Leadership Training:How to Establish Trust With Your Team

If you can establish an environment where every single person feels that he or she is part of a team and has a chance to contribute, you’ve created a situation where people can do great things. To build an environment like this, you have to start with trust.Reaching out to people and building relationships based on trust might seem like a natural idea, but how do you do it? This is not the sort of thing they typically teach in business school. Below are things you can do to show people that you believe in them and that you care.

Photo by AndreyPopov/iStock / Getty Images

1. Know that people want to contribute: Start with the right attitude: Realize that 99.9 percent of people come to work every day wanting to do good and try hard. So you have to go to work every day thinking about your people that way and appreciating them for it, not looking to catch the 0.1 percent who want to mess things up or don’t act in good faith.

Photo by denphumi/iStock / Getty Images

2. Demonstrate that everyone counts: It’s been shown that the most successful companies have a culture where every person feels valued. No matter what their position, they all know they have a chance to contribute and make a difference.

3. The more they know, the more they care:One way to show people you trust in their abilities and intentions is to share what you know. 

4.Ask questions that promote insight: To find out more about who people are and what they think, one of my favorite questions to ask is, “What would you do if you had my job?”

5.Take Responsive Action: Once you’ve found out what people think, you’ve got to act on that and show that you’ve taken them into account.