In the workplace, we all know the importance of accountability as a leader. Yet, rarely do we talk about how personal responsibility drives accountability.

Dealing with uncertainty is at an all-time high. According to the Global Policy Uncertainty Index, concern about the impact of policy decisions on business and markets hit its highest point ever in January, exceeding the previous peak in May 2020 during the height of COVID.

The most effective leaders don’t just lead teams—they lead themselves first.

A few years ago, I was sitting in a large auditorium listening to the wonderful, Jim Collins, who studied what makes great companies tick for twenty-five years.

High performers are the backbone of any successful organisation. Understanding how to harness their potential can elevate your entire team's performance to new heights.

With job insecurity, economic uncertainty and the pressure to do more with less, thriving at work can almost seem like a pipe dream.

After 10 years of resisting Married at First Sight Australia, I have succumbed to the "social experiment." It's where Aussie singles tie the knot with partners selected for them by relationship experts, meeting for the first time on their wedding day.

What is Leadership Coaching?

Leadership coaching, also referred to as as executive leadership coaching, is a personalised leadership development process that supports leaders in enhancing individual performance or team performance in an organisational setting.

In last week's article, 4 Key Features that Confirm a Quality Leadership Development program we explored the essential features to consider when selecting a leadership program.

Trust in business is foundational. It underlies every human relationship, every interaction, every communication, every initiative, every work project, and any strategic goal you aim to achieve.

I'm one of those people who have been wired to trust pretty much any women my own age who engage with me in friendly chit-chat.

Most leaders understand the importance of building trust in their teams and across them.

Yet, throw in a bit of risk or uncertainty and leaders become reactive - not quite realising the damage they are creating in the process.

Concerns about productivity, visibility, and inadequate collaboration are prompting some companies to require employees to return to the office.

As a manager, giving constructive feedback is an essential yet challenging aspect of the role. It can be tricky to manage the tension between helping your employee feel valued and providing them with the right resources to achieve success.

Unlock the potential of your Gen Z employees with these essential management strategies.

Times are challenging, obstacles are tough, and uncertainties loom on the horizon. The economic landscape is evolving in real time and will keep changing in the weeks and months to come.

Emerging leaders often kickstart their leadership journey by mirroring the practices of inspirational mentors.

Successful leaders understand that a one-size-fits-all approach rarely yields results when it comes to enhancing the performance of individuals within their team.

In my research with high performers, one of the stand out themes was their confidence in tackling a difficult conversation. While none of them felt one hundred percent comfortable about having to do them, they all believed that it was better for everyone long-term.

You may have thought that you were promoted to a leadership position because:

Whether you are new to leading or you are leading a completely new team, there are certain things you need to do to increase trust with those around you.

A weird and sad coincidence happened to me recently.

In my work, I get to spend time with leaders from a range of different industries, sizes, types and stages of maturity.

With the ever-changing landscape of business needs, business leaders must constantly adapt and readjust their strategies. 

High-performing leaders set themselves apart from average performers by implementing specific strategies and behaviours.

Leading oneself is the foundation upon which effective leadership is built. Without self-leadership, it becomes difficult to inspire and guide others towards shared goals and objectives.

After all, if you can't lead yourself first, you will have issues with getting others to follow you.

Emotionally intelligent leaders strive to support and uplift their teams in every possible way. However, when a well-meaning manager is overwhelmed by their own or others' emotions, things start to go a little bit awry.

Let's go through six things that can get in your way.

Delegation is a powerful leadership skill. Yet, most leaders don't receive adequate training in delegating effectively or don't fully understand it's importance.

While it's common to assess employee performance based on tasks, uncovering hidden strengths can yield unexpected outcomes.

Over the years, I have asked many effective leaders managers to share some of their biggest leadership misconceptions before they began their leadership journey.

A common stressful experience for most managers is learning how to deal with a boss or leader who is unpredictable.

One on ones serve as a powerful tool for fostering stronger, more trusting relationships with each of your team members.

With unexpected shifts in leadership, sudden layoffs, corporate restructures, and economic uncertainties, the workplace can quickly feel chaotic. Finding your balance amidst this turmoil can be challenging. How can you regain stability? And how do you create a perception of certainty with your team?

