How to Build Trusting Relationships, a Key Element to Bringing Out Optimal Performance in Others
Leaders! You have to pay attention to how to maximize your time and energy. If you aren’t already making the most of how you spend your energy, you’re wasting precious resources and you may be on your way to derailment or burnout.
One of the hallmarks of leadership is getting great business results through and with others and not trying to do it all yourself. Given that there’s always more to achieve, you need to rely on each individual on your team to do her/his part. The sum of everyone’s efforts needs to be 1+1=5 or better.
Emotional intelligence research shows that people want to do their best work, to perform at their optimal level when they work in a setting that enables them to do just that. What does that environment look like?
For starters, there’s a lot of trust. Up, down and sideways.
Yes, people can do a good job when it doesn’t exist, but for long-term, sustainable, excellent outcomes, trust must be part of the emotional climate. And integrity goes with trust.
Leaders often ask me how to cultivate trust. It’s simple but not necessarily easy. You build mutually trusting relationships one interaction at a time. Some then ask, “isn’t that a huge investment of time and energy?” I go back to how the leader is spending his time in the first place. If you want 1+1=5, use your time wisely. That includes building better, more effective relationships based on trust.
Every single interaction is an opportunity to build trust. And it’s a two-way street. If we really think about this, even our simplest human connections take on a different meaning.
In thinking about how to build trust, how do you start to feel that another person is trustworthy? Most often someone who earns out trust does so by being honest and open, truthful. I don’t mean brutally honest with no regard for the other person’s feelings. I’m referring to the person who can present the truth in a helpful way, using their emotional intelligence to read their own emotions and that of the other person or group and respond appropriately. This person keeps confidences. Their actions and behaviors match what they say. You know, they walk their talk. And he doesn’t do things for personal gain. He admits his mistakes or missteps and learns from them.
Trust develops over time, little by little. And can be instantly dissolved.
I’ll be talking more about trust, how to cultivate it, and what not to do over the next few posts.
And as always, I welcome your thoughts and comments.
Tags: business results, emotional climate, emotional intelligence, human connection, leaders, leadership, optimal performance, trust
June 17th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
There are detractors as it relates to emotional intelligence. From what I can gather because it cannot be documented, scientifically with facts, it is perceived it seems, to be the “flavor of the month”. Can emotional intelligence be learned? Are some people born with a higher level of EI than others?