BUS272 TB

OB
on the
EDGE
Trust, or lack of trust, is an increasingly
important leadership issue in today’s
organizations. 2 Trust is fragile. It takes
a long time to build, can be easily
destroyed, and is hard to regain. 3
A 2012 survey of Canadians
conducted by the Canadian
Management Centre and Ipsos Reid
found that 61 percent of Canadians
don’t trust their senior leaders. 4 It’s
not just senior leaders who get a failing
grade for communication. Internal
communications are also dissatisfying:
only 46 percent of Canadian
employees are satisfied. 5
According to a recent survey
by Edmonton-based David Aplin
Recruiting, managers and human
resources professionals are not aware
that a trust deficit exists in the workplace
and think that employees quit
due to insufficient pay. Likely, this is
because employees “aren’t going to cite
lack of trust as their reason for leaving.
It would be experienced by many as
burning a bridge on the way out the
door,” Aplin says. 6
What Is Trust?
Trust is a psychological state that exists
when you agree to make yourself
vulnerable to another because you
have positive expectations about how
things are going to turn out. 7 Trust is
a history-dependent process based on
relevant but limited samples of experience.
8 It takes time to form, building
incrementally and accumulating. Most
of us find it hard, if not impossible,
to trust someone immediately if we
don’t know anything about them. At
the extreme, in the case of total ignorance,
we can gamble, but we cannot
trust. 9 But as we get to know someone
and the relationship matures, we gain
confidence in our ability to form a
positive expectation.
There is inherent risk and vulnerability
in any trusting relationship. Trust
involves making oneself vulnerable, as
when, for example, we disclose intimate
information or rely on another’s
promises. 10 By its very nature, trust
provides the opportunity for disappointment
or to be taken advantage
of. 11 But trust is not taking risk per se;
rather, it is a willingness to take risk. 12
So when I trust someone, I expect that
he or she will not take advantage of
me. This willingness to take risks is
common to all trust situations. 13
What Determines
Trust?
What are the key characteristics leading
us to believe a person is trustworthy?
Research has identified three: integrity,
benevolence, and ability. 14
● Integrity. Integrity refers to honesty
and truthfulness. When 570 whitecollar
employees were given a list of
28 attributes related to leadership,
honesty was rated the most important
by far. 15 Integrity also means
having consistency between what
you do and say.
● Benevolence. Benevolence means the
trusted person has your interests at
heart, even if yours are not necessarily
in line with theirs. Caring and
supportive behaviour is part of the
emotional bond between leaders
and followers.
● Ability. Ability encompasses an
individual’s technical and interpersonal
knowledge and skills. Even a
highly principled person with the
best intentions in the world won’t
be trusted to accomplish a positive
outcome for you if you don’t have
faith in his or her ability to get the
job done. Does the person know
what he or she is talking about? You
are unlikely to listen to or depend
upon someone whose abilities you
do not believe in.
In addition to these factors, a review
of the findings for the effects of leadership
on building trust indicates that
several characteristics of leadership are
most likely to build trust. Leaders who
engage in procedural justice (ensuring
fair procedures and outcomes) and
interactional justice (treating people
fairly when procedures are carried
out), and who encourage participative
decision making and use a transformational
leadership style, are most
successful at building trust. 16
Time is another component for
building trust. We come to trust people
based on observing their behaviour
over a period of time. 17 Leaders need
to demonstrate they have integrity,
benevolence, and ability in situations
where trust is important—say, where
they could behave opportunistically
or let employees down. Trust can be
won in the ability domain by demonstrating
competence. Recent research
with 100 companies around the world
suggests that leaders can build trust
by shifting their communication style
from top-down commands to ongoing
organizational dialogue. When leaders
regularly create interpersonal conversations
with their employees that are
intimate, interactive, and inclusive and
that intentionally follow an agenda,
followers demonstrate trust with high
levels of engagement. 18 The inset
What Are the Consequences of Trust on
page 242 illustrates the importance of
developing trust in the workplace.
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