To trust is to make yourself vulnerable to the actions of another, because you are in a relationship together. You might ask yourself during an encounter with someone in your organization whether you are willing to turn over your project, your deliverable, or some of your reputation to this person, knowing you could be disappointed or hurt by what he or she does. To trust means making an active choice to risk something that’s important to you or to your project that may have a lasting impact. In this way, trust and risk are two sides of the same coin. People’s experience of trust—how much they will trust—depends on the situation. You may be perfectly comfortable having a neighborhood high school student babysit your children when you go out to dinner, but you wouldn’t trust her to make decisions about your retirement portfolio, nor would you want her to deliver the team presentation to your organization’s senior leadership team. It’s perfectly reasonable to trust someone in one situation but not in another. In fact, it’s probably wise to do so.
Types of Trust
Trust is often thought of as having depth or degrees. And people often experience a range of trust—from a high level to a low level, or even an absence of trust. On the positive end of the scale, you may use words such as capable or highly confident. The negative end of the scale calls to mind terms such as distrust (negative expectations regarding someone’s conduct), suspicion, or even betrayal. Finally, some people view trust as necessarily including caution or safeguards. This is called bounded trust—or, as President Reagan once famously remarked, “Trust, but verify.” When people think about trust in organizational life, the first place to ground themselves is in whom or what they are trusting. In most cases this is interpersonal trust—for example a one-to-one human relationship, as in one person trusting another person who might satisfy or disappoint the trusting individual with his or her actions. In the workplace, this “person” is often a group or department—for example, senior leadership, which must be trusted to take care of its employees. Even though senior leadership is actually a group, when the members act as people making decisions about people, it is considered an interpersonal relationship. The most common framework for interpersonal trust uses expectancy theory—the idea that trust is based on beliefs and expectations about someone’s intentions or performance and on the trusting individual’s emotional security surrounding those beliefs. In other words, it’s like a transaction between two people. And the higher the stakes for the trusting individual, the more building of trust may be required. In some cases, and with some people, trust needs to be given in order to earn it in return.
Sometimes people deal with system trust, or trust (or lack thereof) that an impersonal structure, such as a federal government or a monetary system, is sound. For instance, they might have a high level of trust that the Postal Service will deliver their mail, but they might have a lower level of trust that the Social Security system will still be viable when they try to collect on their years of deposits upon retirement. Most of the trust issues faced by leaders involve interpersonal trust, and these show up in all facets of their relationships. Stephen M. R. Covey, an organizational consultant and author of “The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything,” describes what happens when trust issues are not resolved: Low trust is costly to an organization because it impacts speed and cost, taxes relationships, saps productivity and creativity, and makes it impossible to sustain great results. Covey cites a 2002 study by global consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide (which merged in 2010 with Towers Perrin to form Towers Watson) that showed the total return to shareholders in high-trust organizations is almost three times higher than the return in low-trust organizations. So if trust issues are so prevalent and important, logic and emotion suggest that leaders should approach them as strategically as possible.
Dimensions of Trust
When leaders say they need to build trust among their middle managers, the term, “trust,” often means different things to different individuals or groups. Sometimes there are differing perceptions, perceived causes, or desired outcomes, yet most leaders tend to work simply with that one word—trust. But having a common language and understanding among the parties involved helps them identify what they mean when some aspect of a relationship, behavior, or performance is amiss. In the article, “An Integrative Model of Organizational Trust,” by Roger C. Mayer, James H. Davis, and F. David Schoorman, the authors describe trust as embodying distinct elements of ability, benevolence, and integrity. What they call factors of perceived trustworthiness—dimensions of trust— can appear as three different kinds of trust; more precisely there are three distinct elements of human reasoning that each relate to one’s willingness to be vulnerable in a given situation. This helps people focus on which aspects of individual or team behavior or performance are working well and which are not. In adapting the work of the article’s authors for a global audience, this book uses the term, “loyalty,” rather than benevolence, because loyalty captures the essence of the relationship and will be more readily understood by more readers.
With a common way to talk about the specific behaviors that lead to trust concerns in the workplace, leaders can engage in productive, solution-based discussions. All parties now can work toward the same understanding of what can create trust challenges in work interactions. But you may not be ready to meet with your colleague just yet. Trust issues may not arise solely in one dimension; sometimes what’s not working well may be a combination of factors. Curiosity is a valuable mind-set that can help you see things more clearly, more closely to what the situation really is. Spending some time to become clear about your own understanding of the underlying trust concerns is often worthwhile and can make the difference in mounting an effective response to your concerns. Meeting with a thought partner or trusted adviser also may add insight to challenge your assumptions and initial conclusions.
Excerpt from “Leadership Trust: Build It, Keep It,” a guidebook from the Center for Creative Leadership, by Christopher Evans. For more information, visit: http://solutions.ccl.org/Leadership-Trust#_ga=1.130932235.583646370.1449670668
Dr. Christopher Evans, Senior Faculty, Americas, Center for Creative Leadership, has nearly 30 years of financial and management operations experience across several industries. Prior to joining CCL, Evans worked in health system operations and medical school management before creating his own advisory company. His day-to-day work in management consulting, investment banking, corporate finance, and business strategy brings real-life lessons to his learning environments.
