Last week’s Inside Sales Leadership Corner was about the 6 factors of trust: Integrity, Sincerity, Reliability, Consistency, Commitment, and Competence. I ended asking if you have a trust problem.
if your answer was YES… now it’s time to being Building Trust
I found 12 Ways to Build Trust… inside an article called 10 Ways to Build Trust in a Relationship by Heather Craig on Positive Psychology: The following suggestions about how to build trust were provided by Carthage Buckley and are in a nice graphic if you are like me and like that kind of thing.
Be True to Your Word
Communicate Effectively
Build Trust Gradually
Make Decisions Carefully
Be Consistent
Participate Openly
Be Honest
Help People
Show Your Feelings
Avoid Self-Promotion
Do What You Believe is Right
Admit Mistakes
In the context of sales leadership and management, I’m not sure this list is completely valid. “Avoid Self-Promotion” doesn’t ring true: yet if you click to the article and use the bullet points under it – “recognizing others builds trust and good relationships” and “constant self-promotion degrades trust” both feel accurate.
In addition to the ways you can work on building trust, I’d suggest you examine what you did in the past to cause your trust problem.
Examine what you’d have done differently now that you’re thinking about how to build trust in your organization.
I’ll end this section with – an apology, when appropriate, goes a long way to acknowledge that you made a mistake.
if your answer was NO… your efforts need to continue in order to Retaining Trust
Continuing on doing what you’re doing is too simplistic – you need to examine a few things, to determine if you are doing everything you can to continue to have a trust-full organization.
- What do you do as “habit” or “routine” that reinforce trust?
(this might be more difficult than you’d expect, as you’ve stopped thinking about them – it’s how you behave, live, and lead) - What are you intentionally including in your leadership and management activities to ensure the people on your team trust you and your organization?
- What AREN’T you doing that you could add in?
- What do you need to STOP doing because it erodes the trust you’ve worked so hard to build?
No matter where you are: building or retaining trust, it is critical success effort to make.