Walk your talk: say what you do and do what you say.
It is important our employees trust us as a leader because this is the only way we can work efficiently, feel good about it and consequently achieve business breakthroughs. The key question then is: “How to build and maintain trust among employees?”
If we want a quality answer to this question, we need to understand the feeling of trust first. The more we understand the structure of the emotion of trust and its constituent elements, the easier it is to apply this knowledge in practice, and, as a consequence, we build trust both in ourselves and in others.
The structure of trust and doubt
One needs a predictable environment to be able to function. This means that in an (increasingly) changing world, one seeks certain consistency, a “solid ground”. If the environment (work environment, leaders, employees) is unpredictable, one may become confused and anxious, as one perceives that he or she is not oriented in life. It is important to be aware that both the feeling of trust and the feeling of doubt is a consequence of an employee’s desire for a constant and predictable.
The word “to trust” someone contains the verb “to hope” (in Slovenian language) – and hope begins where knowledge ends.
Trust and doubt are thus directed into the unknown and the future – e.g., if the leader has treated me with respect so far, then based on this experience, I expect or hope that the behaviour will not change in the future. However, if the leader’s behaviour does change, the employee begins to doubt.
Criteria for trust development – the cognitive triad of trust
The employee will feel trust towards the leader if the leader consistently meets three criteria:
- The leader is benevolent (benevolence)
- The leader is capable to realize his or her goals (ability)
- The leader will carry out his or her goals (consistency)
The cognitive trust triad is therefore a set of three criteria that must be met for employees to feel trust in their leader. Let me highlight the fact that
if only one of the criteria is not met, the employee may stop feeling confident and one of the forms of doubt may develop. Doubt, however, is at its core a denial of trust. Since trust is based on the fulfilment of the mentioned criteria, the denial or non-fulfilment of any of the criteria leads to one type of doubt:
- Doubt about the good intentions of the leader
If an employee doubts the good intentions of the leader, it means that he or she estimates that the leader has bad intentions, hidden motives, pretends, lies for his or her benefit, and the like.
- Doubt about the ability of the leader
In this case, the employee does not perceive the leader as strong and capable. The employee believes that the leader is not capable to realize his or her words, promises.
- Doubt about the consistency of the leader
It is possible that an employee perceives the leader as good-intended and capable of realizing his or her intentions, but doubts the reliability or consistency of the leader. In other words, the employee doubts that the leader will actually realize the intentions – perhaps the leader promises something, but then doesn’t fulfil that promise, changes his or her mind or simply forgets about the promise. This kind of leader’s behavior is then reflected in lower (partial) trust on the part of the employee.
In addition to this, it is important to take care of our professional and personal development, because in this way we strengthen our expertise, which is an important criterion in developing employee’s trust (we attend educational training and transfer the acquired knowledge into practice, we try to introduce the feedback we receive into our work and leadership as much as possible, we develop leadership skills, etc.).
From a consistency perspective, it is crucial that in our leadership role we do not promise things that we are not entirely sure we can fulfil. If we promise something that we cannot fulfil (regardless of the reason), it shakes the trust that our employees have in us. Therefore, managing employee expectations is an important task that we perform as a leader. It is better to promise less than more.
The function of a doubt
Doubt has a protective function for the employee, as it helps one to distinguish between truth and untruth, between probable and unbelievable. An employee that doubts is more prepared for a possible scenario that things will not go as the leader says than the trusting employee. As a result, an employee who doubts has more options – withdraws from the situation, changes expectations, insures oneself properly, prepares for an unfavorable challenge, etc.
When does employee doubt arise?
Interestingly, doubt in most cases arises intuitively (unconsciously) as a result of the fact that the employee unconsciously processes the nonverbal messages of the leader, and if they notice a discrepancy between the verbal and nonverbal messages of the leader, one begins to doubt. The inconsistent messages of a leader affect the employee’s opinion about the hidden purpose the leader might have, for example: “Does the leader really have good intention and wish me well?”
Let our words be reflected in our actions and our actions in our words. In other words, this is what INTEGRITY OF THE LEADER means (walk the talk).
Dr. Sabina Đuvelek
Source: Milivojević, Z., Ravnik, I. M., & Ravnik, S. (2008). Emocije: Razumevanje čustev v psihoterapiji. Psihopolis institut.