Trust is often easy to build within teams.

Trust might be a small word, but it is a big, complicated topic.

As human beings, we crave clarity. And it's no wonder.

It wasn't that long ago that anyone could be a leader. Work enough hours in a company and before long, you were tapped on the shoulder to lead a team.

One of the wonderful things about working in a company with a variety of people is that you get to experience lots of different personality types.

A CEO of a well-known Australian brand came to me to coach his CFO, Bill. Bill had been with the company for over thirty years and was proud that he had served the founder and previous CEO for decades.

A common misperception of being a great leader is that you have to be a good person. A nice person.

If there is one thing that both new and experienced managers or leaders worry about - it's having a performance conversation.

One of the things I find fascinating about improving any sort of interpersonal or intrapersonal skill is that you have to start with yourself.

In my coaching and leadership development programs, I work with a lot of new and seasoned leaders to build up their confidence and trust in themselves.

Great delegation is about being an accountability partner to help your reports grow their capabilities.

Did you know that every fifth of a second your brain is scanning the environment to make sure you are safe? We are wired to seek safety and regularly make decisions below our consciousness awareness to reduce any potential threats.

For decades, there has been a strong prevailing management belief to steer clear of employees' personal issues.

According to Gallup, employees whose managers hold regular meetings with them are almost three times as likely to be engaged as employees whose managers do not hold regular meetings with them. 

So you've just been elevated to the position of leading a brand new team - congratulations! No matter if this is your first time or you're a seasoned team leader, it's completely natural to feel a mix of excitement and apprehension as the weight of responsibility settles in.

We are currently in the midst of a silent transformation in the way work is being carried out. The convergence of inflation, the pandemic, and a heightened emphasis on wellbeing has left workers feeling anxious about their job security and unsure about their ability to maintain a decent quality of life.

Our brains are naturally wired to seek out certainty and a sense of safety.

In today's fast-paced world, the value of being busy is deeply ingrained in both our personal and professional lives. We often feel the need to highlight our importance by constantly proclaiming how busy we are in our daily routines.

While it could be argued that being busy is a decision (not a mark of specialness), in workplaces being busy is often confused with being productive.

According to the recent global Pulse of Talent report, by the HR tech firm Ceridian, 9 in 10 middle managers have experienced burnout over the past year.

It can be a game-changer for leaders to look at how much psychological safety and accountability they create in their teams.

Recently, I have noticed a lot of my coaching clients are finding their roles difficult because of behaviours from the top.

With a lot of business stressors currently in play, a lot of people are feeling uncertain about their future. 

How do you make the decision to trust others?

That's the question that Jim Collins asked his mentor some years ago. Collins is a student and teacher of what makes great companies tick. He is also author of some of the best business books around such as Built to Last and Good to Great.

Around ten years ago, I used to belong to a CEO mastermind group that met regularly to discuss business issues.

There comes a time for every manager when they have a direct report that they just don't know how to handle.

One of the models I unpack in my book, Trusted to Thrive, (you can download a free chapter here) highlights four different team zones based on the intersections between psychological safety and accountability.

One of the regular things a leader will ask me for advice on is how to get one of their team members in alignment. This is particularly true for a leader leading a newly formed team or who has been brought in to lead an already established team.

The pandemic has upended how we work and inspired us to reconsider our lives, as well as our workplace practices and norms. 

A study by Cornell University and Green Peak Partners wanted to uncover why 72 high performing CEOs running companies from $5 million to $50 billion were doing so well.

Teams are where great work gets done.

Have you ever heard about the surprisingly positive influence teachers have on students when they hold high expectations for their academic abilities?

Teams are like the equivalent of multiple engine rooms on a ship. They are where all the cooperative components of work come together to get work done, in order to power the organisation. Great teams comprise a range of people with diverse skills who learn, solve problems, innovate and execute the strategy together.

One of the big issues that has percolated to the top of most leader's wish lists is how to keep good people. They worry about what they need to do to encourage their high performers to stay and at the same time, improve the performance of low performers.

