Do you trust your co-workers? Do they trust you?
If there’s one key ingredient that makes or breaks a relationship, it’s trust or the lack of trust. Whether we look at someone through the lens of trust or distrust has an inescapable impact on our dynamic with that person.
Trust isn’t icing on the cake in the workplace it’s a critical ingredient of the cake. In a high-trust work environment, people are able to able to get better, faster results. Trust is an accelerator of team performance; it enables work to move through the system more quickly.
Too bad that none of us are 100% trustworthy. Though it’s not because we have bad intentions or are cheats and liars. We have trust issues in the workplace mostly because of our blind spots; because we’re not aware of how we impact others. We cause mistrust by creating a disconnect between the standards, values and expectations people have of us and our actual behavior.
One way to grow trust in the workplace is to expand personal awareness of how we impact others. To do that, you can evaluate yourself on “trust indicators,” which are behaviors that relate to other people’s willingness to trust one another. Consider your behavior in light of these four attributes:
1. Reliability: Can people count on you? Do you do what you say you will do?
2. Acceptance: Do you listen? Do you respect other points of view and honor differences?
3. Openness: Are you straightforward and transparent? Do you avoid having hidden agendas?
4. Congruence: Are you sincere? Do your words match your actions?
These aren’t easy questions to answer. You may want to get feedback from others on how your behavior is perceived around these attributes. Perhaps think of role models or people in your life who exhibit these behaviors and what that means to your level of trust and ultimately, your relationship.
FOR REFERENCE: the following blog was posted in September to accompany the “BECAUZ Talks” video with John Barron https://www.becauz.com/trust/