Building Trust through Good Business Leadership * Incedo Group

Building Trust through Good Business Leadership

Trust and good business leadership are two faces of the same coin.

Trust can become a big issue in a company. There are many bad implications for a company whose leadership has a low level of trust. Productivity might be affected, sales may fall, and the overall performance of the company might decline.

A management not trusted by its own employees is like a paralyzed triathlon athlete – even if you want to implement new strategies, the low level of trust will hinder you from achieving your goals.

Meanwhile, companies that are run by a management that enjoy a high level of trust among its employees have greater assurance of growth. When employees trust their managers, they tend to have a higher morale, and become more loyal to the company, thus increasing productivity and performance, leading to good transactions and sales.

There may be many reasons behind the trust gap between the management and employees, but the top reason is always the management’s lack of good leadership. The company executive may have made a series of blunders in the past that have made employees wary of his capability. Meanwhile, trust issues can also spring from unfulfilled promises or employee expectations. The list goes on. But there’s good news: building trust and projecting an image of good business leadership is not rocket science.

Here are a Few Proven Tips on How You Could Boost Employee Trust:

1. Deliver results. Most employees tend to lose trust in the management because the expectations set by the company are not being met. Everyone can experience this, especially with the recent slump in the economy. Sales may plummet, salaries may remain stagnant, and employees are not receiving additional benefits. To maintain a high level of trust, avoid creating expectations that cannot be met. Deliver results – even if these are just tiny achievements, it will make employees feel that the management is doing something right.

2. Share information. Transparency is one of the foundations of good business leadership. Be transparent with your employees, especially regarding the status of the company. Assume a “no surprises” style of management, and keep everyone abreast with whatever’s happening in the company. After all, the company’s status is everyone’s concern. If your employees know that you’re bidding for a large project, then everyone will work hard to make that happen. The same goes if you let them know that the funds for this month’s salaries will mostly come from the sales they make.

3. Hire and fire the right people. Even if they don’t tell you face-to-face, employees judge your performance as a manager all the time. One way they do this is by looking at whom you hire and whom you fire. For employees, good business leadership is all about making the right choices, so be careful with the way you handle people..

Be firm and consistent. Building trust in the company is not an impossible feat. What’s difficult is maintaining that trust. To project an image of good business leadership, be firm and consistent in your decisions. Employee trust will waver if you tend to make unpredictable decisions.