One of the issues with teams being in what I call, the Anxiety Zone, is while they can be great at getting things done to a high standard, there can be a big cost. And that is stress and anxiety that leads to burnout.

Trust and leadership are inextricably linked. In both good and bad times, employees subconsciously evaluate their leaders to see that they are worthy of their trust.

According to research by Dr Amy Edmondson, a Harvard Professor, a combination of psychological safety and high standards is vital for teams to reach their full potential.

As we head into a new year with new goals and expectations, you might be finding that you are tasked with some stiff challenges with leading your team.

The last couple of years have seen remarkable turbulence in both the global economy and workforces. The impact of COVID is still continuing to reverberate creating trends such as The Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting. 

Now, we are facing a looming recession, redundancies, inflationary pressures, continual supply chain issues and a cost of living crisis. Employees are returning to work scared and uncertain. Of course, when things are unsettling trust is low.

As human beings, we are biologically programmed to want to be with people and work together, as we instinctively know it helps our survival. Yet, there is a dark underside to this need to be with others – we also fear rejection.

The last couple of years have been exhausting. Throw in a pandemic, home schooling, managing COVID outbreaks (and that's just within your own family), high workloads, supply chain issues, the increasing cost of living, floods and global political tensions and it's enough to make anyone head for the safety of their bed.

We all know the world of work is undergoing profound changes. What makes change difficult is that organisations, and leaders, are still applying a framework designed for another time and place.

As human beings we all know how wonderful it feels to be trusted by your leader. Being able to trust your boss and being trusted is always rated in the top things employees want from their leaders (as well as honesty and respect). 

According to a Gartner study, only 24% of hybrid and remote knowledge workers report feeling connected to their organisation’s culture.

Over the last couple of months, you might have heard of a new workplace term called quiet quitting. A controversial phrase that started on TikTok generating millions of views with Gen Z workers rejecting the notion of working above and beyond their job title.

Today, most leaders theoretically understand the importance of honest, open discussions, so that that potential issues are flagged and important projects don't get derailed.

Today's complex, fast-changing world features speed, complexity and dense interdependencies. Problem solving in real time and focusing on continuous improvementis critical in senior leadership roles, in order to advance an organisation forward.

We are at a critical inflection point in workplaces today.

Over the last two years, the pandemic has been a catalyst to reevaluate our lives and work.

According to Gartner research, 65% of employees believe that the pandemic has made them rethink the place that work should have in their life. 

Cast your mind back to when you last had a face-to-face meeting in your leadership or management team. What did you talk about?

Typically, most leadership teams get together online and the focus is on individual reporting. People go around the room and talk about what results they have achieved. Every week, these weekly meetings focus on information sharing with little decision making, exchanging of ideas or big picture discussions.

The world mourns the passing of the beloved Queen Elizabeth. Not just because of her title, her wealth, or even her fame. We mourn because of the great loss we feel from a remarkable woman who lived in service and duty to her nation and the Commonwealth.

Consider an organisation that has had some sort of major public relations disaster such as bullying or sexual harassment allegations, CEO or executive misbehaviours, regulatory breaches or even, fraud. For years, toxic behaviours have been tolerated, even rewarded. Exclusion, unethical decisions, disrespect and selfish actions have flourished. People behaving in these ways were almost never fired. Even worse, they were often promoted.

One of the common traps leaders make is falling into the belief that they need to prove they can do the work required, so they focus on the work to be done. This means they bury themselves in delivery, under-manage their team, promote their personal achievements and defer to managing up rather than managing their team. 

One of the lowest points in my life was when my market research career ended abruptly because of sociopaths who destroyed my reputation. I've never shared this publicly because I have been too ashamed to talk about it.

One of the issues I always consider when CEOs come to me about improving trust in their leadership team is whether they have a sociopath in their midst. Over the years I've seen countless leadership teams have difficulties because either one or more team members is a sociopath. This even can include the CEO themselves.

I have moved house four times in just over three years. You think that my family and I would be really good at moving, but there is always something that trips us up every time.

Sitting in front of me is Emma, a quietly spoken woman with dark hair that softly frames her face. She is nervous and avoiding eye contact with me.

