5 Reasons Why Your Team Members Don’t Trust You

Continuing our 5 Reasons series, this month we talk about why managers struggle to build trust with their team members. They know that trust is important to foster a positive workplace, higher productivity, and lower turnover–but they are not sure how they can build trust, or, even more challenging, transform lack of trust into trust. Here are five reasons why trust may be elusive, with practical strategies to turn wary and even oppositional relationships into mutually respectful and trusting relationships.

1. They don’t know you

If you just inherited a team, or just hired someone, it will likely take a while to establish a relationship of mutual trust. Sure, some people will naturally start new relationships on a cordial level (moi, for one!), but others are more cynical or simply more reserved, especially if they don’t have a lot of trust in the larger organization. This is particularly problematic with remote team members.

Trust can take months to take hold so be patient. Small, everyday actions build more trust than any isolated, grandiose declaration.

Lesson: Be patient: trust takes time and grows from daily behaviors.

2. You only interact when something’s wrong

Very busy managers tend to focus only on what needs fixing, never on what’s being done, even if done well. But it’s hard to trust someone who’s constantly pointing out our shortcomings, or only giving orders.

Make it a habit to pay specific, meaningful compliments on the regular. Think “I love the way you defused that customer so quickly” instead of “Good job with that customer”. Try giving yourself a small daily quota of compliments. And avoid pairing constructive feedback with compliments: don’t say, “I love the way you defused that customer so quickly, but your technical solution was inept”.

Lesson: Share specific positive feedback liberally.

3. You made a promise and did not deliver on it

This is a big one for me. Your team member expected a promotion, but that did not happen, and you never explained why. Or you promised an extra day off if they worked a holiday but then took it back.

Not delivering on promises is the bedrock of building trust. If you absolutely cannot deliver on a promise, apologize and explain why.

Lesson: Trust is built one promise at a time, when you deliver against the promise.

4. You are not playing fair

Humans have a very sensitive fairness detector that alerts us to any preferential treatment afforded to others. You need to be consistent and you need to be seen as consistent when allocating resources, praise, or exceptional treatment. Watch out for any unexplained preferential treatment. If you are making exceptions based on confidential issues, you may not be able to explain yourself fully, but do acknowledge that you are making exceptions.

Lesson: Be unfailingly fair.

5. You don’t trust them

This one is more subtle. We humans want others to perceive us as trustworthy and we rebel when we feel otherwise. In particular,  we see excessive control (aka micromanagement) as a lack of trust and we become resentful. Be honest with yourself: is there someone in your team you don’t trust? Do you have a good reason for it? Can you assign a task for which you can give them some autonomy? Deploy as much trust as you can while still ensuring the job gets done.

Lesson: Demonstrate (a reasonable level of) trust to every team member.

What have you done to create or rebuild trust in your team? Tell us in the comments.