Do People Trust You?

Do people trust you? I recently gave 360 feedback to a leader and one of his lowest scores was that people don’t trust him. He was dumbfounded. “How can this be? I don’t lie, I don’t cheat, I don’t steal,” he said. All of those statements I agree with because if he outright lied, or stole, or cheated, he would most likely be fired.

If it wasn’t those three things, what else could it be? Here are a couple of ideas:

1. He’s more focused on his own success than he is focused on the personal and professional success of the people who report to him. People know when you’re in it for you, when you’re in it for we, or when you’re in it for them.
2. This leader tended to withhold information. He actually managed by a need to know – “when you need to know, I’ll tell you.” The employees tended to get all of their information through gossip and informal channels, rather than the formal channel of their boss.
3. This manager micromanaged, he would oversee their work, nitpick, and many times tell them exactly how to do their job. What did that say to them? I don’t trust you, and I don’t trust you to get the work done.
4. This leader withheld important work and important opportunities from his employees. His line to me was “I don’t think they’re ready.” Although he may be right, he loudly communicated to the employees that he didn’t trust them to be able to do the work.
5. The last reason is lag time. From the time he knew about something, to the time he shared it with the employees there was too much time, space, or distance between those two points.

As a leader, when you think about trust, and about why you’re not trusted, it’s seldom that you’re dishonest, that you lie, that you cheat, or that you steal. Almost always it has to do with the relationship that you build with employees.

On our next video, we’ll talk about the skills that you can put into action to build a relationship where people highly trust you as a leader.