Leadership Challenge: Why it Pays to Build Trust in the Workplace
More than at any time in my career I hear people say, “I am so busy”, or “I’m completely overwhelmed at work these days”. Being busy can of course be a good thing, it suggests your company has plenty of customers and business is thriving. But being constantly busy is not in itself a good sign of leadership, nor does it say anything positive about you and your company. I always ask: where is this ‘busyness’ taking you, and how is it helping you achieve your goals? What impact is this frantic activity having on your top line? Being busy holds people back from professional progression. It stops them having quality time to think about the future and their next steps. It limits their ability to meet potential clients, and prevents them enjoying time after work with friends and family.
So stop for a moment and consider the reason for your hectic work life. Could it be a sign of disorganisation and an inability to prioritise your To-Do list? Or could it be a sign of something even worse; that you’re micromanaging?
The Dangers of Micromanagement
Everyone is familiar with the concept of micromanagement; the management style whereby leaders feel unable to keep their noses out of the day-to-day activities of their staff. It’s the manager that can’t delegate, insisting on being cc’d in every email, editing his workers’ reports, and wanting to know exactly where his employees are at any given moment.
The reasons for wanting to micromanage can be complex, and it’s not always control for control’s sake. It can come from a desire for perfection and to be sure tasks are performed correctly. And it never, ever works. Many leaders I’ve worked with started their careers building a business from the ground up. They had to do everything; man the phones, do their own marketing, build their own website. It can be difficult once your business has grown to know when to hand over the reins and delegate. But it is essential for several important reasons.
1) A Breakdown of Trust
Demanding to be involved in every step of every process, no matter how small, can lead to your employees seeing you as a tyrant, one that has little faith in her workers. Losing that trust leads to a loss of productivity and even a loss of employees. Your lack of trust can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
2) Dependency
Those staff that don’t hand in their notice might become unhealthily over reliant on you. Take away their independence and they could lose confidence in their own abilities, and become dependent on your supervision. Your actions can supress creativity, self-motivation and innovation within your team, removing initiative and limiting your company potential.
3) Burnout
Constantly monitoring your employees significantly adds to your work schedule and costs time and energy. Can you afford to lose more hours in the day, to take on everyone else’s tasks in addition to your own? Is this the best use of your time? It can be a heavy burden, one that can come with a mental and physical health cost. Remember to look after yourself; this is a toll that will also affect your family, your team and company productivity.
The Power of Trust
“Trust and Accountability in leadership are the two elements to help you stop micromanaging staff and start focusing on the things that really matter”
We often hear talk of “trust” in the work environment but what does it actually mean? It’s crucial for a leader to recognise it’s not just another meaningless buzzword. Trust can be the difference between success and failure. It’s the glue that holds a high-performing team together, boosting productivity, stimulating creativity, encouraging engagement and employee retention. To hear the words “I trust your judgement” from your leaders can be incredibly empowering.
Unconvinced? A recent Harvard study revealed a direct link between the amount of trust people feel with levels of oxytocin; the hormone responsible for empathy and social bonding. “People at high-trust companies report 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, 50% higher productivity, 13% fewer sick days, 76% more engagement, 29% more satisfaction with their lives, and 40% less burnout”.
Happier employees, better productivity and greater profits sound like a good exchange for handing over a bit of control. Creating a culture of trust also means reducing your staff turnover rate. Losing skilled workers, as well as continually having to retrain staff, is time-consuming and momentum-killing. Retaining high-quality employees is an essential part of building a high-performing team, so consider giving them the freedom to act and think for themselves. It can seem like a leap of faith, but placing trust in your staff can be a liberating and profitable exercise. And part of this process involves you having a bit more trust in yourself. After all, you built this team. You may be surprised by their creativity and productivity.
Tip: Build trust by learning more about yourself and how to manage people with DiSC personality profiling. To understand others you must first understand yourself. The DiSC tool will help you deploy the right strategies for managing people in a way that allows you to see their strengths, and get the best out of them.
Accountability and Ownership
In order to fully integrate trust in the workplace, you must have a system of accountability in place. After trust, accountability is the other wheel of the bicycle, propelling your team towards high performance. On an individual, team, and company-wide basis, we must all take responsibility and own the outcomes of our actions, both good and bad.
Making your employees accountable is an important sign that you trust them to do their jobs and carry out their responsibilities. It shows you value them and their work. Accountability should be a pivotal value in your company culture, an important foundation that should be accompanied by good communication and the free exchange of ideas. It means celebrating success, but also recognising failure, in an atmosphere of open dialogue and a recognition that learning from failure is an important step towards personal and company growth. Done correctly, having a proper culture of accountability can be hugely motivating and rewarding. It keeps people on their toes because their credibility is on the line, and it shows that their leaders have absolute faith in them. It encourages everyone to strive for success, increasing productivity and engagement.
Everyone must know what’s expected of them – their deadlines and objectives. As a leader it is up to you to challenge your team to exceed those expectations, and if they fall short to know how to speak frankly and constructively about the causes and how we can learn the lessons of those failures and improve for the future.
Ultimately, if you trust your team and hold them accountable, you empower and motivate them to succeed. No longer feeling the need to get bogged down in small detail, you’ll be free to see the bigger picture, to focus on big strategic ideas, and change your company for the better.
Tip: DiSC assessments are a useful means of improving communication in the workplace, and recognising that feedback and constructive criticism are a gift; an essential element of getting accountability right, and an opportunity to learn and grow.