It
cannot be denied that trust is an essential component in management. If your subordinates cannot trust you, you
cannot expect to be able to manage them effectively. As manager, you can incorporate your level of
trustworthiness in your personal life into your professional life. If people trust you in your personal life,
what is it that you do that causes them to trust you? Whatever those are, you can implement them
into your professional life. If you’re
considered untrustworthy in your personal life, your personal relationships
will dwindle. Likewise, if you’re
untrustworthy in your professional life, not only will your relationship with
your colleagues or subordinates dwindle, but your employment may dwindle as
well. With trust in management, worker
efficiency increases because of the positive environment trust produces.
One could say that trust determines
everything. It determines your relationship with people personally and professionally. I’ve always known how important trust is, but
I’ve never consciously acknowledged how trust and positive work environments
actually significantly increase work efficiency and effectiveness. Studies show that a “bad apple” in a group
decreases performance by 30% to 40% and vice versa when they leave (Sutton,
2011, para. 5, 19). That’s very
significant. It’s only common sense, or
as I like to call uncommon sense
since it appears that it’s not as common anymore.
What I find interesting is Robert
Hurley’s five principles to developing trust in the workplace in his article Trust Me. The first is to show that you have the same
interests. If you show that you have an
interest in serving the other person’s goals, you’ll develop their trust. Hurley uses an analogy that “we tend to
question the competence of our surgeon, not his motives” (Hurley, 2011, para.
6). We know that the doctor is capable,
but is his work driven by ethics? If so,
what are they? Is he a surgeon for the
pay or for the concern and care he has for human life? Likewise, what are the motives of
management? Are they guided by ethical
principles? What’s the foundation of
those principles? Or is he more
concerned about the size of his paycheck?
The second principle is to demonstrate your concern for other
people. Effective leaders will
demonstrate that they will do what’s right even if it means putting themselves
at risk. If the leader is willing to
sacrifice something that will only put them at risk yet benefit his or her
subordinates, they’ll develop trust with their workers.
The third principle is to deliver on
your promises. If you make a commitment,
don’t back off from it; follow through.
Intention is also irrelevant.
Good intentions don’t exclude you from incompetence. What matters are results, not merely the good
intentions of your heart. You may intend
to donate to a good cause, but that doesn’t mean anything until you finally
donate something tangible. The fourth
principle is to be consistent and honest, especially when you make a
mistake. This is similar to the
fifteenth law of marketing, which is the law of candor. In marketing, a second-rate brand will admit
that they’re not the best, but because they’re not the best that just means
they try harder than the first-rate brand.
They thus turn a negative into a positive, and it increases their
sales. Likewise, in management, when you
make a mistake, if you admit it and apologize and ensure it won’t happen again
(and take measures to make sure it doesn’t), you will develop trust. Lastly, the fifth principle is to have
frequent, clear, and open communication, which “is also the vehicle through
which the other four elements of trustworthiness are delivered” (et al., para.
12). For example, when I was in the
Army, every First Sergeant I had always held an open door policy (the Commander
or Commanding Officer is like the President of a company, the First Sergeant
like the Vice President). If you feel
that you have a problem that you need to discuss with him or her, you can
always come into their office and talk with them, no matter your rank.
Trust in management becomes a
problem when the majority of these principles are not practised. Out of all the reasons that James Heskett
reported for trust problems in management, they all link to poor managerial
control, such as “managers who make ‘unwritten promises’ that are not
fulfilled,” unstable management that has “continuous change,” and inconsistency
(Heskett, 2012, para. 2). Trust in
management also becomes an issue when management fails to control its “bad
apples.” Through the hiring process,
human resources may have preventive measures to weed out bad apples, but every
now and then they slip through the cracks because during the interview they may
come across as charismatic, and then their real colors show when they start
working. When that happens, management
can develop and maintain trust by utilising concurrent controls by either reforming
the bad apple or terminating them. If
the bad apple becomes reformed or is terminated, management can then get
feedback by scrutinising the work environment afterwards to determine if they
made the right call.
Developing and maintaining trust is
essential in management. By expressing
the same interests, management can minimise any possibility of enmity. By demonstrating concern for others,
management can earn the trust of their subordinates by being more approachable
(e.g. open door policy), thus creating a trusting environment. By delivering on their promises, management
can develop trust in this way because they’re dependable and reliable. By being consistent and honest, management
develops trust because stability is reliable.
And by communicating frequently, clearly, and openly, management can
effectively utilise all these principles, thus increasing efficiency.
References
James,
H. (2012, July 5). Why Is Trust So Hard
to Achieve in Management? Retrieved
March 24, 2015, from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7034.html
Robert,
H. (2011, October 24). Trust Me. Retrieved March 24, 2015, from
Sutton,
R. (2011, October 24). How A Few Bad Apples Ruin Everything. Retrieved
March 24, 2015, from
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203499704576622550325233260