We are here to discuss what she believes the leadership team need to do to create a high-trust culture.  Despite her visible nervousness, her answers are succinct and articulate. It is clear that she is loyal to the company, loves her job and colleagues.

Meaningful work is something we all crave. When we understand the meaning in the work we do, it increases our engagement and intrinsic motivation.

The Energy Project, a training and consultancy company, surveyed more than 12,000 employees across a range of companies and industries. They found a direct correlation between finding meaning in work and high performance.

Imagine a management team that has had a tough few years - dwindling revenue, archaic systems and processes that need an expensive overhaul and unhappy customers. A new CEO is brought in to steady the ship. One of his first jobs is to refresh the leadership team, stabilise losses and improve productivity.

For many leaders, managing trust in their teams is challenging because there are three different forces at play.

One of the challenges with being a leader is balancing cultivating a friendly, warm environment, while holding employees accountable to get more done at the right standard.

We all thrive when we feel trusted and when we trust others.

Trust is an emotion that's difficult to explain why it's important to us. These trust in business quotes help put context around the importance of trust at work.

Have you ever had a conversation with a boss and their reaction or language changed how you felt about them in that moment?

If you do a search on LInkedIn for Trusted Leader, you'll find around 1 million people have the audacity to label themselves "Trusted Advisor," "Trusted Leader" or even "Trusted and Inclusive Leader." 

I say audacity because telling people you are trustworthy (particularly early in a relationship) is actually a red flag that you're not.

Did you know that only 1 in 10 senior leaders trust their peers to deliver all of the time?

Did you know that one out of every two managers is terrible at accountability?

According to a study published in Harvard Business Review that researched 5,400 managers globally, 46% were rated “too little” on the item, “Holds people accountable — firm when they don’t deliver.” It didn't matter what type of leader- the results held steady for C-level executives, middle managers, supervisors and even subordinates. In different countries and cultures.

One of the common issues companies have to deal with are silos forming between departments.

Executives spend their career delivering in their area of expertise.  Once they get into the leadership team, it’s no longer about how their function is performing, but the organisation overall.

Trust may be a small word, but it is incredibly complex. It means different things to different people. How we see trust is based on our life experiences, beliefs, values, the context we find ourselves in and our personality traits. 

One of the interesting things I get to do is undertake stakeholder interviews with various members of the leadership team and other stakeholders (such as their employees or customers).  I get to hear lots of different perspectives.  But it can be fascinating when my research leads me to one person who is pretty much causing all the issues. It can be eye-opening interviewing them (or coaching them) and discover their slightly delusional perspective of what is really happening.

Imagine a workplace in dim light.  Employees can't see one another properly or what work is being done. People become fearful, hold back from committing to their full potential and distrust the situation. Greed, corruption, conflict and poor accountability become the norm because people go into self-protection mode when they don't know what's going on.  A lack of visibility tacitly enables poor leadership and employee behaviours to run rampant.

One of the things that I strongly believe in, that I mention in my book, Trusted to Thrive, is how leaders make a huge difference in making people feel better about themselves.

In the December 2021 issue of Harvard Business Review, an article by Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez called The Project Economy has Arrived discussed how projects have become the new economic engine of organisations.

As a leader, your job is to create an environment where people work together in service of a shared goal - a high achievement environment where people wake up in the morning excited about going to work, hanging out with others and solving problems together.

For many leaders, managing trust in their teams is a challenge because there are three different trust forces at play.  These can be either supportive or oppositional. 

Excited to announce my book launch party.  It's going to be a fun event with networking, learning, story-telling and prizes.

The pandemic has been a game-changer in so many aspects.  In the workplace, it has really crystallised what we want in our work experience.

If you have gone to Business School or studied economics, you would have been taught that humans are self-interested creatures who like to do minimal effort for maximum pay.

As humans, we want to be with other humans and be part of something bigger and better than we can create on our own. 

Two-Thirds Of Australian Professionals Worked From Home, Revealing Need For Increased Trust Leadership In The Workplace

Last week, I was facilitating a workshop with senior leaders in a school leadership team.  The workshop involved some deep, uncomfortable work about what each team member needed so that they could rely on others in the team.  

