Written by: Ilham Musayev, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
It is nowadays practically impossible to do anything without trust. But, as they say, it is “Hard to build and easy to lose.”
I would like to shed light deeper into what trust is and why it is so important in today's conversation.
My best example when referring to trust is about the bird sitting on the tree: “A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her trust is not on the branch but its own wings.”
According to Cambridge Dictionary, trust (verb) is “to believe that someone is good and honest and will not harm you, or that something is safe and reliable.”
Trust requires time! It develops gradually over time and results from personal knowledge and cognitive assessment of another person’s behavior. Credibility is created through people’s track record of openness, vulnerability, and experiences with each other.
To me, trust is an extremely hard currency you can’t use everywhere and with everyone. Some people don’t even recognize it, so you can’t exchange anything with them on this subject.
Trusting another person is always risky because it is unknown whether the other party can be trusted or not. Hence, one must be willing to take that risk with consideration of the “unknown.”
We have certain circles where we build and experience trust very quickly, and that could be our family members, next of kin, or other people who know us even before we were born.
Let’s now step out of our family circle and focus on why trust is important in relationships, business, leadership, and how it impacts us a people?
Here is another favorite quote of mine comes: “I trust you is a better compliment than I love you, because you may not always trust the person you love, but you can always love the person you trust.”
I think it explains a lot in just a couple of sentences and kind of adds a superpower to the person who earns it. I personally use the word trust carefully towards people and always re-assess my vision from time to time. As we said at the beginning, it is “Hard to build and easy to lose.” And if you look back, how many people you lost so far is far too much than the ones we built trust.
So how is trust built up, and how do we know that we can trust someone?
There are normally 6 elements or layers upon which the trust is built.
These are:
Dependability factor: A person or group that stay true to their promises or word and fulfills their commitments earn trust.
Transparency: Trust is cultivated and built when people share their thoughts, feelings, and considerations; or when leaders openly share with employees what is going on, everyone knows where they are, trust can flourish.
Capability: Another critical element that is instrumental to building trust. If a person, leader, or organization cannot do what they are supposed to do, how can we trust them? Hence, regardless of how good the person is, and we like them personally, they cannot win our trust if they’re not capable of doing what they promise.
Authenticity: People truly sense when someone says something that is not sincere. Many leaders are insincere or inauthentic, and people naturally do not believe them. It is also relevant to other circles we relate to. Just think about it and try to recall how many similar cases you can remember? That is when trust is eroded.
Fairness: Trust is like a two-way street. Some people's needs and desires are not important, and other people's perspectives have not always been considered. Trust cannot grow in a relationship where it’s all about one person or in a workplace where all the energy is focused on the company or leader. Fairness is one of the keys factors which helps to establish trust!
Openness and Vulnerability: It is very critical when people apologize or acknowledge their mistakes. That is where others feel you are vulnerable and relate to them—people who push themselves to be “never wrong” never get the truth from others. In summary, timely apology or admission of being vulnerable is a powerful weapon to build or rebuild trust.
Successful coaching and mentoring relationships are also absolutely built & depending on trust.
There are specific qualities and behaviors, which define how successfully we build trust while coaching and mentoring. Here are some important ones:
Remaining non-judgmental
Importance of showing empathy
Asking for other’s feedback and perspectives and accepting it.
Demonstrating proactive listening
Being vulnerable is always important
Another important factor is confidentiality. That’s so important that it decides how to further not only our relationships with the coached ones will go, but our entire business. Imagine any coach or mentor is like a bank and people who use these services – clients (regardless internally or externally) who share their personal information. In fact, this is their personal assets they would never share with anyone else. And for us as a credible or reputable bank, we must take care of their assets – personal information. If we fail – then there should not be any surprises on why we are not successful.
Trust within your relationships with the coaching clients is just as important as our personal relationships. The International Coaching Federation (ICF) identifies establishing trust and intimacy with the client as their core competencies. Likewise, number one on the list of coaching masteries by the International Association of Coaching (IAC) establishes and maintains a relationship of trust.
Trust in the workplace is another important subject to pay serious attention to. It is clearly visible if employees enjoy a culture of honesty, maintain psychological safety, and exercise mutual respect.
We just mentioned psychological safety. Specifically, trust helps build an environment of psychological safety, where all team members will feel comfortable asking questions, sharing ideas, and expressing their thoughts.
As we already covered, there are always some factors, which support building trust. Here are specific ones related to the workplace:
Giving more time to listening
Acting on feedback
The power of simple appreciation and Thank You.
Trust first before getting trusted
Be open for support
Build an inclusive culture
Trust also heavily impacts collaboration in the workspace.
If the members of the team lack mutual trust, they will be reluctant to offer smart ideas. But, unfortunately, you can’t compel trust; it either exists, or it doesn’t.
The paramount paradox of trust is that it develops when people have shared strong experiences, but from another hand, these quality experiences require trust too. Thus, those teammates who already trust one another represent an essential foundation of trust on which others in the team can further build trust.
Summary
Trust is fundamental to life. If it is not possible to see trust in anything, life becomes meaningless. It is also hard to build relationships without trust.
As humans, we are made to connect with others and trust others. Without connection, we would not be able to survive as a species. We thrive off of one another and learn and grow with one another. Beyond this simple fact, trust is important for healthy relationships for so many other reasons.
Trust is a dangerous game. And before we play this game, better if we know all it’s rules first©.
Ilham N. Musayev, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Ilham N Musayev is a mentor and coach (outside of the company he works for) who helps people unlock their potential in career and personal development. He also helps in personal effectiveness, setting realistic goals, and becoming organized and structured. Ilham also helps to re-gain the [lost] confidence and look to issues and problems from different perspectives. Another area of his support is helping to cultivate servant leadership via coaching and mentoring technics.
Overall, he is an energy sector professional with 22+ years of the practical experience obtained by working in one of the leader companies in this sector. Ilham’s experience is very multilayered. He worked and gained his experience from the following functions: Wells, PSCM, Operations, Global Projects, by mainly providing project controls support. For the last three years, he worked in Modernization and Transformation and Agile Design Teams and helped his company transform into new working ways. He currently is a part of the Agility team and, as an agile coach, supports the company by implementing agile ways of working.
Ilham holds the following professional certifications and accreditations: EMBA, PMP®, ICP-ATF; ICP-ACC; PSPO I; PAL I. He also is a Professional Life Coach and ICF Professional (Member).
Ilham’s position is that staying open for support, serving people as a leader, and helping people grow is what wins hearts and minds and is the only answer to all questions.
His mission: “Aspire to inspire before we expire.”
