Boost Employee Performance by Developing a Culture of Trust

Do your employees trust you? The brutal truth is probably not. It may not be fair, and you may not want to hear it, but chances are that previous leaders have poisoned the ground on which you’re trying to grow a successful business. Make no mistake: Unless you and all the leaders in your organization can gain the trust of your employees, performance will suffer. And considering how tough it is to survive in today’s business environment, that’s very bad news for your salon.

Why is trust so pivotal? According to John Hamm, it’s a matter of human nature: When employees don’t trust their leaders, they don’t feel safe. And when they don’t feel safe, they don’t take risks – and where there is no risk taken, there is less innovation, less “going the extra mile,” and therefore, very little unexpected upside.

 “Feeling safe is a primal human need,” says Hamm, author of “Unusually Excellent: The Necessary Nine Skills Required for the Practice of Great Leadership.” He continues, “When that need isn’t met, our natural response is to focus energy toward a showdown with the perceived threat.

 “Our attention on whatever scares us increases until we either fight or run in the other direction, or until the threat diminishes on its own,” he adds. “Without trust, people respond with distraction, fear and, at the extreme, paralysis. And that response is hidden inside ‘business’ behaviors – sandbagging quotas, hedging on stretch goals, and avoiding accountability or commitment.”

Hamm calls trustworthiness “the most noble and powerful of all the attributes of leadership.” He says leaders become trustworthy by building a track record of honesty, fairness and integrity. For Hamm, cultivating this trust isn’t just a moral issue; it’s a practical one.

“Trust is the currency you will need when the time comes for you to make unreasonable performance demands on your teams,” he explains. “And when you’re in that tight spot, it’s quite possible that the level of willingness your employees have to meet those demands could make or break your business.”

In his book, Hamm explains that most employees have been hurt or disappointed at some point in their careers by the hand of power in an organization. That’s why nine times out of 10, leaders are in “negative trust territory” before they make their first request of an employee to do something. Before a team can reach its full potential, leaders must act in ways that transcend employees’ fears of organizational power.

The first step starts with you, Hamm notes. As a leader, you must “go first,” modeling trustworthiness for everyone else. Being trustworthy creates trust, yes. But beyond that, there are very specific things you can do to provide unusually excellent trust-building leadership at your organization:

1. Being trustworthy doesn’t mean you have to be a Boy Scout. You don’t even have to be a warm or kind person, says Hamm. On the contrary, history teaches us that some of the most trustworthy people can be harsh, tough or socially awkward – but their promises must be inviolate and their decisions fair.
“As anachronistic as it may sound in the 21st century, men and women whose word is their honor – and who can be absolutely trusted to be fair, honest and forthright – are more likely to command the respect of others than, say, the nicest guy in the room,” Hamm explains. “You can be tough. You can be demanding. You can be authentically whoever you really are. But as long as you are fair, as long as you do what you say consistently, you will still be trusted.”

2. Look for chances to reveal some vulnerability. We trust people we believe are real and also human (imperfect and flawed) – just like us. And that usually means allowing others to get a glimpse of our personal vulnerability; some authentic (not fabricated) weakness or raw emotion that allows others to relate to us at the human level.
“The best leaders consciously present themselves as accessible and open and vulnerable – that is, they talk about their fears, challenges and failures with humility, candor, and at times, even some humor – so as to break down the barriers with those whom they wish to know. They know this does not threaten their power, but rather, increases their influence.”

3. No matter how tempted you are, don’t “BS” your employees. Tell the truth, match your actions with your words, and match those words with the truth we all see in the world: no spin, no fancy justifications or revisionist history – just tell the truth.
“Telling the truth when it is not convenient or popular – or when it will make you look bad – can be tough,” Hamm admits. “Yet, it’s essential to your reputation. Your task as a leader is to be as forthright and transparent as is realistically possible. Strive to disclose the maximum amount of information appropriate to the situation.”

4. Never, ever make the “adulterer’s guarantee.” This happens when you say to an employee, in effect, “I just lied to (someone else), but you can trust me because I’d never lie to you.” When an employee sees you committing any act of dishonesty or two-facedness, they’ll assume that you’ll do the same to them