How can supervisors build trust with the team?

Trust is a key element for good relationships and team atmosphere, but it is also the most sensitive.

Building trust takes time and is a never-ending process. Trust takes a long time to build but a very short time to destroy, so you have to be careful.

Once you plant a seed of doubt in your people, it takes three times as much effort to restore trust.

Building trust contributes to a positive working atmosphere where employees feel safe, supported and motivated to achieve common goals.

Steps to building trust with a team

1. Establish transparent communication

Any trust with another person begins with honest and open communication.

This means that information should go in both directions without delay or manipulation. Involve the team in business processes that concern the whole team, changes in strategies, goals, and challenges.

When your superiors present the changes they would implement, talk to the team and ask them what they think and if they would change or add something.

Every trust with another person begins with honest and open communication.

Don't just stop at the exchange of information, because the most important transparency relates to our emotions, attitudes, and opinions. Express them sincerely in accordance with non-verbal communication because this is the key to mutual connection.

People will believe you sooner if we sometimes disagree with them rather than when we confirm everything others say.

All trust comes from our feeling of security in the environment of a certain person.

2. Consistency in action

It is very important to follow through on your promises, it is hard to trust someone who says one thing and does another. Make sure you follow through on your promises.

If you accidentally forget something you promised, come to the team and apologize, and make sure you do it as soon as possible so the team can see that you really forgot, not that you didn't want to.

Think very carefully before making a promise to make sure you can implement and fulfill it.

One manager told an employee that he would step in to help because there weren’t enough of them and work with them. The next morning, during his shift, he announced that he wouldn’t be there because something “came up.”

By doing this, you are sending your employees the message that you don’t care and don’t respect your people, and you can expect the same from your employees. 

You are also building distrust and your employees will no longer be able to rely on you and your decisions.

3. Showing empathy

Showing empathy, along with transparent communication, is the foundation of building relationships. Compassion and understanding are the most important human qualities that define empathy.

Recognizing and sharing the emotion someone is experiencing is a direct connection with another person on a deeper level.

Superficial connection does not contribute to building relationships and trust.

Trust, however, requires a deeper level of connection, and for that we also need an emotional level.

Showing empathy, along with transparent communication, is the foundation of building relationships.

Try to understand the problems the team is facing, see the situation from their perspective, and support them even though you may not agree with their opinion, but in the moment of connecting with their emotions you don’t need to think about it but let them express themselves.

Later after they have expressed themselves you can express your opinion.

A leader asked me for help with a conversation with an employee. I talked to her and gave her guidance, and later the leader asked me what he could do and how to approach her to make her feel better.

Caring for employees, having compassion, and understanding their problems is a good way to show empathy to your employees.

4. Recognition and appreciation of effort

We all like to feel appreciated and valued, it's human nature. However, sometimes it's not related to acceptance by the environment but to our purpose.

People like to feel useful that what they do has meaning and logic, and that their superiors confirm their role in the result.

Recognizing someone's effort and appreciating it is directly related to motivation. When appreciation and recognition of effort are absent, employees no longer see the meaning in what they do and lose motivation.

Remember that we are all different and that our perspective on a situation may differ, what seems unimportant and insignificant to us may mean a lot to someone else.

Regularly express gratitude and publicly praise team members for their contribution.

5. Involvement of the team in decision-making

We all like to be an active part of the team and contribute to the community in which we operate and even at work. People feel special, useful and satisfied by helping the team, society and other people for a higher goal.

By involving the team in key decisions, you show employees that you value them and that their opinion is important to you, not that they are just one of many.

Bind the team to the ultimate goal and encourage greater responsibility because they themselves participated in the decision, and they care more about achieving the goal.

One director changed the composition of a product without talking to the people preparing it. What happened was that in the end the product was not good and could not be made.

It is not good to implement some decisions by force, but you should ask the people who are connected with that decision and how it unfolds in the whole process.

6. Openness to feedback

Don't ask for feedback if you're not ready to hear what others think.

When giving feedback, you need to be ready to hear both what you want and what you don't want, otherwise the feedback becomes meaningless and doesn't build trust.

Building trust takes time and is a never-ending process.

Employees need to feel safe to share their opinions and perspectives honestly and provide feedback.

You can’t force this because by using force you will likely force employees to lie.

When you establish honest and transparent communication and ensure a relaxed and safe environment, you can openly ask employees what they think and what they would improve or change, then you will get an honest answer that you can use as information.

7. Ensuring professional development

Encourage the development of your employees in accordance with their interests and wishes.

Learning and professional development of employees motivates and fulfills people, especially if they are curious and eager for knowledge.

This shows that your employees are important to you and that you care about their success. Take care of their goals, thereby retaining employees and building trust, because people are not attached to the company but to people.

Building trust with a team takes time, effort, and consistency.

Supervisors who practice transparency, empathy, and recognition of contributions create the foundation for long-term successful collaboration.

Ultimately, trust is not only a tool for better team performance but also the basis for creating a positive organizational culture.