Successful Communication Starts With Trust
It’s easy to discount the value of trust; it’s intangible, difficult to measure, and often hard to identify. But without trust, you can’t cultivate loyal customers and you have no chance of being an influential leader.
In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni notes that trust is the single most important characteristic of successful team building. Yet building trust is rare and its absence represents the primary dysfunction in most organizations and small businesses.
Trust is the cornerstone of effective communication. If you don’t trust me, you are unlikely to listen carefully at what I’m saying. Without a trusting relationship, the barriers to listening and learning are insurmountable: Recognition and praise is met with doubt and disbelief. Helpful instruction is processed through a lens of skepticism. Performance feedback, positive or negative, is discounted.
Trust breaks down the barriers that our egos maintain for protection. Rightly, trust shouldn’t be offered freely; it must be earned. Once earned, the standard that trust was built on must be upheld; it must never be violated.
To earn trust, focus on the needs of others. Become aware of others as fellow human beings with trials and difficulties much like our own. Although compassion isn’t a popular topic in business, it helps breed trust. Egotism and self-centeredness destroy trust.
Does this mean you need to become a saint to earn the trust and respect of your team members? No. Most of us, however, have a tendency to focus on our own needs first. The business mythos is still one of competition, not collaboration. As such, we often don’t listen carefully to what others are saying—or not saying. We miss vital opportunities to bridge the trust divide with a simple, “Tough day?” asked with a genuine, compassionate smile; or “If you ever need to discuss anything, my door is always open” or “You make a really good point.”
When others know you genuinely care—and yes, I did say genuinely—they become powerful allies. They become receptive to your feedback and receive praise and recognition with open arms.
In a trusting business relationship, human potential reaches new levels. Without trust, growth is stymied. Remember that the source of trust is one’s own integrity. Integrity isn’t something that you do; it’s something that you are. You either have integrity or you don’t. Authentic leaders, then, are merely being the perfect expression of what they are. And as such, trust and success follow suit.
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Powerful Article, Scott. The essential message of trust, authenticity, and integrity come through very radiantly clear. Exciting to see the whole market shifting toward honest communication and less on hype.
Thanks, Tone. Indeed, it is wonderful to see a movement toward greater integrity in the workplace.