For all the women in leadership - Why women are trusted more than men, and how to use trust to our advantage!

In a recent survey by Management Today and the Institute of Leadership and Management, female CEOs were found to be more trusted than their male counterparts. In a number of sales training sessions I’ve attended over the years, women have been lauded as more trustworthy sales people than their male colleagues.

At the same time, women are more sensitive to trust and mistrust. In a survey I conducted through an independent researcher we found that only 1 in 20 women will deal with someone they like but do not trust, as opposed to 1 out of 5 men.

So what does this all mean for women in leadership?

We know that people follow trusted leaders. People buy from people they trust. We stay in relationships with partners we trust. Destroy that trust or abuse it in any way, and we no longer follow, we no longer buy, we no longer stay in that relationship. And women often bail more quickly than men.

What female leaders seem to have to their advantage is a much more intuitive response to trust and an openness to change. There are certainly exceptions but in my experience, women understand how important trust is, are prepared to do what it takes to build that trust, and are far more careful to ensure it isn’t broken.

We know that when trust is actively built across an organization, there is a direct return on what I call the 3 Rs of Trust – Results, Retention and Relationships. In fact, global consulting firm Towers Watson proved that companies that developed high levels of trust were able to generate shareholder returns 3 times that of companies with low levels of trust, a statistic we’ve also proven. Those improvements in returns are largely due to the improvement in relationships within the company, between managers and staff, between teams, as well as with customers and other stakeholders.

The Greatest Risk to Your Business

As a leader in business, you are familiar with the fact that you have risks that need to be managed or avoided completely. But let me ask you this – have you ever considered a breakdown of trust as the greatest risk to your business?

If you’re shaking your head, you’re in the majority – but if you truly want to outshine and outstrip your competitors, if you want to significantly increase what I call the 3 R’s of trust – Results, Retention and Relationships, then listen up! 

Your greatest challenge and opportunity in 2011 is to join the growing number of leaders who are focusing on a breakdown of trust as the greatest risk, and creating a “Building Trust Plan” to address it. 

Watson Wyatt concluded in a 2003 study that organizations with high levels of trust delivered shareholder returns 3 TIMES that of organizations with low levels of trust. We’ve seen similar results from organizations that apply a concerted effort on understanding where trust is breaking down inside and outside their organization and leading with trust as the foundation of doing business. 

One of the issues “trust” has in playing a significant role in the business world has been its complexity and a reputation as being a “soft skill” that “we don’t have time to really focus on – we’re trying to make money.”  Trust has taken a back seat to a host of culture development programs and, over the past few years, cost cutting measures to survive the global financial crisis have eroded trust even further.

In a study my organization, entente, conducted in 2006, we asked over 600 people “What is trust?”  And guess what?  We got over 600 different responses!  I realized that we had a problem right there – how can we build something if we don’t even know what we are building?

But when I asked business leaders around the world “How important is trust to your organization?” what did they say? “It’s critical” was the most common response. Great, so then I asked, “So, what do you do, then, to build trust? How do you know when you have it and when you don’t? How do you measure it?” The response – lots of blank stares, red faces, drained faces, and less than 5% could actually tell me what they did to build trust.

So, we have a lack of understanding of what trust is, a recognition of how important it is, with no clue as to what to do! Is it any wonder trust has taken a back seat all these years?

As a leader, this is your chance to lead with trust, and reap the rewards.

First, what is trust?

I define it as this:   

Our ability to rely on: 

1. A person (or group of people)
2. An organization
3. Products and Services 

. . . to deliver an outcome to us. 

So, when your staff trusts you, they’re relying on you and your organization to deliver an outcome to them. When your customers trust you they are relying on you, your organization, and your products and services to deliver an outcome to them. 

The problem is unless you’ve been asking, you don’t know what outcome they are relying on you for.  And, I can tell you this for certain, if you think you know, you don’t. Assume nothing!  There will be things that they are relying on that will blow your mind. 

There are 3 core components to the Trust Wall, a revealing model for trust that explains quite a bit about human behavior.

Expectations are the first things that come into play.  All your stakeholders will have expectations of you that come from: 

• Their previous experience with you
• Things they’ve seen about you
• Things others have told them about you
• Things they’ve experienced with people/organizations/products and services that are like yours, but are not you

That means your customers, your staff, your shareholders, all have a range of expectations that they are relying on you to deliver. 

Needs also play out in the trust dynamic – by Needs, I mean the basic human needs that drive us (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is what I draw on). Some people are relying on you to make them feel safe, others just want a job, some want respect, others growth and development. When you meet their Needs, they stay with you. Fail to meet them, and they are gone! 

Then there are the Promises you make – both explicitly and implicitly. When you make Promises that meet the Expectations and Needs of others, they are drawn to you. When you make those Promises and then don’t deliver them, you break down that trust sometimes quicker than you can blink. 

