Wouldn’t it be nice to know that your people will be reliable, honest, and do what’s right?
Trust is paramount in business and it’s the foundation of every decent relationship you have.
If you’re like many of the 100+ leaders I interviewed for the book, you wish you were more comfortable taking risks in business. You want to make decisions, and trust that everything’s going to be fine.
Especially when it comes to trusting other people.
I think we can agree: we want to have faith that the world is a friendly place and other people won’t screw us over, at least most of the time. We also want to trust ourselves more. We have to take risks, but we don’t want to get burned. It’s better to learn how to take the chance than live life worrying and protecting yourself and wondering what could have been.
How can we build up our ability to trust...responsibly?
We don’t want to go around ignoring red flags or being naïve about real con artists looking to take advantage. We can be prudent without allowing worry, doubt or fear to ruin our lives!
Day by day, we can bring a little more trust into all areas of our lives. Stretching out of that old “familiarity zone” a little at a time and having faith in the results. Then, one day we realize we’ve come a long way and the people around us are actually more trustworthy.
[Excerpt from Lead With Moxie, Leadership Section, Trust Chapter]
TRUST: Part I. Put your trust in other people.
How we feel about ourselves is how we treat other people. If we don’t trust anybody, we end up attracting people who aren’t trustworthy. It’s a vicious cycle! The only way out is to learn to trust people in our lives.
As a leader, you want to hire the right people, delegate well, and allow your team to do great things. If you observe various leaders, you’ll start to notice big differences in the quality of life and business results of those who trust and those who don’t.
There are two main types of managers:
Crappy managers:
They actively distrust their employees and want to micromanage everything. These are the ones who live by the old saying, "when the cat’s away the mice will play." Their employees are less likely to be loyal because they don’t trust their managers and their managers don’t trust them. Who do you know like this?
Good managers:
They develop others to fly. Their employees are more loyal because they are cared for. They become autonomous and eventually leave the nest for bigger opportunities. Great employees who leave great managers also become great contacts in your network. This is why it's so important to care about the people who work for you.
Krystal was the best manager I ever had and is an amazing woman! She was an example of how I thought leadership was supposed to be, but up until that point I’d never witnessed it and wondered if it was even possible. It was! She was calm, caring and respectful, and truly believed that each of the people on her team were capable of greatness. She asked us to perform at a higher standard but never demanded it from us. Rather, she helped us navigate our professional environment to create our best work. I think we partially did it prove to her she was right about us.
We didn’t want to let her down because she always did her best for us.
It’s not like everything was perfect, because of course there are always challenges in business, but she always handled things with class and respect for the people around her. She was firm and unwavering when it really mattered, and if she had to disappoint us, she explained why. Our team performed at a higher level because of her management style.
We trusted her because she placed her trust in us, before she even knew us.
She took over leadership of our team from someone else, so it’s not like she hand-picked only the best. Actually, she inherited a bit of a mess, but from day one she always assumed positive intent (unless proven wrong). She made it clear that she trusted us to do our best, and that her role was to clear obstacles from the path. And we absolutely rose to the challenge.
Finding the right people
A lot of first-time leaders and small business owners stress over the risks of hiring their first few employees. They ask, “What if I can’t pay them enough, or have to let them go?”
For those of us who are still finding our way through the nuances of hiring well, it’s important to know where to start. This can be daunting because it may seem like it takes longer to train someone than to do it ourselves. (See also various other posts on delegation and overwhelm.)
Many people wait too long to start the hiring process for fear of losing time, money and resources on a bad decision.
So much of this is a mindset game. My advice: Expect things to go well and make the leap! Remember nobody has to be perfect or permanent. Even great hires will leave the nest eventually. Your job is not to train them and keep them forever; it's to develop them to be a leader who also develops others. This is far more enjoyable than micromanaging, and far more rewarding than trying to do everything yourself. As your team members grow, everything grows.
Remember: if you make a mistake, it’s not the end of the world. Same goes for your employees.
How to build trust in leadership? First, learn to put your trust in others...
Tips for hiring (or choosing) the right person for the task:
This process isn’t particularly easy for anyone. Put in a conscious effort to identify/hire the right person and put them in the right role. Contractors, vendors, or employees--everyone you work with counts.
When you begin the hiring process, make sure you're clear on the attributes you're looking for and your expectations of them. You must get CLEAR on what you need. This is important to know for yourself, the candidate and to be able to communicate with your connections.
- Make a list of exactly what you need to be done and what responsibilities you’re willing to share.
- Make a list of attributes a person needs to be able to do what you need.
- Make a list of nice-to-haves.
- Share it with your networks and start telling people what you're looking for, even in casual conversations. (Plus, advertise/post it if needed.)
It’s also important to remember that you’re not hiring people to be exactly like you, you’ve got that covered.
Make sure that you’re leveraging the talents and skills of others, and not expecting people to do things exactly the way you would do them.
Strive to be clear about expectations from the start and know how feedback will occur if there are questions. This builds trust too.
Share with me your thoughts and results from this post! Post in the blog comments below or tag me on social.
