Our workplace culture is experiencing a crisis of trust. Many professionals are still uncomfortable working remotely, missing the easy trust-building exercises of staying slightly later than everyone else at the office or grabbing a coffee for the boss on their way in. With remote or flexible work, you need to earn trust through actionable work, managed expectations, and clear communication.
Lack of Authentic Trust: The Greatest Barrier to Great Work
We know you can’t do your best work without effective collaboration across a team. Especially in a flexible work situation, how do you show your capabilities without that constant interaction and someone stopping by your desk for updates?
In the past, we trusted those we saw everyday based on their mannerisms, seeing their computer screens from across the room, and their attentiveness in meetings. Sometimes those metrics failed us when it came down to producing great work.
We also know that many employees don’t trust their bosses or executives to have their best interests at heart. Peer-to-peer interactions have the highest levels of trust, resulting in a breakdown of company culture and little respect for leadership. Coworkers feel they can trust the opinions of those at their same level, while the leadership at a company can’t be trusted because they’re only looking out for “the bottom line.”
Breaking the Barrier & Building Authentic Trust
Trust is critical for collaboration and productivity. As employees, we need to make sure our managers trust us. As managers we need our direct reports to feel trusted and confident in their roles. So how do we break the barrier? Trust starts with communication, communication, communication.
Overcommunication Builds Trust (especially for new hires)
If you talk to professionals working flexible schedules in a high-stakes environment, they’ll tell you communication and managing expectations is the key to building trust with colleagues. At first, managers will assume you’re working on your project, but they get concerned (and their trust waivers), when they need to ask what you’re working on.
For example: a Senior Manager-level employee needs to report to those above her while managing those below her. She tells her direct reports to “manage up,” because she won’t micro-manage. Lower-level employees should be giving her updates on their work at least 3 times a week, while she provides her own work updates to the partners weekly.
Remember, don’t hide issues: call or email immediately if something unexpected comes up. In reality, if you were at the office in a traditional 9-5 setting, you would see your boss and give updates more than once a week. Do the same for remote work.
Many times “the squeaky wheel gets the oil,” so don’t be intimidated to schedule calls and reach out quickly with questions. If you want a promotion, or at least trust, you need to show the team you’re working.
Show Appreciation & Curiosity
As a manager, take time to go out for lunch with the team and discuss their lives outside of work, showing curiosity about their other interests and stressors. If someone on your team does a great job, make sure to call them out to the team or give credit where it’s due (sometimes they made you look good!). If they have surgery or an extended illness, send a care package. Bring humanity to the workplace, especially during a season of remote-only interactions.
At the very least, we can all be more present in our conversations. As the Harvard Business Review says, “If you do nothing else to change your behavior, put away your phone more frequently. Put it truly away, out of sight and out of reach, not just flipped over for a few minutes at a time. You’ll be amazed at the change in the quality of your interactions and your ability to build trust."
Competency
You know you don’t trust someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing. If you want to build trust with your team, you will need to demonstrate you know your work as well as they do. You should be available as often as they are, and you need to communicate clearly if you plan to be offline.
When assigned a task, a new hire or lower-level employee should be asking for a specific deadline and an estimate for how long it should take. Then, they’ll have some idea if they’re working in the right direction for a project, or if it’s taking too long.
Learning to Lead & Trust Yourself
If you know you’re ready to take on a leadership role, the first place to start is trusting yourself and your intuition more. When you have a feeling something is off, go investigate. In the workplace, you’ll need to start trusting those nagging feelings and seek out more data.
When you want to take the lead on a project, raise your hand. The more you put yourself in uncomfortable situations and see success (or learn from failure), the more you’ll grow your intuition. You can even build this reflex outside of the workplace by leading volunteer projects or coaching a youth running club.
But you won’t learn to trust yourself if you keep waiting for your boss or manager to give direction or place you on a team.
Stand up and speak out. Your intuition needs to be exercised.
The Future of Work: Building Authenticity through Flexibility
The world of work has been turned on its head. Leaders need to manage expectations, without micromanaging, and make it easy for direct reports to do their jobs.
In the comments, answer these questions for yourself and encourage each other to build trust and authenticity in the workplace.
How have you proven yourself trustworthy to a manager?
What can a boss do for direct reports to trust him or her more?
Give an example where your intuition was spot on!