What Science Says About How Leaders Develop Trust: The 7 Best Strategies

There’s a lot on leaders’ plates today—with heavy pressure to attract people, retain them and bring out their best—in the midst of debates about how, when and where work will occur. But perhaps one of the best and most impactful things leaders can do is create trusting relationships with their team members.

In a trusting relationship, you know you can rely on a person, and you believe in their integrity. You trust them to do the right thing. And at a personal level, you trust they have your best interests at heart.

Task and Relationship Trust

You can also think of trust in terms of both task and relationship interactions. When you trust someone will follow through on a task, you have task trust, and when you trust they will keep your confidences, you have relationship trust. And it’s possible to have one and not the other.

For example, you have a colleague who is impeccable with follow through, but isn’t someone you would confide in about your career goals, or you work with a teammate who knows all your biggest secrets but is terrible at getting things done. Of course, the best relationships are those where you have high levels of both task and relationship trust.

The Payoffs

And trust has big payoffs. When you feel a high degree of trust in your teammate, your leader or your team, you’re more likely to feel a sense of psychological safety—and bring your full self to your work. You’ll expose your goofy sense of humor, your crazy ideas or the eccentric quality that makes you unique—all very good for your wellbeing and also for the strength the team can derive from tapping into plenty of diverse perspectives and talents.

And ironically, when you feel most comfortable in relationships, you can embrace higher levels of discomfort—or positive stretch—in your learning, development and innovative processes. You feel emotionally safe to take appropriate risks and try new things in your work. You feel protected enough to push toward new innovations or test your limits as you develop new skills.

Building Trust

According to a new study by Ohio State University, leaders can create high levels of trust in teams by doing three key things.

• Admit Mistakes. In the study, leaders who were able to view themselves accurately, and admit their own mistakes tended to foster trust in others. Classic wisdom on leadership agrees that when leaders are more vulnerable—sharing their own concerns or uncertainties—they tend to develop more trusting relationships.
• Appreciate Others. Another important component of creating feelings of trust was valuing others and their strengths. The best leaders not only recognize and express their appreciation for others, they also value relationships for the long term, and demonstrate they care by seeking to help others. They tune in, ask questions, listen and show empathy and compassion.
• Be Open to Learning. And a third component in expanding trust was an openness to learn from others—distinguished from an arrogance or belief in having all the answers. Intellectual humility reinforces this approach. People tend to build credibility by holding clear opinions and expertise and balancing these with a willingness to listen to multiple points of view and learn from others who think differently.

In the study, these three characteristics of leaders tended to help people around them to feel comfortable and share more openly. In addition, they tended to feel more empowered, so they were more likely to take action. People also reported feeling more valued with this kind of leadership, so they acted with more confidence and their actions had more impact.

Cementing Trust

Leadership has been studied by experts, gurus and academics for years, and based on this body of knowledge, there are a few additional ways leaders can build trust as well.

• Be Honest. Of course.
• Honor Commitments. People want to work with others who follow through and follow up—and who can be counted on. Often the commitments a leader makes have significant bearing on an employee’s career. For example, they commit to help an employee with their development or promise to have a job re-assessed for increased pay or promotion. Given the impact of the commitments a leader makes, keeping them comes with big importance. But even small commitments matter, and keeping them builds trust.
• Stand Up for What’s Right. A study of 60 different societies by the University of Oxford found that a fundamental need of all those studied was a perception of fairness. In addition, when people don’t perceive they are treated fairly, it’s one of the primary reasons they will leave a job, a leader or an organization. So, leaders must stand up for what’s right and take action to ensure practice is in alignment with values. This can take the form of ensuring equity among team members or holding workers accountable. It can include taking a stand on key issues, and it can comprise going to bat for an employee who needs support or advocacy.
• Communicate Effectively. In building trust, the ability to share openly is also key. With increasing ambiguity and complexity in the world, leaders are rarely able to provide certainty. After all, no one knows exactly what’s coming next. But leaders can expand trust by communicating with clarity—being transparent about what they know, what they’re exploring, what the possibilities might be and when the next communication touchpoint will be.

In Sum

Leadership is no small challenge today—but it never has been. Leadership is fundamentally hopeful about the future. When leaders are inspiring vision, direction and purpose, they are embracing the future. When leaders are setting strategies, goals and expectations, they are hopeful about how these will be reached over time.

The best leaders build strong relationships with plenty of trust, so people feel safe to participate fully and motivated to put effort and energy into reaching something meaningful and important—together.