Can I Offer You Some Feedback? - Episode #70
Show Notes:
This week Sara presents a special feature called Research Revealed! Providing you with the latest research on team effectiveness, leadership development, and organizational behavior. In this brand new episode, hear research findings on how trust is shown in organizations. How can leaders improve the way employees perceive trustworthiness? Subscribe today so you never miss an episode!
Below we are offering a transcript of the podcast for accessibility and reference.
Episode #70: research Revealed: Organizational Trust
Do you know what you don't know? Well, unless you're like me, you're probably not steeped in the latest research on team effectiveness, leadership development, and organizational behavior. In this research revealed, I'd like to share with you a recent piece of research and reveal what it means for you.
A recent study done by DDI on their Global Leadership Forecast noted that they surveyed thousands of leaders on how trust is shown in their organizations. One of their findings was that only 46% of leaders report that they trust their direct manager to do what is right. Let me repeat that again. Only 46% of leaders report that they trust their manager to do what is right.
That means that 54% of leaders are walking around concerned that their direct managers are not making the most trustworthy decisions. And on top of that, of that same research base, only 32% said that they trust senior leaders at their organization. These are some staggering statistics, and if you're a person who is a leader at your organization, I'd be curious to know what your reflections might be.
As we talk about leadership trust or the trust to do the right thing in organizations, there are a number of steps that we can take to boost trust. However, it's important to understand why do people perceive a break in that trust? Or what might be some of the reasons behind why they don't think that you would do the right thing?
When we're talking about boosting trust in organizations, first, we can start by trying to show more empathy. But if that empathy that we're showing is coming after weeks, months, or years of not demonstrating it, that can often increase mistrust in an organization, or folks might be suspicious as to why you're starting to do this now.
Another opportunity to boost trust in organizations is to share more information on your decision-making. This can look like transparency or just sharing a little bit more of the context. Most times when I talk with leadership, they aren't aware that they're withholding information or hoarding power in different kinds of ways. When we talk about sharing your thoughts and rationale for decision-making, this is one way to show other people that there is a method. There is an approach to your process and that you'd like their input on it. Again, another way to boost some of that trust.
A third way to boost trust on your team and or to not be one of those leaders we were talking about earlier is to encourage others to challenge the old ways of doing things. What I mean by that is not to have folks in every meeting challenging the status quo, but you as a leader need to be open and responsive to ideas that are different than the norm culture.
For example, that form that you update and continue to work on week after week, why do we keep working on it? What is the context behind it? And is there a different way that we can do it? Sometimes even just pausing to hear the ideas, to explain the rationale, we do come up with the answer of, well, it's just the way we've always done it. And that invites the conversation of, and how could we do it better?
This is again an opportunity for you as a leader to take the time and to boost some of that trust in the organization by sharing your insights, listening to folks completely and authentically, and also share the context either around the decision-making or the organizational information that you have in line.
Again, the data that we're focusing on is how do employees perceive our trustworthiness as leaders. And this is just three simple steps that you can take to boost that trust so that folks on your team understand some of your decision-making approaches.
This has been Sara with Research Revealed. You can reach me at podcast@mod.network. We would love to hear from you on other research insights that you'd like to explore, and as always, give us a quick rating on your platform of choice and share this podcast with a friend. We'll see you next time.