What’s the importance of trust in business? How can you cultivate trust between leaders and employees?
To effectively advance your business vision as a product leader, you need to actively build and nurture trust. Not only do you need your employees’s trust, but you need the trust of investors and customers.
Continue reading to find out how to gain the trust of the people running your business from the inside and outside.
Cultivate Trust
There are a few types of people you need to build a trustworthy relationship with as a leader. Leaders must trust their teams to do their jobs, while teams must trust their leaders to support them. Investors want to trust the company to look after their interests, just as you want your customers to trust that you’ll provide the best products you can. Marty Cagan and Chris Jones write that all these stakeholders play crucial roles in your business and should be treated as partners in shaping its future. Developing that level of trust in business pays dividends by building employee and customer loyalty while cementing your company’s good reputation, both internally and with the public.
(Shortform note: While Cagan and Jones discuss how to build trust, you should also beware of the things that undermine it, such as inconsistent messaging, favoritism, and negativity. Distrust also flourishes when leaders ignore uncomfortable issues and don’t stop the spread of rumors in an information vacuum. Underperformance breeds distrust among stakeholders, which you can counter by understanding the causes and taking concrete steps to address them. When you lead an organization that people lose trust in, you must own up to the damage and identify the changes in your business’s structure, systems, and culture you can implement to restore it.)
However, you can’t nourish stakeholder relationships from afar—you need to get to know people on a personal level. Cagan and Jones emphasize that building trust requires ongoing effort, and if you recognize each stakeholder’s unique insights, you can bolster trust more by acknowledging their contributions than with simple promises or reassurances. To do this, establish open lines of communication and feedback—speak to team members, interact with customers, and leverage the knowledge of your colleagues. Consider scheduling regular check-ins with your colleagues and creating channels for feedback and suggestions from all stakeholders for product development purposes.
(Shortform note: One trust-building tool the authors don’t cite directly is vulnerability. In Dare to Lead, Brené Brown explains that practicing vulnerability as a leader requires acknowledging your uncertainty, discussing your emotions, and creating a safe space—which Cagan and Jones specifically recommend—for team members to share their concerns about the business’s objectives and their roles. However, Brown says that fake vulnerability from leaders, such as manipulative oversharing and insincerity, actively harms trust and creates anxiety among team members. Therefore, when allowing your team members to see your vulnerabilities, make sure to set appropriate boundaries while still being sincere.)
