The 4 H’s Of Building Trust With Your Team

We have all faced challenging problems in our organizations that call for leaders to step up and secure trust that the company will get through them. Knowing that a leader is committed to the betterment of the team and the organization inspires the individuals on the team. Coach Mike Krzyzewski said, “If you set up an atmosphere of communication and trust, it becomes a tradition. Older team members will establish your credibility with newer ones. Even if they don’t like everything about you, they’ll still say, ‘He’s trustworthy, committed to us as a team.’”

Build trust with your team by:

1) Being Honest

Never hid things from your team. They will feel left out and devalued as a result. The more open you are with your team, the more open they will be with you as the leader. However, the more closed off you are to your team, the more closed off they will be to you in matters of opinion and ideas. You can never go wrong with being honest; it is when we are “sneaky” that problems begin to arise.

2) Being Humble

It has been said that humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, it is just thinking about yourself less. Lead with humility by focusing on others more than you focus on yourself. When a leader lifts others up higher than themselves, there will come a day when others will lift the leader higher than themselves. Practice the Golden Rule: treat others the way you want to be treated.

3) Being Helpful

Equipping is the ability to give others the resources and tools they need to do their job and do it well. Growth environments create growth opportunities. When the individuals on a team are growing the team gets better as a whole. If you want to grow an organization, then you have to grow the people in it. An organization will only be as good as the people running it. If you want the organization to be great, you have to equip the people to be great. 

4) Being Happy

No one wants to be around a grumpy leader. The more “moody” a leader is in terms of attitude, the more inconsistent the team will be in terms of performance. The truth is, happy people, produce more than unhappy people do. To build trust with your team be positive and life-giving. Don’t allow negativity and complaining to contaminant your influence. Oscar Wild said, “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.” Be the kind of leader that causes happiness wherever they go.