3 Strategies For Effective Trust And Connection In Leadership
Finding it a bit hard to build that connection and trust in your team?
So you’ve got a project to handle, a boss to handle and of course a team to handle. Your team works just fine, everybody’s working together- the tasks are being completed! But you as a leader see that the level of trust and connection in your team is far short of expectation.
Arguments are common. Accusations pour in. Members have started to distance themselves from each other and yourself, there’s just not that bond needed for the team to truly be connected.
How exactly do we work towards a stronger, more resilient connection in the team?
- Foster Open Communication
Ever wondered why your team members have started to become more isolated and less likely to talk about things? It’s very likely because you’ve closed the door for communication.
Of course, business is business! we don’t want employees wasting their work life gossiping about trivial issues outside of work, but at the same time we absolutely do not want a damp boring work environment fueled by robots.
Constantly sharing information openly about the company’s goals, expectations and achievements and encouraging team members to speak out on the work that they have achieved is crucial to making sure that members are well versed in collaborating with each other.
It also gives way to feedback and suggestions for improvisation.
How often does an employee feel like they want to make a change to a process or decision within the company, but they just cant!
Why? Of course, the Big Figures get in the way.
They create a rift between the employees based on their order in a manner which is detrimental, such that the lower class employees do not have a say in the processes and decisions that happen through the upper class employees.
Coming back to the team members, you want to always create an open environment and opportunity for growth for every member through effective communication between yourself and other members.
Picture this: You’ve been assigned a task for leading a big project and the deadline’s only in a few days, to your dismay- you notice something quite odd! Nobody speaks in your group! Everyone’s up and about their own business focused on completing their tasks for a project which requires strong collaboration. Ideas stay bottled up and problems remain unresolved due to only minimal communication between members.
Now is your role to come into the picture and foster the change of communication between your members.
Perhaps you could start with an anonymous feedback mechanism that gives the members room to speak without having to disclose their identity. Although this might be a bit shady, it certainly does a solid job in terms of addressing issues that would have never been addressed.
Surveys and suggestion boxes are also a great way to go about it, or even if you could have a portal where people just spill in their thoughts anonymously.
To make it a lot less shady and more effective, conduct regular meetings with team members. Collectively, conduct meetings to discuss project progress, goals to be achieved and other issues. While doing this, you also want to improve your interactions individually with each team member, and so one-to-one meetings are the ideal way to do it, which would create an open space for dialogue and ensure that everyone feels supported.
Your gonna start seeing ideas being shared, issues being addressed and people working a lot better together.
2. Leading By Example
“Your a leader, all talk but no walk!” , That just doesn’t sound right if you have been hearing it quite often.
It could be that you are just not leading by example.
What stands out here is the importance of the fact that you’ve been given the role of being a leader, and part of that is understanding your role and responsibility, if you do not have the capacity or aren’t just meant to be a leader, do your self a favor for your team and step down!
Part of building trust and leading by example is maintaining the key qualities and values as a leader, which is why integrity is often stressed upon as a factor in leading by example. By upholding strong values, you ensure that legal and ethical considerations are considered while focusing on the long term objectives of the organization’s mission and vision.
Imagine being the captain of the football team, you’ve got to lead by example right? It’s an intense game and your team’s already losing. All of a sudden you face a situation where the referee calls your team out for a member fouling another player on the other side.
You’ve got 2 options:
- Handle the situation with integrity and calmness and discuss the call with the referee.
- Throw a tantrum leading to controversy and a few weeks of game ban.
Here you face the dilemma of siding with your team’s objective of proceeding with the game ahead, saving time by not arguing (When you know it’s the fault of your team-mate), and going with the flow and accepting the call fairly or just being unfair and wasting the chances your team even has of winning.
If you choose the former, it would only be a means of your team members observing your composed demeanor and realize how well you’ve handled the situation with respect.
You’ve chosen to lead by example. Why bother about the consequences?
3. Balancing Vulnerability And Confidentiality
In some cultures, leaders are expected to maintain a stoic demeanor and avoid showing vulnerability. Overemphasizing personal challenges could be seen as unprofessional or weak.
While it may be argued that leaders are expected to maintain a rather strong strict harsh rigid demeanor and avoid showing any vulnerability, in this context a leading stressing out on personal challenges could be seen as unprofessional or weak.
There’s two sides to this: a leader that’s very focused on personal struggles and challenges, to the extent that he’s so vulnerable, his stand as a leader droops to a very low level in terms of respect.
The other side is that his followers or team members do not have an idea of what he’s really being through, he does not address it at all so they can not resonate by any means with any of his struggles or concerns.
So while vulnerability can sort of humanize a leader, it can also make him look less competent and even in worst cases, it can give opponents or rivals an upper hand as confidential details may be revealed whilst the leader portrays and publicizes the faults, worries and mistakes be it for an organization or a project.
And so, a balanced approach is really needed here…
To build trust and connection between members while weighing the pros and cons of being more vulnerable
An interesting way to do this is questioning the nature of your audience and the context of what you are going to say.
Is it a public forum with investors, stakeholders and other businessman?
Is it a one to one meeting with your client or team mate?
Is it just a team meeting?
Understanding the context is very vital here to know what or what not to disclose
Choosing wisely cannot be stressed more, always be strategic of what your share to build trust. Being vulnerable does not mean you reveal everything. Select the ideal moments that align with the core objective of your leadership goals of building trust and connection.
And of course, feedback! After sharing vulnerability, ask for feedback for your mentors. Was it actually very effective? Did it lead to other obstacles?
This can really give you a grip of balancing between disclosing too much and revealing too little to build trust and connection.
Overall, these are 3 strategies to build connections and trust as a leader.
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