Earlier this week, a devastating tornado struck Edwardsville, Illinois - killing 100 people.  The death toll also included six people working in an Amazon Fulfilment centre that was raised to the ground.

When an organisation has experienced market success for a sustained duration, it is common for CEOs and some executive team members to assume the top team is high functioning.

Everything is a product of evolution. Businesses go through cycles and need the right executives working at the right level for the business at that time. This comes down to the skills and experience of each executive, how frequently they interact with one other and whether the organisation is in crisis, transformation or growth mode.

There has been a lot of talk lately about The Great Resignation.  A global trend that is seeing a significant number of employees leave their job during the pandemic.  Many people believe it’s a war between employees who want to work from home and bosses who want to shepherd everyone back into the office. 

Today’s fast-changing world features speed, complexity and dense interdependencies. The ability to problem solve and adapt in real time is critical, in order to advance an organisation forward.

At its core, this requires an energetic leadership team that are incredibly focused on delivering the right customer outcomes. Uniting together, as a harmonised collective – prioritising, communicating and co-ordinating work in alignment with a clear vision.

In my Integrated Trust Building System, that gets unpacked in the book, Trusted to Thrive, at the intersection between connection and meaningful future, we have visibility. Being a trusted leader boils down to visibility. 

We are living in unusual times.  World over, people are exhausted, depleted and anxious about the future.  The constant uncertainty that we are all living under has taken a heavy toll.

There is no doubt that COVID has changed our workplaces forever.  Things will never go back to business as usual.  All of us have been changed - whether we are aware of it or not.  

In last week's article, I talked about why you need to love one-on-ones.  They really are such a powerful trust and connection building tool with your direct reports.

One-on-ones meetings might seem like a management fad, but the truth is they are one of the most effective ways to build trust with your direct reports.

We have all heard of micromanagement - and how negative it can be to building trust in teams.  But what about under-management?

If you are like a lot of people around the world, life might seem pretty hard right now.

One of the traits of achievement zone leaders is that they love receiving feedback.  They use it to improve how they work and those around them.

If we want to lead our teams into the achievement zone, we need to lead ourselves there first.

In my post last week, I talked about how one of the hardest skills to manage as a leader is our ability to trust ourselves.

Back in 2014, I decided to step out of the family business I had built up with my husband and start my own company centred on trust (Trustologie®).  

Congratulations!

If you are like a lot of people right now, you might have recently accepted a new job, received a promotion or you're actively looking for one.

As humans, we want to be with other humans and be part of something bigger and better than we can create on our own.  We love been part of an energetic team that has plenty of solutions, excited discussion and activity.  

In the book, TRUSTED TO THRIVE, it talks about how we are biologically programmed to want to be with people and work together, as we instinctively know it helps our survival.  Yet, there is a dark underside to this need to be with others - we also fear rejection.  In fact, neuroscience studies have uncovered that we experience social rejection like physical pain.  

In other words, we are constantly evaluating our level of interpersonal risk in our teams and workplaces.  Interpersonal risk is the fear that people won’t think highly of us or at an extreme level will reject us altogether.  This subconscious fear drives us to weigh up whether or not to make a comment or stay silent.  

When we first start working with a company or a new team, we quickly assess whether the team leader and our teammates can be trusted. We carefully preserve an image that we are competent.  We avoid asking silly questions, speaking up about our concerns, sharing information and reporting errors.  In other words, the critical elements for team discussions that we need to have to improve performance and avert disaster.  As it happens, these are also the very factors we need to feel fulfilled in our jobs to perform optimally.

This is where the importance of leaders kicks in.  I believe that one of the most important capabilities for a team leader is to create a thriving, safe team environment that decreases interpersonal risk.

As Amy Edmondson explains in her book, The Fearless Organisation, the free exchange of ideas, concerns or questions is routinely hindered by interpersonal fear more often than most managers realise.  

You will read a lot about the importance of psychological safety, but what we often don't realise is that when people don't feel safe, some can act, well unsafe.

