How to build trust as a leader

Contrary to what people believe, being a leader is not just about getting results at any cost. Focusing too much on getting to the finish line alone can make your team members burn out fast.

Being a leader involves getting the best out of the people you work with and making sure they do the best they can on a day-to-day basis while also feeling in a suitable environment that makes them feel understood and addresses their concerns. (Sounds pretty obvious when you say it like this, but you would be surprised)

Managers who know how to get the most out of each member of the team achieve noticeably better results than managers who don’t.

Why have trusting relationships with the people who report to me?

The problem most of the time is that we believe that we are already close enough with the people who report to us.

We talk all the time

Even though that might be true, it does not mean that your relationship with them is what is supposed to be.

In the book “Radical Candor” the author Kim Scott illustrates this with a personal experience she once had.

Bob joined Kim’s team at Juice with glowing references, an amazing career at two of the world’s greatest technology companies, and a quirky, charming personality.

There was just one problem: Bob’s work was terrible. After a few weeks of working diligently, he finally made a presentation that was essentially a “jargon salad.” His slides were riddled with sloppy mistakes — whole sections were cut and pasted, and he hadn’t even bothered to make the fonts consistent.

Kim didn’t say a word to him after he showed it to her because she was so mad she was afraid she might say something “mean”. So she procrastinated. For ten months. It got so bad that several of her best employees said they’d quit if Kim didn’t fire Bob.

Kim scheduled a meeting, took a deep breath and told him, as gently as she could, that she was firing him. She was so gentle as to be incoherent. Bob sensed something was wrong, but mostly looked puzzled. He reassured Kim he was going to buckle down and work harder, how he would focus on making fewer sloppy mistakes.

“No, no, you don’t understand. It’s too late to fix,” Kim said.

He reassured her that he loved Juice, that he had never seen a product he was more excited about, that he was committed to our collective success. Kim was trying to fire him, but there he was talking about love and commitment. She felt terrible.

To try to make things clear, Kim described not only what was wrong with Bob’s projects, but how his bad results had caused the whole team to lose faith in him. She explained that his poor work had cost the company months, and that now they would have to raise more money from VCs, diluting everyone’s stock and bringing them one big step closer to failure.

Again, he didn’t seem to understand. He was busy sketching out on a napkin an aggressive plan to address his many delayed projects.

Kim realized she was going to have to be much, much more direct. “Bob, today is your last day. I am firing you.”

He shoved his chair back from the table with a screech that made everyone look up from their steaming mugs.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” The question rolled around in my head slowly and heavily, with no good answer. “Why didn’t anyone tell me what I was doing wrong?”

Source

This story shows that even though you may have constant conversations with team members, they need to put you in a place that allows you to give feedback with confidence and also that is good enough for your colleagues to take your feedback without thinking he or she is getting attacked.

How to build trusting relationships

To create this rapport with your employees you need to talk to them not only frequently but consistently about topics that might interest them too.

The book “The effective manager” by Mark Horstman talks about all the investigation he and his team went through and they came back with a really useful solution, O3 meetings

What is a “One On One (O3) meeting?

O3 meetings are events that take place with each one of your directs not just to check on the progress of the projects or to give feedback every time, they are about having a space where team members can talk about anything that might be important to them, of course, you get to talk as well but the main point here is listening to them.

How long should these meetings take?

The length should be 30 minutes if possible, the investigations have shown that half an hour is a magic period for this kind of meeting, less than that makes the meeting not effective, and more time is ok, but it does not give better results and this could mean we are wasting time (According to the investigation made by Mark and his team)

Do we have to talk only about work?

Not at all, One On One meetings are spaces to talk about any topic, which could be work or any other topic as long as is important for them, could be about life, work, unicorns, or rainbows.

Can I bring topics to the conversation as well?

Of course, the meeting is about you too, you can bring topics to the table and ask about whatever you want, how work is progressing, or give feedback, there is no problem with doing any of those things but you have to make sure you don’t take all the time of the meeting doing that.

How do I know if I’m talking too much?

To prevent this from happening there is a rule we need to follow.

The person who reports to you always speaks first.

Why? because that way he can bring up any topic that is meaningful to him or her, and that way you can hear them and understand them better not only as workers but as people, you will be surprised by the things you can learn from them.

After you have spoken about the topics important for them, it’s your turn, you can talk about work, life or use this time to give feedback on their performance, anything that is convenient to you.

How often should we have this meeting with each of my team members?

It depends on the specific needs and circumstances of the organization and the employees involved. Some organizations have weekly or bi-weekly one-on-one meetings, while others have monthly or quarterly meetings

According to the studies, having weekly meetings is the best way to go, since doing it bi-weekly can cause the person to forget the topics he had in mind if he or she needs to wait one more week for that meeting (besides, double the topics can make the time of the meeting to not be enough), and doing it monthly or more makes it hard for any trust relationship to emerge since you are not talking regularly enough.

How do I make the best of 03 meetings?

Listen, for real

Make sure you are really listening. Stop thinking about the topics you want to focus on and dedicate 100% of your attention to the person in front of you, keep whatever you need to talk about in notes for you to remember later, and engage with your coworker on his time of the meeting.

Take notes

Taking notes is good for many things, for once, it allows you to remember what the other party says and makes it easier to follow up on those topics later on and makes it easier to see how they are coming along in the future, and the other good aspect of note taking is that shows that you are listening, that is much more important than it sounds.

The effective manager mentions this when writing about an investigation they did on the topic:

There was a theme: in One On Ones in which the manager did no note taking, the directs felt that the manager didn’t care about what was being said from a professional perspective.

Chose what time is best for you

In the spirit of having a meeting to let your team members talk about their issues you are going to be tempted to let them choose the time of the meeting to make it even better for them, this is a mistake.

For them, it’s only half an hour of their time every week, but for you it will be several hours of meetings every week, letting them choose the time will bring chaos to your schedule and it will make it harder for you.

Just imagine that having 10 people reporting to you represents 5 hours of meetings every week.

Conclusion

Cultivating a trusting relationship with the people who report to you by having frequent and better communication will allow you to:

• Increase productivity
• Retain more talent
• Create a nicer work environment
• Be a better leader