Trust: the ultimate backbone of a successful high-performing team. While being the foundation and strength, it is also remarkably fragile and difficult to reforge once broken. Part of the challenge of encouraging this when building a team is that trust implies safety, which can be a very personal and complex state of mind. 

Brene Brown, in her book, “Daring to Lead,” uses the concept of a jar of marbles as a metaphor for trust. I love this analogy because it’s simple and gets the point across so well. According to her, each person goes into every relationship with a jar of trust marbles. When something happens to build trust, marbles go into the jar. When something betrays or otherwise diminishes that trust, marbles come out. 

In practice, this becomes tricky because different people assign different values to the marbles. An action that might be a 0 to 1 on the marble scale to one person, could hit the 20-30 marble mark for someone else. Unfortunately, the value of the marbles is only ever known to the one holding the jar, and even then that value can fluctuate depending on the situation.

But there is one common factor. Once the jar is empty, it is difficult to continue a healthy relationship until trust is rebuilt. It’s also important to understand that it may take several trust-building efforts to counter the damage of a single damaging action, even if it was made in error. 

So as a leader, what are some ways to build trust with my team and stakeholders and (more importantly) keep my team’s trust marble jars full? Equally important, what are the signs that trust is eroding and how do I get it back?

1. Communication is King

Communication is a tricky business. There are entire books written on the subject. Even with the best intentions, sometimes communication breaks down, and often without any warning. Sometimes a message can be conveyed unintentionally and followup conversations may drive home a message that was completely unintended, but which pulls the trust marbles out of the jar. Once this starts happening, things can go downhill very rapidly. 

Maintaining a good dialogue between everyone on the team is essential to building solid trusting relationships. Effective communication includes understanding who the message is meant for and how it can be delivered in a way that is understood. Words only make up around 7% of communication. The rest consists of context, tonal inflection and body language, so it’s important to be mindful of those cues. There are also lots of cultural and personal nuances to consider when crafting a message. 

In a business environment that is 100% remote, communication becomes even more challenging – especially if there is a preconceived notion of how the message should be received. Video conferencing can only simulate a face-to-face conversation up to a point, and different teams may have different etiquette surrounding whether cameras are always on, mute buttons are used, or other factors.

All of these nuances can affect messaging and impact how a team builds trust. As a leader, it’s my responsibility to make sure my communication is effective, both as a sender and as a recipient. If a message is somehow misunderstood, then it’s my responsibility to find ways to improve the process.

So how do I know if communication is working to build trust rather than destroy it? The better communication is, the more trust marbles in both of our jars. The first way to judge effective communication is to self-evaluate. How am I feeling about the person I am communicating with? Do I feel like the more I talk, the more open and trusting I feel around them? Or am I closed and guarded when I interact?   

Past interactions or communications have a lot of sway over how a message is perceived. If good communication has happened in the past, then future messages are far more likely to be received positively. But if trust was broken on either side, then even the most benign message can be twisted and taken out of context. If I have to defend my message, there’s a good chance some trust was broken with my recipient at some point. 

When it comes to communications and trust, open, easy dialogues are a sure indication of a high level of trust. But these don’t have to be limited to spoken or face to face interactions. There are three major ways people process information – especially new concepts they have to learn. Traditional business communication often relies on  either auditory (listening) or visual (reading). But there is a third way of ingesting information as well – kinetic (hands on).

Most people learn through a combination of the three, but there might be one that is more effective to them. Understanding your recipient’s preferred method of communication can go a long way in building trust. For example, I’m a writer and a visual/kinetic learner. I am not a very good auditory processor and will misunderstand messages that are only conveyed through speech. At the same time, this also makes me less effective at conveying my own thoughts through spoken word.    

2. Be Honest and Transparent… 

There’s no bigger marble stealer than saying one thing and doing something completely different. The leaders I’ve trusted the least have taken it one step farther – saying one thing to placate when it’s completely obvious the opposite is true. Openness and honesty – even when conversations are tough – is so much preferable than false assurances. I don’t personally know anyone who doesn’t prefer truth over fiction, even if it’s bad news. 

In my own experiences, leaders who have respected me enough to be honest with me – particularly when it comes to my own shortcomings – are the ones I’ve come to admire and trust the most. When managing my own direct reports, I’ve rarely encountered someone who is surprised by the truth. Most people are at least somewhat aware of their shortcomings and the best employees want to do everything they can to improve. 

Transparency has another benefit: if there is a team culture around honesty and transparency, it drives away another trust-killer – assumptions. Most people are capable of imagining much worse possibilities than the real story. When the truth is being withheld from them, even for the most benign of reasons, their assumptions will usually be far more painful. 

Telling the truth is key. Even the tiniest of white lies can pull marbles out of someone’s trust jar. And once that lie is exposed, it becomes extremely difficult to build back trust.  