When my youngest daughter was nine years old, she developed a massive fear of spiders.  She had trouble sleeping at night.  Instead, of lying in bed trembling with fear, her response was to wake myself up and my husband.  Multiple times a night.  Not with a gentle "Hey mum, sorry to wake you,  But I'm scared and I want a cuddle."  No, not her.  Her threatened response was to poke or punch me to let me know it was my fault there were spiders in the house (real and not real). If I woke up startled and a bit grumpy, then she went into full on combat mode.   Yelling and stomping, so that her sister knew that there was an issue as well.  And the neighbours.

Let's just say I didn't respond to these tactics very well.  They were not my finest hours.  I resorted to getting angry back.  And after two weeks of this (when quite honestly I was so exhausted and deflated, I really did question why I thought having kids was a good idea), I realised that she was coming from fear.  That she was teaching me that some people when they don't feel safe act deplorably.   I realised I had to love her instead.  Gave her compassion.  And the best way was just to kindly ask my husband to sleep in another room, so that I could hold her until her fears loosened their grip.  The worst thing I could do was getting angry back (but it felt like the easiest thing to do at the time).  

As a leader, you want to see the signs when people don't feel safe.  The most common ones are not speaking up, asking questions or sharing information.  But the ones that drive us crazy are when people act defensively, create chaos, blame others or say terrible things.  In other words, when people make others unsafe.

And so while we can do all the things to make people feel safe - listening, maintaining responsive eye contact, fostering learning and increasing support - there are some people who will act out.  We can tell them off.  Let them know their behaviours are inappropriate.  But at it's core, it's about empathy.  Stepping into their shoes and doing what's best for them.  And it's particularly hard, when their venom is aimed at you.

Interestingly, a lot of leaders put up with low trust behaviours believing that is how people are - that their personalities are fixed.  But the truth is, as a trusted leader, your leadership abilities encourages people to engage in productive dialogue rather than avoid it.   To strive for high performance, rather than wallow in a comfort zone.

Sometimes that means having a conversation that goes deep into the issue without assigning blame.  But to shed light on blind spots and offer support that can be in the form of external coaching or seeing a therapist.  It also means flagging when their behaviours are toxic and creating issues with team members.  But helping people see where they are feeling unsafe, and making it unsafe for others, is an important part of increasing psychological safety.  And it has to come from compassion.

This isn't to say that we have to put up with toxic behaviours.  But it does mean seeing the signs, being the bigger person, and helping them understand that their fear is driving people away.  It means calling it out and shining a light on dark behaviours.  Most of the time, people aren't aware of it.  

And it also means tapping into our own reactions.  Reflecting on when we act unsafely because we are scared of other people's reactions to us.  After all, we will create issues in our teams when we inadvertently increase interpersonal risk through our own lack of self-awareness.

Working on creating psychological safety means understanding that interpersonal fears are going to get in the way.  Fears that are subconscious.  And the only way we can unearth them is having compassionate, honest dialogue about what is going on.  Whether that's with ourselves or our people.

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.  You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

We are biologically programmed to look out at the world and determine whether we can trust those around us. But we aren’t designed to look at ourselves to see whether we are behaving in a trustworthy manner.

If there is one insult that a manager dreads, it would have to be being called a micromanager.  

Building workplace trust has become more important than ever before.

We all love positive leaders - CEOs and executives who paint an exciting, coherent vision of the future.  Such enthusiasm can be contagious.

We all know how wonderful it is to be around positive people.  Optimism is contagious.

People are naturally drawn to visionary leaders who paint an exciting picture of a new future.  After all, no-one is going to follow a leader who gets scared or negative about the latest crisis.

In the last couple of articles, we have discussed how to move your team out of the anxiety and abatement zones, in order to get them into the Achievement Zone. 

Last week, I talked about how to get teams out of anxiety and into achievement through five steps.  Foundational to all of them was the need for leaders to have empathy and to truly understand their team's perspective.

Leading a high performance team is a bit like a team leader taking their team on an exhilarating elevator ride to the 100th floor of a building.

One of the things I get to do in my job is interview employees about what their senior leadership team or organisation needs to do, in order for them to trust the company more.