These 3 things, what I call ENPs®, are what we all rely on others for, and our trust sits on a balance of those. Keep them all in check, and trust flourishes and Results, Retention and Relationships all improve. Fail to meet them and trust breaks down, and all those things that you see in your business that cause you sleepless nights – the lack of performance, slow sales, high turnover, customer complaints, infighting, shareholder selling out, all take hold and destroy everything you are trying to achieve. 

A breakdown of trust is the greatest risk to your business – building trust is your greatest challenge. That is the truth about trust. 

Can you handle the truth?

Published on Coaching Tip: The Leadership Blog.

What to Do When Trust With Your Employees Breaks Down

In a perfect world, your employees will always trust you and your organization.

In spite of your best efforts, though, trust can and will erode. That’s the bad news. The good news is you can recover. How do you rebuild trust?

1. Communicate openly. Talk about the situation. Describe any mistakes you’ve made, what you’ve learned from those mistakes, and what you’ll do in the future. Don’t be afraid to share bad news and to admit mistakes. Explain the rationale behind decisions you’ve made, and encourage employees to give input and feedback on decisions you make. Most importantly, accept feedback with grace and act professionally at all times. Rebuilding trust takes time. The old cliché “It takes ten pats on the back to overcome one kick in the rear” is especially true when you’ve lost the trust of your employees.
2. Make changes based on employee input. Listen to your employees and implement good suggestions. Some managers are hesitant to act on employee input because they feel all the ideas should be theirs. Great managers realize they don’t have all the answers. What matters most is that you make positive changes; it doesn’t matter where the ideas for those changes come from. Employees who know you’ll listen and act on their ideas will regain their trust in you.
3. Make sure your employees fully understand your expectations. In order for employees to be effective, they have to know what their job is and how to do their job. Employees who make mistakes will often blame their manager for not setting clear expectations, and as a result, they will lose trust in that manager. While that may not seem fair, it’s also a fact of life: most of us are initially defensive when we make a mistake. Setting clear expectations not only helps employees perform better but also creates an environment of trust.
4. Hold employees accountable. If you’ve made a mistake that eroded trust, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hold your employees accountable for their mistakes. Rewarding high performers and holding poor performers accountable through discipline and termination builds an environment of trust.
5. “Cast the right shadow.” Employees look to their managers to set the tone for the organization; they expect the company leaders to lead in word and in action. What you say and do as a manager is important; how you say and do things is critical, too, because your team will scrutinize everything you do, especially if trust has been broken. By being a great role model and constantly casting the right shadow, you set an example for your employees to follow, and they’ll also place their trust in you.

I’d like to specifically highlight two areas here.

The first is the concept of seeking feedback from employees and engaging them, through surveys and other means, in the direction of the business. One of the things I have seen time and time again in companies is the well-meaning employee opinion survey followed by . . . nothing!

I once worked for an organization that conducted such a survey, and the months went by with no communication of the results. When I quizzed my manager on it, he admitted that the results were so bad that senior management decided not to release them!

Why bother asking if you are not going to do anything about it? One of the things I tell people who look at doing the Entente Trust Survey is that they have to promise they will take action on the areas showing low levels of trust. If the commitment is not there, I tell them not to bother, and cer- tainly not to do the survey. I certainly don’t want my name associated with a “survey that didn’t work.”

What happens when a company surveys its employees?

1. It creates expectations that, since it is asking for employees’ opinions, it will do something as a result. When nothing happens, the expectation is not met.
2. An implicit promise is made along the same lines, unless it is clearly stated that the only reason for the survey is to see how the company measures up against its competitors (which is the reality in many cases).
3. The need for respect is met in conducting the survey, but then it is not met when the opinions are not listened to.

The communication surrounding the survey needs to be managed very well so that expectations about what is likely to happen, and when, are managed properly. The best thing to do is get everyone involved. When you release the results, get your people involved in determining the best solutions and ways of improving the areas that rated poorly. As was demonstrated in the Fantastic Furniture story, everyone has something of value to add, if you just listen.

The second thing I want to point out is the comment about disciplining underperforming employees.

We’ve all seen it. The couple of people who have been slack and not pulled their weight, or the people who got the job done but left a trail of destruction in their wake. When these people are rewarded just like everyone else, it blows all the good things the leaders might have done before.

I was at a breakfast not that long ago and someone told a story about how the manager had bought a few books of movie vouchers to give out as rewards throughout the year. One day she checked them and realized that they were, unfortunately, about to expire that week. As a result, she gave them out to all the staff. All the staff. That is not reward and recognition. That’s poor management.

There is a fine line between equity and fairness in the workplace, between reward and recognition for performance. If you build a performance-based system, stick to it. By having the system, you have created expectations and have made promises — some explicit and some implicit — about how people will be treated.

It does take courage to be able to give constructive feedback to an employee who is underperforming, but I can guarantee that the rest of your people will be watching you like a hawk to see that it is done, and they will trust you more for it. It meets their needs for security and for fairness and respect.

Article published by TLNT - The Business of HR on 28th February 2011.