3 …But be Mindful About Oversharing

Being transparent and honest is one thing – communicating things that aren’t helpful to building trust is another. I was taught a long time ago to take a moment and think about the information I am about to share – will it do harm or good? Am I the right person to convey this and is the timing appropriate?

For example, let’s say a team member has come to me and given notice. If I am being honest and transparent with my team, I should tell them that they are losing a member. But am I the right person to share this? As hard as it may seem to hold back, It’s their story to share when they are ready. By honoring that, I can demonstrate that I can be trusted with sensitive information.

4. Trust Is A Two-way Street

I work to emulate the values I am trying to impart to my team into my own words and actions. If I want honesty and transparency from my folks, I am honest with them. If I want to trust my team to have my back, then first I make sure they know I have their back. If I want high-performing employees who go the extra mile, I make sure that they know I will be right there in the trenches with them. 

The same goes with having faith in my people. If I want my team to trust my judgment and leadership, they need to be clear that I trust them just as much as I need them to trust me. If I do anything that demonstrates to my team that I don’t trust them, it will be hard to build rapport. 

Many managers rely on the excuse that reports need to prove themselves before they can be trusted, but this is never a good way to build a team that will ever fully trust their leader. Beginning a relationship with little to no faith in the other person’s abilities sends a pretty clear message to them that they have little value to you. Conversely, acknowledging a person’s value to the team from the very beginning keeps that trust jar full. 

Sometimes a manager hasn’t quite developed the skill to delegate, and while they have the best of intentions, this deficit will erode trust as well. Consider this: I have a new person who has joined my team and who is still learning the ropes. I have a task that needs to be done by the new report. Do I do the task myself because it will be easier and faster than delegating it to my new report? Or do I delegate it to them and help them if/when they ask for help?

If I do the task myself, I may feel more comfortable because I know it will be done the way I want it done, and I might even feel like I’m helping my new report by doing the work for them. But I’m also denying my new team member the opportunity to demonstrate their skill and this action stunts trust. After all, I hired them for a reason. Doing their job for them is almost as bad as making them earn trust. It sends a clear message that I don’t trust them or value what they bring to a team.

5. Genuinely Putting People First

People have lives outside of work. One of the fastest ways I’ve found to build a high-performing team is to create a culture where people feel safe making their personal lives a priority. Discouraging overtime and encouraging mental health days and vacations (especially among salaried employees) may seem counterintuitive from a company’s perspective, but the opposite is true. If I can create a culture where people feel they can take breaks to recuperate or spend time with their families, then they are healthier, happier, and more productive as a whole. They also tend to be much more positive about putting in long hours in those rare cases when it’s absolutely necessary. Most importantly, building this kind of relationship with an individual fills that marble jar pretty quickly. 

The biggest part of this is that it has to be genuine. I’ve found it’s not just about asking after family or sending get well cards. It’s about honestly caring about the people on my team and helping them find that work/life balance so they can grow and thrive in their careers. Sometimes it means being able and willing to help them find a spot on another team or in another role that is a better fit for their unique situation.   

6. Let Your Team Do Their Jobs 

Hands-down one of the scariest parts of leading a team is being accountable for their work, especially when assigning someone work that you could do yourself. Nobody wants to fail, or worse, have to report that failure caused by a team member to a customer or other stakeholder. It’s easy to fall into the trap of redoing a team member’s work (usually with the best of intentions of helping out) because it’s easier and faster than explaining to them where something needs to be changed. Likewise, micromanaging to be sure something is done “right” is usually done with the best intentions of keeping them from failing. But both actions send a very clear message that a leader doesn’t trust their people to be capable of doing their own work. If the team  feels you don’t trust them, how do you expect them to be able to trust you?

It’s tough and may take a little more time, but I’ve learned that providing constructive feedback is better in the long run than revising someone’s work. That little bit of time that might be saved is usually not worth the damage to trust that ensues. In this same vein, I’ve also learned that my way of doing something doesn’t have to be the only way, and that perfection is much less important than demonstrating faith and building trust with my team. 

7. Allow People the Freedom to Fail

Everyone is going to make a mistake at some point. How a leader reacts to those mistakes is where trust comes into play. If a mistake is seen as a failure that erodes trust, this attitude then creates a culture ruled by fear and mistrust. As a leader, I can’t possibly expect my team (or clients and other stakeholders) to trust my judgment if I start taking handfuls of marbles out of my own trust jar over an unintended mistake or oversight. I need to cultivate the attitude that people I’ve hired want to do their best and will learn from their mistakes. Personally, I trust people even more after they have fat-fingered something, because I know they will take the extra step to make sure it won’t happen again.  

Creating a safe, supportive and non-judgmental space to make and correct mistakes helps build trust, as well as fueling creativity and innovation. There is a good reason for the “Fail Fast” way of thinking in Agile. Good leaders not only nurture this within the teams they lead, but develop strong client and stakeholder relationships that can embrace it as well.