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Trust is the foundation of what makes a leader great. Without trust, a leader will be scrambling. It seems like such an obvious concept. However, many people have worked with leaders who violated trust. It becomes difficult to continue a working relationship after that happens.
When a leader builds up trust in the people he or she leads, the path is set to get the most out of those people. But, trust needs to be nurtured. It is quite easy to lose it by just one wrong action. Therefore, a leader has to maintain a high level of standards for that to happen.
The leader also needs to be able to trust the team. If there are a few members who are not being trustworthy, the entire team can suffer because of it. A leader needs to keep a close watch on the dynamics of the team to ensure that bad situations don’t get ugly. This is not an easy task because it may require taking actions against members who are agitating the group.
The biggest way for leaders to develop trust is to be straightforward with the team. When leaders hide information or manage in an underhanded way, the team will notice these kinds of tactics and they will resist. When leaders are transparent with their team about everything that is going on, it will limit the occurrences of surprise.
Sometimes a leader may not know everything that is going on, and this can lead to problems with the team. The team may believe the manager knows but is pretending that he or she doesn’t. However, if a manager has been honest with the team, this scenario will be less likely over the long term.
This dynamic of developing trust will give leaders the ability to develop strong teams. Once that happens, they can get their team to accomplish just about any task. It will make it less likely for team members to leave the group.