Several years ago, I was developing leaders and teams at the University of Victoria and struggling with getting them to really cooperate and pull together for their common goals. Then someone handed me the book, The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni.
Through the narrative of a fictional leadership team planning retreat, Lencioni outlines 5 common issues that keep teams from reaching success, let alone their full potential. Each dysfunction precipitates the next one and they all grow from the core dysfunction: a lack of trust. I could clearly see this in our team.
Google did a big study over 2 years with 180 different teams to figure out the most important ingredients of the most effective teams. At first, they looked at things like personalities, expertise, and efficiency, but after 2 years, they couldn't find a reliable formula to follow. It wasn't until they started to consider some intangibles that the picture became clearer. The core essential ingredient? Trust, or as they put it, "psychological safety." [1]
We've probably all been on teams or in meetings where we've held back questions or ideas for fear of seeming incompetent, haven't tried some things because failure and mistakes aren't accepted as a normal part of growth and progress, or avoided the hard conversations because the other person might react badly.
When trust is absent, team members frequently focus on safeguarding themselves and their own agenda rather than serving the collective goals of the team.
The truth is, trust is foundational to people giving their best to the team. The team that trusts is going to out perform the team lacking trust nine times out of ten, especially when there's a crisis, even if the low trust team has more talent or expertise. People who trust their organizations show higher engagement, creativity, productivity, less stress and burnout, and are less likely to quit. [2]
The million dollar question is, how do we build trust on our teams? We cannot demand trust from others or even force ourselves to trust because trust is an outcome or byproduct of an environment, norms, people and relationships that are trust-worthy.
So how do we build those? Of course, the culture of any team will most often reflect the character of the leaders. I've run a number of leadership workshops. I always ask participants to think of the best leader they've ever worked with and what made them great leaders. Without fail, every one had these three qualities: they were authentic, they were competent/logical, and they had empathy.
Frances Frei, professor at Harvard School of Business and pioneer of the Trust Triangle concept, agrees. She says, "In our experience, trust has three core drivers: authenticity, logic, and empathy. People tend to trust you when they believe they are interacting with the real you (authenticity), when they have faith in your judgment and competence (logic), and when they feel that you care about them (empathy). When trust is lost, it can almost always be traced back to a breakdown in one of these three drivers." [2]
Authentic leaders are humble and honest about their strengths and weaknesses. They're real. They aren't insecure so they have no problem gathering smarter or more competent people around them, but they also don't withhold their own
unique gift set to contribute to the team. People can tell that authentic leaders aren't hiding information or exaggerating stories for their own agenda.
Competent/logical leaders aren't just proficient at their job. They're also good at communicating it to others. You may have it all worked out in your head, but if you can't explain it in an understandable way, people will probably struggle with your ability to lead them through it. Competent and logical leaders have developed the skills to empower others out of their own expertise, resources, and knowledge.
Empathetic leaders care about the people on their team more than their agenda or even the tasks and goals of the team. Most high-achieving, analytical, driven people struggle with this one. They often get impatient with those who don't seem to be as motivated or take longer than they do to understand something, but empathy is essential to building trust and becoming an exceptional team. If logical leaders have the skills to empower others, empathetic leaders have the heart for it. People can tell that these leaders love to help others rise and gladly share the credit when the team succeeds. They put their phones and lists away when others talk and listen with interest to others' ideas, challenges, and solutions. They take radical responsibility for ensuring that others are heard and have what they need.
Ok, we've learned that the foundation of high performing teams is trust, and leaders build trust by being authentic, competent/logical, and empathetic. That’s certainly true, but there’s one last thing you need to know. The path to empowerment leadership doesn’t begin when others trust you, but when you start to trust yourself. I don't mean cocky arrogance. That certainly doesn't build trust. I mean being honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses and being humbly confident in who you are and the direction you're going.
To bring that idea home, I'll leave you with another quote from Frances Frei, "To be a truly empowering leader, you need to take stock of where you wobble not only in your relationships with others but also in your relationship with yourself. Are you being honest with yourself about your ambitions, or are you ignoring what really excites and inspires you? If you’re hiding something from yourself, you’ve got an authenticity problem you need to address. Do you acknowledge your own needs and attend properly to them? If not, you’ve got to adopt a more empathetic posture toward yourself. Do you lack conviction in your own ideas and ability to perform? If so, you’ve got some logic issues to work out. Doing this work is important as a leader, for an arguably obvious reason. If you don’t trust yourself, why should anybody else trust you?"
By Tony Janzen
Founder and Director of
Inspired Life Resource Association
Next time: Part 2
Conversations about building trust in teams often focus on the relationship between managers and employees or leaders and followers. As important, if not more so, is establishing trust between teammates, and everyone on the team has a part to play in building trust.
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Wow that is a great foundation team building, I truly agree that a working team needs trust but it starts with the individual that is part of this team, they must choose to go into it with confidence that they will trust worthy and a team player, also I must add that the team couch is a good fit and is going into the team with confidence and trust.
Love this news letter