle various responsibilities. This not only lightens your workload but also provides team members with growth opportunities and enhances their skills.

Try this: Implement a regular practice of delegating specific tasks and responsibilities, ensuring each team member has opportunities to develop new skills and take on leadership roles within projects. This approach encourages growth and builds a more capable, resilient team.

What Makes an Inclusive Leader?

Wei Zheng, Jennifer Kim, Ronit Kark, and Lisa Mascolo

Inclusive leaders play a critical role in fostering inclusivity within their organizations. They significantly impact employees’ experiences of belongingness and psychological safety, leading to improved team performance, decision-making quality, and collaboration. Inclusive leadership also reduces employee attrition risk and enhances overall organizational outcomes. Here are five key behaviors that help leaders make their organizations more inclusive.

1. Authenticity Over Leadership Presence: Inclusive leaders prioritize authenticity and psychological safety, creating environments where team members can express themselves freely. They model curiosity, humility, and vulnerability by sharing their own weaknesses and career ups and downs, fostering trust and encouraging open dialogue.
2. Redefining the Rules: Inclusive leaders challenge outdated practices that exclude certain groups and replace them with more inclusive policies. For instance, they may revise dress codes or redefine “culture fit” to eliminate biases and ensure fair access for underrepresented groups.
3. Active Learning and Consistent Implementation: These leaders recognize that inclusivity requires continuous effort. They embed DEI practices into existing processes and systems, such as mandating diverse candidate pools and integrating inclusion into performance metrics. They also engage in informal practices like discussing cultural holidays and reading relevant books to deepen their understanding.
4. Ensuring Equal Opportunity and Equitable Outcomes: Inclusive leaders provide support tailored to individual needs, particularly for underrepresented team members. They address invisible obstacles and ensure that everyone has the opportunity to succeed, even if it means explaining and justifying differentiated support to majority members.
5. Inclusive Leadership as Everyone’s Responsibility: Inclusive leaders integrate DEI initiatives into the organization’s core values and daily operations. They communicate that inclusion is an expectation, not an aspiration, and develop inclusion ambassadors across all areas of the organization.

Try this: Implement a “Listening Tour” policy where leaders regularly engage with employees at all levels to gather feedback, understand their experiences, and address any concerns. This practice fosters open communication and demonstrates a commitment to inclusivity.

Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

Batia M. Wiesenfeld, Naomi B. Rothman, Sara L. Wheeler-Smith, and Adam D. Galinsky *2011

Fairness is a valued virtue in management, as numerous academic studies show that effective leaders give employees a voice, treat them with dignity and consistency, and base decisions on accurate information. However, there’s a hidden cost to this behavior: fair managers are often seen as less powerful and less able to reward or punish, which can hurt their chances of attaining contentious leadership roles. This insight comes from a study involving lab experiments and responses from corporate decision-makers and employees.

Research shows that managers who are perceived as rude or assertive are often viewed as more powerful than those who are respectful. This perception persists even when there is no difference in how these managers treat their direct reports. This bias can explain why some managers choose power over fairness, despite the clear organizational benefits of fair behavior, such as successful change initiatives.

However, there are circumstances where fair managers can still gain power, particularly when organizations value fairness in managerial performance. While their path may be more challenging, fair managers can achieve success by combining respect with effective influence, ultimately benefiting their companies and their own careers.

Try this: Implement a “Leadership Reflection” policy where managers periodically review their decisions and behaviors to ensure they balance fairness and assertiveness. This practice can help leaders maintain respect while demonstrating the necessary authority to advance in their roles.

