Building Trust in Your Team is Essential for The Optimized Performance

“Respect your fellow human beings, treat them fairly, disagree with them honestly, enjoy their friendship, explore your thoughts about one another candidly, work together for a common goal, and help one another to achieve it.”

                                                                                                Bill Bradley

Team performance is different from individual performance. In spite of having experienced and highly skilled people in your team, the team may show inconsistent performance due to a lack of mutual understanding, professional commitment, and strong bonding within the team.

As a team leader or manager, your priority would be to build trust in the team. If you want to see your team performing well and consistently, the trust level in the team should be enhanced. Trust here means trust in the leadership and trust among the co-workers.

You can inculcate trust in the team in various ways. You may have your thoughts on this matter. Here are three of the most important ways to build trust in the team:

Bring transparency to the team

Transparency is the foundation of building trust in the team.

• People should know individual responsibilities and group responsibilities well.
• Any new responsibility to anyone or the team should be informed to the related team members as well as the team as a whole.
• There should be transparency in data management with clear guidelines.
• A sense of professionalism should work in a team environment where people should know that not every data set is for all and they shouldn’t complain about that.

Stop blaming people

Blaming people is contagious and a deterrence to organizational performance. No one can blame anyone for a mistake. If a mistake happens by someone, that must be handled by the authority or the senior team member with that capacity. If people start blaming each other, the problems will never solve but a poor culture will develop. Relationships become toxic and trust level precipitates. Ultimately it affects the team or organizational performance. You as a team member shouldn’t blame anyone nor allow anyone to blame co-workers. Rather, develop a learning culture where members will come together to rectify the mistake and learn from it.

• Work on correcting the mistakes not blaming the individual.
• Support people as a team to understand the issue and work out possible solutions together.
• Talk with the member separately if it is really important and serious matter.

Grow informal relationships in the team

Any individual, i.e. team member also has a life outside the organization. In fact, life outside the organization is much more extensive and diverse. As a leader, you should know your team members as a person not just as an employee. At the same time, team members should know individuals as social and family members, not just as co-workers. Develop informal relationships to strengthen the trust level in the team.

• Spend time with team members during lunch break.
• Let them spend time with each other.
• Frequently ask them about their well-being and the well-being of family members.
• Arrange get-togethers on any special occasion.
• Keep information about their aged parents and children’s education.

Like a football team, bonding, understanding, and cohesion must prevail in a team. At the same time, team members should work with professional mindsets and be clear about their capacity. In all these matters, leadership has a vital role to play.