From Breakdown to Breakthrough: Rebuilding Trust in Your Team (Part 1)

Leaders have to show the way. When a CEO’s trust is broken, he has to come clean with his mistakes and failures. In more serious scandals like the one committed by Tyco’s CEO Kowalski, a new CEO has to be installed to restore trust in the organization.

As Max De Pree, former Chairman of Herman Miller Company, has so eloquently put it, “Trust cannot be bought or commanded, inherited or enforced. To maintain it, leaders must continually earn it. Trust grows when people see leaders translate their personal integrity into organizational fidelity. At the heart of fidelity lies truth telling and promise keeping.”[i]

The new CEO’s first task is to listen and grasp the factors that have eroded the trust. Don’t lose sight of what counts in business: leadership, strategy, value propositions, and customers. “For trust to be maintained over time, leaders must demonstrate competence in their jobs – like anyone else,”[ii] says Max De Pree.

Admitting mistakes or changing the CEO is an important first step. The next step involves promoting a trust climate: integrity, mutual respect, fairness, pride, a 5:1 positivity vs., and camaraderie. Leaders must be vigilant in rebuilding these trust factors.

They must be intentional, sincere, and be pacesetters in this. Once again, from the wisdom of Max De Pree, “Trust springs from a serious pursuit by both leaders and followers…Trust in organization depends on the reasonable assumption by followers that leaders can be depended on to do the right thing.”[i]

Recreating a clear vision and setting fresh goals are critical in restoring confidence and making staff become more committed. This must be communicated consistently. Research shows that people need to hear at least six times before they understand the meaning of visions and goals. At the same time, don’t neglect small things like affirmation, kindness and support. These are like glue to bonding relationships.

Caring for people is the leaders’ primary responsibility in rebuilding trust. They need to have a genuine concern for their staff by challenging them to be part of the rebuilding process, reorganizing the teams to get their best input, coaching them in their areas of strength, and investing in redeveloping their competencies.

As one employee says about her company, “Rebuilding trust involves everybody. It must cascade down to middle management. The company takes care of people first, and the people, in turn, will take care of the profits.”[i]

In the Asian context, informality & friendship are important components of change acceptance. Command and control will only make us lose control. Gone are the days of top-down, do-as-I-say communication patterns. People value genuine, sincere, informal relationships.

Managing by walking around is still a good principle to follow. In other words, for people to step up, leaders must step down.

Trust restoration is gradual, yet leaders can forge a stronger, more cohesive organization with focused effort. In Part Two, we uncover the other 5 behaviors withholding trust in your team.