Building trust starts with you

You know that your employees need autonomy in order to stay engaged, productive, and creative. But you also have a responsibility to the organization to ensure deadlines are met and work is conducted appropriately.

How do you find the right balance? The answer depends on your own work styles.

TRUST -------------------------------------------------- CONTROL

Think of a continuum.  Draw a straight horizontal line on a piece of paper. On the left-hand side, put “trust.” On the right-hand side, put “control.”

Try to identify where you are on this continuum. How much do you enter into informal arrangements? What is your attitude around your employees?

Trust
Do you tend to just trust them? Like, “Hey, you’re a professional. You know how to get your job done. You’re skilled at all the things that you need to be doing. So good luck! Check in with me once it’s time for you to be turning those things in.”

Control
On the other hand, there are managers who are much farther over on the other end of the spectrum for whom it’s very important to be controlling, measuring, watching, and trying to determine how many hours has this person worked this week. These managers want to know how many times someone got up from their cubicle to go talk to their coworkers and how much of their email activity is really work.

If we can identify where we fit on that continuum, then it can help us identify and overcome our own challenges as managers.

Really, this whole issue has to do with letting go of some level of control and encouraging trust—trust that you’re going to get your work done, trust that you’re going to communicate with me if there’s a problem, and trust that you’re going to enter your information into the tracking system.

If you’re very trusting, you may need to put more structures in place. You may need to make sure that everybody is, in fact, using the project management system and communicating progress toward their goals.

If you’re more on the control end of the management spectrum, then you really do need to be questioning your rationale.  If the person is a proven performer, you have to rein yourself in.  “I’ve got to remember to trust that person. I know they’re capable. They haven’t let me down before.”

Learning to Trust Your Employees
Everyone has the potential to be a successful manager who gives employees the right amount of structure and autonomy. It’s just a matter of identifying your own trust issues and setting up systems that will help alleviate stressors—for both you and your employees.

Build team trust. 15Be offers manager and team training, including a workshop on building trust. Learn more.