Leadership Development News Roundup: Earning Employees’ Trust Edition

Managing people and leading teams requires you to get work done through others. But to succeed at motivating others to contribute their best ideas and do their best work, you must first gain their trust.

This week’s Leadership Development News Roundup brings you a collection of articles and blog posts with information and advice to help leaders who need to work on earning employees’ trust.

• 4 Ways Leaders Can Create a Candid Culture. Harvard Business Review: “When leaders want to create an open culture where people are willing to speak up and challenge one another, they often start by listening. This is a good instinct. But listening with your ears will only take you so far. You also need to demonstrate with words that you truly want people to raise risky issues.”

• Leaders Get More Out of People When They Don’t Wear the Crown. TLNT: “Our workforces have the ability to be a percolator of ideas and solutions if we would just turn the spigots on. Letting our employees know that we are dependent upon their ideas and thoughts has the potential for any organization to break out of the pack and shift power to the people who are closest to the issues. It’s simple: Turn them loose, unleash their powers, and watch things happen.”

• What To Do When You Don't Trust Your Leader. Forbes: “During times of uncertainty, many leaders go into survival mode. They will step-back and observe the workplace dynamics in order to better understand where they best fit and how to politically navigate the changing terrain. In the process, they find themselves losing their leadership identity and subsequently the respect and trust of their employees that they ignored while fending for themselves. For employees, they now feel trapped because the leader they once trusted to have their backs is now viewed as a ‘conditional’ leader.”

• 5 Ways to Win Back Your Employees' Trust. Inc.: “There's good reason why your employees do not automatically give you their unwavering trust. ‘As a person's power increases, their perceived trustworthiness goes down,’ DeSteno says. He explains that leaders seem less reliant on others--which means they are perceived as less trustworthy. But authentic, human connection can overcome such sentiments. Get to know your employees. Do not remind the troops you sit atop the hierarchy -- that's a sure way to reinforce mistrust.”

• Entrepreneur Leadership Today Demands a Human Focus. Huffington Post: “There are many leadership styles out there that may have worked well in the past, including authoritarian and paternalistic. But in this new age of relationships, these often work against your business. There is more and more evidence that a more human-centered or heart-centered leadership yields the best results with your team and with customers in the long run.”

Contact us if you’d like to learn more about how we can help your organization’s leaders earn employees’ trust.

Success Labs is a full-service, strategic organizational and leadership development company located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For more than 25 years, our expert team of consultants has worked with hundreds of companies to explore their business potential and improve their company and cultural performance. Contact us to get proactive about your people strategy.