Trust Leaders: How effective are you?
This self-assessment has been designed for Trust Leaders as a self-reflection tool determine their effectiveness.
When trust exists in personal and professional relationships, almost everything else is easier and more comfortable to achieve, including problem solving and conflict resolution. When our actions are consistent with our words, trust can be achieved and arises from our interdependence with others to achieve outcomes we value. Because cooperation cannot be compelled, social interactions are valuable as a foundation for confidence or belief one feels toward another or others to overcome doubt or fear. Trust is the mortar that holds together the stones of the arch we walk through in fulfilling relationships. When trust weakens, the ruble of broken expectations and implied promises impairs communication and recognition of the other person as value to co-existence or cooperation.
Trust in the workplace is essential for durable, satisfying, and rewarding relationships and is achieved through productive communication, understanding, and respect. It is an assessment that one will not deliberately, accidentally, consciously, or unconsciously take unfair advantage of another and a person’s self-esteem, status, relationship, career, and even life are placed in the hands of another with full and total confidence for safety and protection. Parties must behave consistently over time to build trust and follow through on promises made. In order to achieve this level of trust, all parties must explain expectations, agree to necessary steps to complete expectations, sanctions for not meeting expectations, and procedures to measure outcomes. Trust contains a strong emotional component, and parties should be able to share their expectations for one another, bargain for expected behaviors, and openly acknowledge mutual distrust. Expectations are created with or without collaboration, and unilateral expectations, when broken, always hurt the most.
The link between rebuilt trust and conflict resolution involves de-escalation; for any conciliatory action to be effective it must involve sufficient trust. The paradox is that in order to trust another one must risk personal loss again. We often demand proof of trustworthiness before a willingness to trust again is considered. Regrettably, one side must take the risk in a leap of faith to launch the process over with more accurate perceptions and clearer communication. Unwillingness to do so will irreparably damage the relationship and exacerbate the conflict situation. Reciprocity requires someone to go first with the hope that the risk of trauma to the person or psyche will be rewarded with a response worth the value of what can be. Hope is the winged angel of the double-edged sword…one blade is trust and the other despair.
