In any relationship, social or business, trust is an
important variable. If there is an absence of trust you are not likely to
associate yourself with that person/ business and vice versa. This is also very
true in a job setting, it’s important to trust your employer and have them
trust you. According to Colquitt, Lepine, and Wesson, trust can be defined as
the “willingness to be vulnerable to a trustee based on positive expectations
about the trustee’s actions and intentions”.
According to the Wall Street Journal, there are five steps
you can follow to ensure that there is trust in the workplace. The first is
show that you have the same interests (Hurley, 2011). If it’s plain that
the only thing you care about is profit, or how well they perform the employee
will not want to work for you. Make it clear that their goals are the same and
you want to help them succeed. Secondly, leaders must show that they care about
their employees (Hurley, 2011). This can include
standing up for an employee’s rights, or just showing them that you’re on their
side. Another one is, actually doing what you say you will (Hurley, 2011). Creating
commitments and following through with them is a huge factor to trustworthiness.
This isn’t just talk it is showing you are, in fact, someone to trust. If you don’t come through the first time there
is no guarantee you’ll get a second chance to prove yourself. Admitting a
mistake also gains trust (Hurley, 2011). We are all human
and taking responsibility for your actions makes people believe you are a
trustworthy person. Finally, clear communication is a crucial part of trust (Hurley, 2011). Sharing exactly
what you expect, any issues, etc. ensures there are no surprises and creates
trust. This advice from the Journal is a great thing to be introduced to
businesses!
When it comes to trusting a business, many people have a hard
time with it because we all know that companies are out for profit. What most
don’t think about though is that companies also benefit a lot from trust. Less
time is wasted on finding new employees or customers because they are able to
keep people loyal to them and they will want to work there! When people want to
work for a company everything seems to run more smoothly. For example at
Continental airlines, instead of having people get laid off, the employees got
together and proposed that everyone work part time so that no employee had to
lose a job (Lyman, 2003). This kind of
collaboration only comes from a tremendous amount of trust in each other and
the company itself.
Another example is in a hospital called Griffin Hospital which
uses communication as the primary trait in their business. The CEO shared top
secret information from the FBI about an outbreak of anthrax caused deaths with
his staff against the FBI’s wishes (Lyman, 2003). He trusted his
staff enough to tell them about this because in a hospital setting information
such as this could be life or death. Also, sharing this information helps to
empower this staff so that they feel important and part of the organization.
This article goes on to explain the three factors of trust as
shown in our book. First, people have to be able to believe that will do what
they say and look out for the interests of everyone, or as our book says,
disposition-based trust (Colquitt, Lepine, & Wesson,
2011).
If you have an attitude that no one is trustworthy, then no matter how much
someone tries they won’t gain the trust needed to work together efficiently (Lyman, 2003). Next, is trusting
someone based on respect that is actually shown and received or any authority that
they have (Lyman, 2003). This is referred to
as cognition-based trust (Colquitt, Lepine, & Wesson,
2011).
Finally, affect-based trust is felt when people are treated fairly and you feel
a sense of fondness towards the person in charge (Colquitt,
Lepine, & Wesson, 2011).
Overall, trust is an important thing to have in the workplace!
A great motto not only for your job, but general life is “Trust comes from
delivering every day on what you promise” (Hurley, 2011). Great leaders gain
trust from their peers and workers and create a community to work in instead of
something that feels more like a prison. Basically treating people with respect
and caring about them leads to a feeling of trust and when this happens the people
within a business collaborate better and amazing things can be the result.
References
Colquitt, J., Lepine, J., & Wesson, M. (2011). Organizational
Behavior . New York City: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Hurley, R. (2011, October 24). How to Inspire
Trust. Retrieved from The Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204138204576603031565507232.html
Lyman, A. (2003). Building Trust in the Workplace. In
Stragetic HR Review. Melcrum Publishing.
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