If you’re leading a team, building trust is probably the most important thing you can do. It’s the glue that holds teams together and allows them to collaborate and produce more than the sum of their parts. It also makes it possible to work across timezones, borders and even hemispheres.
But it’s not easy to do, especially when your team is a mix of people with different perspectives and experiences. It’s important for leaders to understand that building trust takes consistency and a long-term approach. It might be tempting to take shortcuts or make decisions that benefit you in the short term, but that won’t do much for your ability to build trust in the future.
One of the key steps in establishing trust is ensuring that your intentions are clear and that you show empathy for others’ feelings. You can do this by putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. For example, if a friend lends you a book and you accidentally spill coffee on it, it would be a good idea to tell them what happened rather than trying to cover up the accident. Trying to hide the truth can fracture trust and lead to further damage.
Another thing that can break trust is lying. While it might seem convenient to lie about something small, a big lie will eventually catch up to you. And once it does, trust can never be fully restored. building trust