Recently, one of the biggest complaints that I have been hearing about leaders is how a lack of self-awareness is impacting their performance.  Employees complain about leaders who are totally oblivious to how their behaviours, words and actions create distrust and frustration amongst those around them.

Workplaces tend to have lots of interdependencies, complexity and unknowns that change daily.  High achievement leaders provide their team with contextual understanding of their work environment which is critical for the speed and efficiency of their team.  

An interesting comment that I often get from leaders is that employee engagement results often don't explain team performance.  Some teams have high employee engagement, but don't perform so well.  

Thanks to bad experiences, a cynical society or even the way we were brought up, we tend to search for people’s faults.  Without being aware of it, we act like surly teenagers automatically finding the negative in anyoneand anything.

In today’s fast-paced world, we often don’t have the luxury of time to build trust for time-sensitive projects.   The ability to react quickly and adapt is critical.  Teams must be put together quickly, decisions made and deadlines met.

Every single moment our brains are scanning our environment and calculating whether we can trust the people around us.  At work, we need to feel confident that speaking up or making a mistake isn’t going to be a career-limiting move. Our brain asks regularly – Am I safe to be myself? Do I belong to this team? Do we share a meaningful future together?

“Organisations learn only through individuals who learn.”  Peter Senge, MIT

Humans are designed to avoid conflict.  Employees fear speaking up about issues in case it makes them look stupid or unpopular.  Having the courage to be vulnerable in a high stakes situation takes a lot of guts.

Thousands of years ago, when humans roamed the African savannah, it was in our best interests to live in tribes. Being part of a tribe allowed us to sleep soundly knowing that others were looking out for man-eating sabre-toothed tigers.  

We are biologically programmed to want to be with people and work together, as we instinctively know it helps our survival.  We feel alive when we are with other people.  Yet, there is a dark underbelly to this need to be with others - we also fear rejection.  In fact, neuroscience studies have uncovered we experience social rejection like physical pain.  

Today’s ever changing workplace, features increasing speed, complexity and dense interdependencies.  Over the last century, work has transitioned from labor intensive, repetitive work to today’s knowledge based economy.  

Back in 1975, 83% of a company’s value was through tangible assets such as equipment, buildings and inventory.  In 2020, intangible assets such as intellectual property and goodwill now make up 90% of a company’s value.  

As Abraham Maslow taught in his Hierarchy of Needs, we can’t concern ourselves with higher goals (self-mastery and purpose) until we have the necessities of life.  These being physiological (food and water), physical safety and social connection.

In the workplace, employees need confirmation that their fellow co-workers are looking out for them.  They need to feel connected and that colleagues really care about them.

At the same time, employees need to believe the work they do matters, that they’re making an impact and others appreciate their work.  And that they have a clear future within the organisation.

Have you ever started a new job or worked with a new team and realised that you needed to build trust quickly?  

Building trust and managing it long term, is one of the number one skills of a high performing leader.  This is critical during uncertainty because if changes aren’t managed well, people will stop trusting leadership.

Okay - SO maybe that's not what the podcast interview was meant to be about for Candour Communication.  But somehow, I managed to let that one slip.

If you're like most people, you woke up on New Year's Day tired, groggy and maybe hungover.  But also with some sort of goal that you had proclaimed you would work on.

Since 2005, I have spent 30 minutes every New Year's Eve writing down three things on a blank piece of paper:

1. What am I grateful for?

2. What am I willing to let go of?

3. And what do I want to bring into my life in the next year?

A common statement that (older) leaders assert is that trust must be earned.  Many a time I've had to listen politely while a CEO or senior executive tells me (uninvited) how they believe trust has to be earned. That if you give trust, people will take advantage of you.

And then other times, people will tell me that they believe trust is given first.  Interestingly, such leaders tend to not try to convince me so rigourously.

But here's the thing.  It's neither.

Trust is reciprocated.  It's an exchange between two or more people.

Trust begets trust.

Don't believe me?  Well, this is where social science holds its own.  It is how the brain works and can be proved scientifically.  

