Trust Equation

As a leader, you want the people in your organization to trust you. At the same time, employees will evaluate you in a good or bad way based on their internal barometer of Trust.

Reviewing the scientific definition of Trust, Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman (1995), defined Trust as the “willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the action of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party.”

Willingness to be vulnerable is the essence of this definition, which means giving the other person the advantage of our sincere openness. Because relationships are typically a two-way street, there is always an expectation, whether explicit or implicit. It may not necessarily be that the individual will do something specific, but there is the expectation that s/he will act or behave in a certain way.

Simply put, Trust is the belief in the reliability, truth, ability, and strength of someone or something. Because we trust, we feel safe and secure. When we don’t, we don’t feel safe.

There is no linear guide to build Trust or to re-gain it after damage. Fortunately, many correlation-based studies have been done to get insights about trust relationships in the workplace. Here are three of the most critical elements, and by understating them, managers can enrich their trustworthy behaviors.

The first element in trust equation is delivering quality care to people, and this comes from being updated with other’s concerns and balancing them with the need for results. If people prove that they are only concerned with their self-interest, then our ability to trust them is limited. The extent to which a trustee is believed to want to do good to the trustor, aside from an egocentric profit motive, is a significant element for developing long term trust in relationships.

The second one is fair judgment, and this will come from the depth of knowledge, competence, and experience, this will make people trust our balancing act between people’s concerns and results. What this means is that the individual must be knowledgeable or skillful in the area that is important to the individual who is the trustor. Of course, competence is relative, and it does not mean perfection.

The third one is consistency in delivering their commitments and going the extra mile efforts to get results and promise done. Usually, smart managers underestimate people’s barometer that can detect any fake manipulative leadership style due to the inconsistencies. Saying one thing and doing another seems like it would hurt trust the most. Integrity is created from being truthful and authentic.

Words are easily said but ;

Can we trust people to say what they mean and mean what they say?

Are we reliable to meet our commitments and keep our promises?

Do we do what we say we will do?

Can we demonstrate trustworthiness through our actions?

When a person brings consistency to the table, you can count them as reliable. However, its relative measure, no one is perfect, and a leader cannot deliver what they say all the time. We always need to keep an eye on a set of principles that the trustor finds acceptable so we can act accordingly.

Finally, Trust is earned when actions meet words, and nothing erodes Trust more than double standards; people are always watching and analyzing our consistency. We often tell people that they don’t need to be perfect to be an excellent leader, but when it comes to trust, all three of these elements need to be above average.

For simplicity, all three aspects can be described in below equation which makes it a combination of how credible, reliable, and how safe you feel with that person — divided by the self-orientation of the person — are they focused on their interests, or only paying more attention to themselves vs. being genuinely interested in you and your success.

Where:

FJ: Fair Judgment

QC: Quality Care

CD: Consistent Delivery

SI: Self-Interest

REFERENCES

1. Gubbins, C., & MacCurtain, S. (2008). Understanding the dynamics of collective learning: The role of trust and social capital. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 10, 578-599.
2. Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An integration model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20 (3),709-734.
3. The 3 Elements of Trust by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, February 05, 2019, Harvard Business Review.