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Tag Archives: Employee relationships

How to increase your employee’s trust in you through your actions?

Building a trust relationship with your employees is a tricky business in itself. Even though you can’t control your employee’s perception of you, you can affect their idea of you by your actions. And hence, in this blog, I will continue my conversation from my last blog about how to build a successful trust relationship with your employees through your consistent actions.

Listen to your employees: No relationship can be build successfully, if you are unwilling to listen. Same logic applies here. As a manager, you should seek to understand your employees, and try to show empathy towards their viewpoints. If you don’t agree with the opinion of your employee, then don’t try to shoot their idea immediately. Let them tell the thought process behind their idea, and you might be surprised with what they can come up with. Let’s say, you still don’t like their idea after hearing the entire story. In that case, you should try to explain your viewpoints to them and explain your thought process to them rather than rejecting their idea directly. With this approach, they will feel more connected with you and they will at least try to understand your perspective rather than just thinking that “my manager doesn’t like my ideas, so he always says NO”. If you can at least get your employees involved in the decision making process and seek their ideas before making the decision, you can build a better trust relationship with them.

Keep your commitments: Let’s say, you have a manager who tells you something (ABC) and does completely different thing (XYZ). Will you be able to trust his/her words again? Same goes for your employees. If you don’t keep your commitments often, then they will have a really hard time trusting you. Thus, in order to improve your trust relationship with your employees, you have to make sure that you do what you say you are going to do. By seeing your consistent behavior, they will develop an idea on what they can expect from you, and hence, they will try to trust your words on the basis of your past actions. Take this for an example, if the final decision about a problem is outside of your direct control, then it is better that you tell your employees that you will “look into it” instead of telling them that you can “fix it”. In this way, they will know what they can expect from you, which is a key component in building any kind of trust relationship.

Admit your mistakes: We are all humans, and hence, we are all prone to make mistakes. But if you make a mistake and don’t admit your mistakes, then it will send a wrong message to your entire team. They will consider this as the new precedence, and they won’t admit their mistakes either, when they make them. If you do something wrong, then it is very important to apologize and admit your mistakes. This behavior will bring you and your team members close together. When you accept your mistake, try to explain your intentions going forward and live up to the new expectations that you have established. Everyone makes mistakes, the difference is what you do when you have made one. If possible, try to share what you have learned as a result of your mistake so your employees don’t make the same mistake again. By sharing your experience, you will not only be improving your relationship with your employees, but you will also be teaching them a lesson that you have learned.

With these pointers, I am ending my two part series blog about – ‘manager-employee trust relationship’. If you have any other ideas through which we can increase our trust relationship with our employees, then please share your ideas with me through your comments here. Thanks – Bhavin Gandhi

How to build a successful trust relationship with your employees?

23 Jun

I have seen many managers struggling with building a successful trust relationship with their employees. Building a trust relationship with anyone in itself is not easy, and it is even more complex when you have to build that relationship with your employees to whom you can’t disclose certain confidential information. Thus, most managers take a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach. Obviously, neglecting that part of the employee-manager relationship will not help you either. Trust is very critical to the success of any organization, and as a leader you need to be able to trust your employees; and more importantly, your employees need to be able to trust you. Hence, in this blog, I will provide you with few pointers through which you can build a successful trust relationship with your employees.

Be open with your employees: I am not telling you to disclose all the confidential information to your employees, at the first chance that you get. But you should at least keep your employees informed about what’s happening in your organization. You should always try to disclose some general information that you know without releasing any sensitive (or confidential) information. Also, whenever you get an opportunity, you should try to share your values, thoughts and beliefs with your employees, so that they get the opportunity to know you better. If you support and praise your employee’s achievements and try to be positive most of the time by maintaining each other’s self esteem, then you will at least earn their respect by showing this consistent behavior.

Provide regular feedback: Unfortunately, most managers don’t consider feedback-giving process as the avenue to build trust relationship with their employees. For some managers, feedback is just another process through which they have to go through once a month during their one-on-one sessions with their employees. If you change this mindset and recognize the potential of your one-on-one time with your employees, then you can do wonders. Do this…try to develop a habit of talking to your direct reports at least once a day. I know, it will be hard at first, but you will be surprised to note the positive change in your employees within few weeks. By providing them regular feedback (yes I mean it, regular), you will be giving some time to this manager-employee relationship. And sometimes, only the time is needed to build stronger relationships. Don’t you agree?

Trust others: I know, this is easier said than done. But trust is a two way street. Unless you trust your employees, and always assume their positive intent, you won’t be allowing them to build a trust relationship with you. If you are serious about building this relationship with your employees then you need to stand up for your employees, and suspend any judgment that you might have. You should develop a practice of respecting your differences and appreciate each other’s skills. I know, it will take time, but it can definitely be achieved. And once you stand up for your employees, you will see that your employees will start standing up for you.

These are some ideas through which you can improve the trust relationship between you and your employees. If you have any other ideas through which we can improve this trust relationship, then please share your ideas with me through your comments. Thanks – Bhavin Gandhi