How to Build Unshakable Trust with Your Team (Even If You’ve Messed Up)

When you look at any team, any high performing team that finds the chemistry and finds that flow, and they're just doing incredible things, they all have something in common. You may not know it unless you're kind of with the team to see it, but they have trust and they have a very high level of trust. And there's almost a guarantee that when there's a lack of trust, you're not going to see a team be able to sustain a high level of performance over time, because they're gonna be full of sabotage and they're gonna be full of change. And you have companies that don't understand this concept because they're constantly hiring new people in because they constantly have people leaving. And if you're doing that, that means you're starting over every three months, every six months, every year, you have all these new people kind of coming in because you're losing all your employees and you're literally having to start over. It's like starting a brand new company every time you have new people coming in like that. And if you want people to stay with you, you have to create a safe environment for them. And that is really hard to do if you're a leader. And so there's a couple things that you can do in order to build a safe culture that people love. And I always like to say that they'll run through walls for. And what I mean by that is they'll run through walls for you if you're the leader, because the culture kind of goes and is whatever the leader is and wherever the leader's going. And if you don't care about your employees because you're focused on profit, well, then you can't expect them to care that much about you. And at the end of the day, they can see right through your decisions and they can see through you if you are not genuinely interested in them and in them growing. And so the first thing is you have to actually care. You have to actually like want to see people around you be successful. You can't expect people to do what you want them to do and do it for you and give you 100% if they don't feel that you even care. So that's the first thing. You have to genuinely care about other people and you have to really not take them for granted because you can get really hung up on worrying about your customers and your clients and everyone else except the most important people, which are the people that you're depending on to do what you don't want to do or can't do. And so caring about them and showing them that you care is going to be, you know, one of the first steps you can do to create that safe environment for the trust to be built. Another thing is to get your ratios right and to know that you can't just go to people when there's a problem. So if you don't get your ratios right, you're going to have to deal with people who are going to triple d you, which is when they deny, destroy, and defend themselves every time. You have to go to them about anything. And you can't expect them to do anything other than that because they only hear from you when there's a problem. So I would like to say you got to catch people doing good things. You want to get your ratios right and you want to get, you know, my coach used to say six to one, six good, one bad. And I'd say that's a lot. But people do, they need to feel praised, they need to feel recognized. And if, again, if you are trying to build a safe culture where people want to be part of it, you have to make them feel like you care about them, that you're interested in their growth, and you have to praise them for the good things, catch them doing good things, to perpetuate them, to do more of it. And so that's a, that's a, that's a big concept to be able to kind of build the foundation of the trust that you're trying to build. And also, you have to also be careful about the fact that there are different kinds of trust. You might have a situational trust. You know, when things happen, you can have strategic trust, which is like, where we're going. Do they trust that you're the person who could take them there? You know, you'll have ethical trust, which is going to be, you know, when push comes to shove and no one's looking, you know, what kind of decisions do you make and what kind of things do you ask people to do? And so there's a lot of different types of trust. And at the end of the day, you know, you have to be able to consistently with your words and your behaviors, be able to again, be consistent so that they see and they know who's showing up and who I'm working with, who I'm working for. And you have to be with your team. You know, you can't always be in business mode. You know, we've always believed and you know, as a built lead coach and having built lead in my system for as many years, as we had, we would take everybody out of their work environment and we would do leadership training and we called it practice. You know, we literally would practice like a sports team. You would never imagine a sports team to win a championship without practicing. And where the real love and the real compassion for each other and the teammates happen, it's in the locker room. It's when they're just shooting the breeze and they get to know each other. And so what we do at Built to Lead is we take time in a work business environment to do what pretty much no one ever does, because they don't think you're supposed to do that. And it's a waste of time and money. People think, but they don't understand that every time you do that, you're building these bricks that are just kind of building this house that is a really strong foundation of trust. That when something really tough goes on in the business, you'll actually have people have your back. You'll actually have people do things for you that will blow your mind. And typically, if you were to ask those people why they would do it and why they give their heart and soul, most of the time you're gonna hear them say, because they would do it for me. And the only way that someone's ever gonna feel that is if you lead first, if you trust first, and you show them in different ways, whether it's through recognizing them, whether that's spending time with them, whether that's giving them good surprises and staying away from bad surprises. It's the little things. It's the build ins that great leaders know how to do really well. And a lot of them don't take a lot of time or a lot of effort. You know, I used to, I used to jot down little notes that I would hear when people would say something. Maybe it was a birthday or as an anniversary or something that they liked. And I would just make a note and then I would put it in my phone and then I would have it come up, you know, months down the road. And it would just trigger me to like, write a handwritten note, you know, wish him the happy birthday. Whatever it was, it was, it's the little things. But I remember the reaction was people couldn't believe that I remember, like, and I genuinely do care, and I really wanted to make them feel special. I just didn't realize how much of an impact it was making. And because I just made that part of who I am at my office, it had a pretty big impact across the board with a lot of people. And there was a lot of love on our team. And at the heart of all of it was trust. And we were able to do some really special, incredible things. And I think the teams that have tasted that and the employees who are part of that, it's what people want. And if you don't have that now, just know that it does exist. And if you're stuck on a team that there's no trust, that's your choice to stay there. And you can say what you want about, you know, you don't have another choice, but you do. And this is the acute pain that we sometimes talk about where you have to put yourself in really uncomfortable positions. And sometimes that means you gotta leave. And it's really hard to leave when things are okay and you're making a lot of money. But if you're not happy, that's not gonna go away and it's not gonna change. And if you don't trust your team and if you don't trust your boss, if you, if you don't trust an employee, same thing goes. It's a two way street. Then you're gonna have to do something a little uncomfortable and either exit or exit someone and find someone that you can build trust with. But if you're a leader, you gotta trust first. And you gotta find creative ways to build the trust in your system. And know that that is at the heart of where people will run through walls for you. They will come together when something happens in your business and they have to make sure that they feel that back from you, that you would do it for them. So don't miss that. That's a really big point. And there's lots of ways you can build trust. You just got to be doing something.