Manage Conflict Effectively: Turning Challenges into Opportunities

Gill Corkindale *2007

Managing conflict in the workplace is a crucial skill for any leader. Conflicts can arise from various sources, such as different cultures, values, and communication styles, and can quickly escalate if not handled properly. Here are key strategies and insights for effectively managing conflict:

1. Understand the Sources of Conflict:
   • Matrix Structures: These can create unclear reporting lines and competition for resources, leading to confusion and conflict.
   • Globalization: Working with diverse, virtual teams can lead to misunderstandings due to cultural differences and communication barriers.
   • Other Factors: Conflicts can also stem from differing values, poor communication skills, and fast-changing work environments.
2. Recognize Different Conflict Management Styles:
   • Forcing: Using authority to resolve conflicts without considering the other party’s concerns.
   • Accommodating: Allowing the other party to have their way while neglecting your own needs.
   • Avoiding: Ignoring the conflict and not taking action.
   • Compromising: Finding a solution that partially satisfies both parties but fully satisfies neither.
   • Collaborating: Working with the other party to find a mutually satisfying solution.
3. Apply the Appropriate Style Based on the Situation:
   • Important Issues: Collaboration is usually the best approach as it addresses the concerns of all parties and fosters innovation.
   • Moderately Important Issues: Compromising can lead to quick solutions but may not fully satisfy either party. Collaboration is preferable for fostering better outcomes.
   • Unimportant Issues: Accommodating can resolve these quickly without damaging relationships.
4. Embrace the Positive Side of Conflict:
   • Conflict can drive collaboration, improve performance, foster creativity, and build stronger relationships. Engaging in healthy debates and discussions can lead to better outcomes.

Try this: Implement regular “Conflict Resolution Workshops” to train managers and employees on effective conflict management strategies. These workshops can help build a culture of collaboration and open communication, reducing the negative impacts of conflict.

Demonstrate Accountability: The Power of “I’m Sorry”

Barbara Kellerman *2006

Leaders are often faced with the challenging decision of whether to apologize publicly for their or their organization’s mistakes. Apologizing is a high-stakes move that can either strengthen a leader’s position or lead to further scrutiny. Here’s a framework to help leaders navigate this complex decision:

1. Understand the Need for Apology:
   • Leaders must determine who the guilty party is and the degree of damage caused. Apologies can address personal mistakes or organizational missteps and can serve multiple purposes, including individual, institutional, intergroup, or moral.
2. Benefits of Apologizing:
   • Restoring Trust: A well-timed, sincere apology can repair trust and relationships with key constituencies, including followers, customers, stockholders, and the public.
   • Reputation Management: Proper apologies can turn enmity into organizational triumph, demonstrating strong character and integrity.
   • Legal and Financial Considerations: In some cases, apologies can mitigate legal risks and reduce financial liabilities.
3. Risks of Apologizing:
   • Perception of Weakness: Apologies might be seen as a sign of weakness, potentially undermining a leader’s authority and control.
   • Backfire Potential: Poorly timed or insincere apologies can exacerbate a crisis and damage both individual and organizational reputations.
4. When to Apologize:
   • Serious Offenses: When the offense is significant and has caused considerable harm.
   • Responsibility: When it is appropriate for the leader to take responsibility for the wrongdoing.
   • Unique Position: When the leader is the only one who can effectively deliver the apology.
   • Cost-Benefit Analysis: When the benefits of apologizing outweigh the costs of remaining silent.
5. Elements of a Good Apology:
   • Acknowledgment: Recognize the mistake or wrongdoing.
   • Responsibility: Accept responsibility for the actions.
   • Regret: Express sincere regret and remorse.
   • Assurance: Provide a promise that the offense will not be repeated.
6. Example of an Effective Apology:
   • Johnson & Johnson Tylenol Crisis: CEO James Burke’s swift and comprehensive response included halting production, recalling products, and ensuring safety, which restored consumer trust and brand reputation.
7. Examples of Ineffective Apologies:
   • Exxon Valdez Oil Spill: CEO Lawrence Rawl’s delayed and inadequate response led to long-lasting damage to Exxon’s reputation and financial repercussions.
   • Merck’s Vioxx Crisis: CEO Raymond Gilmartin’s refusal to apologize contributed to ongoing legal and financial troubles for the company.
8. Cultural Considerations:
   • Apology norms vary by culture. For example, in Japan, apologies are more common and expected, whereas in other cultures, they might be seen as a sign of vulnerability.

Try This: Implement an “Apology Protocol” in your organization. Train leaders on when and how to apologize effectively. Encourage transparency and accountability to foster a culture of trust and integrity.