By Doug R. Turner

In the spring 2013 edition of PeopleTalk, John Wright, CEO of the Canadian Management Centre (CMC) documented the sorry state of affairs in Canadian businesses today in regards to the levels of trust and confidence in the workplace. The most alarming statistic is that 61 per cent of Canadian employees don’t trust their senior leaders.

While an alarming enough statistic, its impact is even greater when one considers that such trust is integral in order to achieve effective communication, innovation, engagement, efficient operations and ultimately, optimum organizational results.

Perhaps there is a temptation to dismiss this as being obvious. The words have all been used and overused, but perhaps lacking appropriate context to build a better business case.  It helps to see that trust and communication are inextricably linked. They are each an “end” and a “means to an end”. Effective communication won’t happen in a low trust environment and trust won’t happen if there isn’t honest and clear communication.

Answering ‘WIIFM?’
While what leaders say is a key element of communication, they must also be aware of and accountable for how their message lands. This is critical. Effective leaders make the extra effort to understand what people are expecting, what their priorities are, what they want and so forth.

In short, leaders must not only acknowledge the basic “What’s In It For Me?”(WIIFM), effective leaders answer that question. The communication is not relayed until the sender confirms that the intended message was received and interpreted correctly by the receivers. The CMC article aptly suggested that leaders should not “just push information”, but should also solicit responses and provide context.  It all ties back to the WIIFM question.

Developing Trust as a Leader
It is often said that the best way to communicate what is expected is to lead by example. Leaders must articulate what is expected and then demonstrate what success looks like. In order for staff to trust and embrace what the leaders are saying, staff must see that the leaders are genuine and that they are believable.

To achieve this trust, leaders must pay close attention to the kind of behaviours that are seen to be, or perceived by staff to be, rewarded. Leaders must not ask for one thing and then reward, or even be perceived to reward, something that is different and possibly inconsistent with what was requested.

A weekly or monthly personal “note from the president” to all staff with specific congratulatory messages is an ideal place to show everybody what kind of behaviour gets acknowledged and rewarded.  By publicly rewarding solid examples of “collaboration”, “high standards”, “customer focus”, or whatever else may be desired, leaders will build that aspect into the culture as a result of enhanced levels of trust.

Trust Fosters Autonomy and Success
Let’s examine trust in more detail. Why does it matter? It matters because there is a preponderance of evidence to show that when there is more trust in a given situation, more things can be achieved in a shorter time and the cost of achieving those things goes down.

For example, when there is more trust, there is less need for regulations, rules, procedures, policies—all of which are better known collectively as bureaucracy—or red tape. Staff can make more autonomous decisions and business moves faster with less cost. People feel better and the business is more profitable. A win-win situation!

While “trust” and “confidence” are often used as separate terms, they are really the same thing. Trust can be defined as confidence in a person (or organization) as result of the qualities that person is perceived to have. The key words here are “qualities” and “perceived”. The questions then, are “what qualities?” and “how do you achieve the correct perception?”

Character and Competence Key
Stephen M.R. Covey in his seminal book, The Speed of Trust, describes the essential qualities associated with trust as character and competence. Character is composed of intent and integrity. Competence is made up of capability and results. People trust people who they perceive to be of “good character” and who are competent at what they do.

Demonstrating competence is relatively straightforward, but critically important.

The other side, character, is a bit trickier and requires conscious effort. People will only trust leaders when they know what those leaders’ interests really are, what their objectives are, what their agenda is. This is collectively known as intent and it is likely the most common cause of distrust in the corporate environment.

As per CMC’s “Build a Better Workplace” report, 61 per cent of employees don’t trust their leaders; that is likely due to lack of visibility of the intent of those leaders.  Comments such as “I don’t know what is going on”, “my boss is just out to make himself look good”, “priorities seem to change frequently without notice” and the like, come directly from this lack of confidence in the intent of leadership.

Leaders must convey their intent, and do it in such a way that is believable and verifiable, which is the essence of Integrity.

The Arithmetic of Integrity

Integrity means consistency. Think of a simple arithmetic addition:

        MIND
+     MOUTH
+     HEART
+     FEET  
=    INTEGRITY.

In this little construct, MIND represents what you are thinking. MOUTH represents what you say, how you speak. HEART represents what you are feeling and FEET represents what you do, your actions. If what you think is consistent with what you say, and if what you say is consistent or congruent with what you feel, and if what you feel is the same as what you do (your actions match your feelings, words and thoughts)—then, you are “living in integrity.”

It is very difficult, if not impossible, to be perfectly aligned all of the time. However, everything leaders do and say must be verifiable because people will definitely check up on them. Any inconsistencies are potential trust destroyers.

The Bank of Trust
We all know and seem to accept that trust has to be earned over time.  We also know, through experience or otherwise that trust can be destroyed very quickly.

Think of a little bank account that is shared by any two people that have a relationship that involves trust. The balance in the account is the amount of trust in the relationship.  Each person makes deposits into the account and the occasional withdrawal. Deposits tend to be small and frequent, while withdrawals are larger and infrequent. Indeed, one withdrawal can wipe out the account altogether, if the betrayal of trust is serious enough and there is insufficient trust in the account to allow one  party to forgive the other.

It is important that leaders be aware that they have these joint accounts with everybody in their organization and all of their actions are contributing to or withdrawing from the “trust accounts”.

Advice like “we must communicate better” is of very little use unless there is a specified objective of the improved communication. In HR’s case, the goals are to improve the efficiency of operations, increase innovation, improve engagement, and achieve greater organizational success. These all require greater trust.

Fortunately, as shown greater trust and ensuing results emerge, if leaders:

• communicate their intent;
• ensure their communications are received and interpreted correctly;
• act in such a way that their communications can be verified;
• communicate by demonstrating and rewarding what is asked for; and
• show that they have everybody’s interests at heart.

Doug R. Turner, MSc., MBA is a leadership and executive coach at True Balance Coaching.

(PeopleTalk Summer 2014)