Building Trust

Trust is the linchpin to any relationship. And managing relationships is essential to working in a team setting, and to business success, period.

For a number of complex reasons, trust is also the rarest and most difficult domain to conquer in organizations.

For example, we tend to equate vulnerability with weakness. So, we never want to appear vulnerable, especially if we hold leadership positions. Transformational leaders, however, understand how expressing vulnerability can actually elevate trust.

Another obstacle to trust is that people tend to attribute negative behaviors in others to their character, and attribute their own negative behaviors to their environment. We like to think that we do bad things because of the situation we’re in, but that others do bad things because they are predisposed to being bad.

We’re a complex species, but building self-awareness and understanding around what motivates us and how we communicate can bring new meaning to our relationships and build trust.