10 ways to build trust in your organisation

Aside from the latest L.E.A.D. Survey results finding that “trustworthiness and openness” has dramatically jumped to the top of the list of the most important characteristic of a good manager, “trust” has long been a keystone of strong management to optimise the performance and productivity of employees.
To be successful as a manager it is important to develop a relationship with the team that is based on trust. When employees trust and respect their manager they will give special effort especially when they feel trusted and supported.
Employees rarely excel under the punitive thumb of someone they do not trust and who they feel does not trust them. Without trust productivity suffers as team members play politics, spend time covering themselves and being compliant to dictates that they know are counterproductive. Lack of trust affects morale and customer satisfaction as the employees shift energy and focus from working on real life issues that affect customers to resentment and dissatisfaction towards management.
Here are 10 ways to build trust:
1)  Establish and Maintain Honesty and Integrity
Honesty and integrity are the foundations of trust in any organisation, and they must begin at the top.  Leading by example, management must demonstrate and instil honesty and integrity throughout the organisation.
Managers must be consistently truthful, regardless of the circumstances.  Managers who demonstrate openness about their actions, intentions and vision, soon find that people respond positively to self disclosure and sincerity. As a manager share good and bad news openly. This can eliminate gossip and diffuse inappropriate politics. Great managers know that they are not perfect and they make mistakes. It is better for a manager to admit mistakes rather than ignore them or cover them up. A cover up (perceived or real) is probably the greatest single enemy to trust.
Managers must demonstrate a moral soundness of strong values, methods, and principles.  For example, always keep your word.  Do what you say you will do and make your actions visible. Team members quickly pick up on insincerity and broken promises. Visibly keeping commitments will foster trust. If a manager neglects to make actions visible to the team it can create the impression/perception that they don’t follow through.
2)  Establish Strong Business Ethics
Managers need to set moral values for the work place. Teams with common ethics are healthier, more productive, adaptable, responsive, and resourceful because they are united under one common value set.
3)  Communicate Vision and Values
Communication is important, since it provides the artery for information and truth. By communicating the organisation’s vision, management defines where it’s going. By communicating its values, it establishes the methods for getting there.
4)  Communicate Effectively
Managers who communicate openly and frequently build relationship and trust with the team. They should not make team members guess what they’re thinking but should tell them. Employees can feel that no news is bad news. A lack of interaction erodes trust. Face to face interaction is the best method to build trust.
5)  To Get Trust You Need to Give Trust
It is important for a manager to create an environment of trust. This begins by trusting others. It is more effective to assume employees are trustworthy unless they prove otherwise rather than waiting to give trust when they haven’t earned it. As team members come to feel they are trusted by their manager, they will find it easier to trust in return.
6)  Keep Interactions Consistent and Predictable from the Beginning
Building trust is a process – which starts with the initial actions of the manager, establishing norms and expectations.  Trust results from consistent and predictable interaction over time. If a manager responds differently from week to week it becomes harder to trust him or her.
7)  Be Accessible and Responsive
Find ways to be regularly available to team members. When interacting, be responsive. Unresponsiveness causes unease and distrust. Be action rather than talk oriented. Don’t just think about taking action – do it.
8)  Maintain Confidences
Team members need to be able to express concerns, identify problems, share sensitive information, and surface relevant issues. It is important early on to get agreement as to how confidential data will be handled.
9)  Watch your Language
It is important that a manager’s language does not imply “us” or “them”. Terminology should be easy to understand. Leaders should stick with business language and not use strong or vulgar language.
10)  Create Social time for the Team
A lot of trust and confidence is built through informal social interaction. Successful managers ensure that social opportunities happen regularly.
Building trust with employees is critical for creating an effective team that works well together. Taking time to build trust will reap benefits for managers that last a long time.


Source:http://www.leadershipmanagement.com.au