Trusted Leader Blog

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