Back when I was a kid in the 1980s, I attended one of my father’s business classes that he taught at a University.  As an awkward 12 year old, in a class of what seemed like adults, I learnt about vision and mission statements.  It made total sense and I fervently believed all companies needed to have them.

A common statement made about trust is that you need vulnerability. Building trust requires team members to be vulnerable with one another. That means confess to mistakes, talk about their fears, share authentic personal stories and ask for help.

One of the most common complaints from employees about leadership is that leaders don't 'walk the talk.'  It creates a lack of trust - spurring resistance to goals and negative employee interactions. Making it hard to generate cultural change longer term.

And while everyone likes to blame leaders for this perceived lack of integrity, aligning our intentions with our actions is difficult.  Sometimes people misread our actions because they don't understand the context driving our behaviours.  While other times, we are not aware that there is a disconnect.

Learning to Improve Productivity in Dispersed Teams

Over the last few months, many leaders have quickly learnt to lead a remote team while working from home.  

Over the last two articles, we have covered how to foster psychological safety and create meaning for your team to improve performance.  In the final of this three-part series, we will now cover improving connection.  If you want to learn more about this, check out my book TRUSTED to THRIVE: How leaders create connected and accountable teams that unpacks it all in more detail.

A few years ago, I remember reading a glowing interview with the CEO of a large Australian firm about the organisation’s sharemarket success and his new strategic plan.  Everywhere you turned there was a business magazine promoting the words of the CEO and his ambitious Asian Pacific focused strategy, while he mocked other Australian companies for not following suit.

Over the years, I have worked with many low trust teams to improve their performance.  Repeatedly, I still see well-meaning leaders inadvertently destroy trust in their teams.

Trust is the cornerstone of business.  It’s the basis of every human relationship, every interaction, every communication, every initiative, every work project and even any strategic imperative you need to accomplish.  

When it comes to helping companies build trust internally, one of the things I learnt pretty quickly is that if 1-2 members of the executive team do not support any initiatives to improve trust then all subsequent efforts will fail.  

Thanks to our tribal ancestry, we see ourselves in terms of other people and groups.  Evolution has taught us that it is beneficial to live in tribes, where we can share out the work of daily survival.

In today’s pressure cooker business world, there is greater uncertainty and risk for people and organisations.   It’s during these turbulent and unpredictable times that trust issues begin to surface, sometimes unbeknownst to leaders.  Used to the times when things were predictable and the stakes low, leadership didn’t even need to consider trust.  But throw in some instability and fear, and all of a sudden trust problems can become a strategic execution derailer.

Take two teams.  One has team members who are low in trust, while the other is high in trust.

Despite what collaboration software experts would have you believe, few companies have big issues with trust within teams. When it comes to improving trust within organisations, the number one issue I have found is collaboration across teams.  

A few months ago a good friend of mine had a business that went into administration.  It was only three years ago we celebrated over lunch that he had 35 employees and impressive revenue and profit.  Then, the perfect storm happened. Poor strategic execution and decreased sales saw his business decimated in a tough industry. Underlying all of the obvious issues was a CFO who fraudulently stole $1 million dollars. Together, it brought the company down and it not longer exists in its previous form.

Over the last decades, marketers have gradually learnt that selling products by promoting rational features doesn’t work.  People buy based on their emotions.  Research has found that rational features only account for 15% of the decisions we make.  Subconsciously, the majority of the decision process is dominated by our emotions.  In the words of Brian Carroll, an experienced marketer, “People often buy on emotion and backfill with logic.”

The bigger an organisation becomes the more likely it is to fracture into fiefdoms and turf wars.  An important challenge for leaders is to create a strong, shared culture where people are unified, to avoid a political and potentially adverse environment.

The world of work is changing and soon we will have five generations in the workforce.  Younger generations refuse to accept the “command and control” leadership models of the past.  They want to do work that has meaning and provides value to the world at large.  They want more than just a pay cheque, unlike baby boomers and the generations before them. 

In the pressure cooker business world we live in, change and uncertainty have become commonplace. No longer can organisations rest on their laurels. Plans must be put together quickly, decisions made and deadlines met.