The Importance of Building Trust on your Team (podcast)

Welcome to the next installment of the Leadership Vision Podcast, where we share our expertise in the discovery, practice, and implementation of StrengthsFinder.

In this episode, Aleasha Morris and I continue our series on the Team Engagement Model, and today we’re talking about why your team needs to be rooted and grounded in trust for long-term success. Our study and intensive observation of teams through a Strengths Based lens has revealed that there is an unmistakable difference between healthy and unhealthy teams.

Simply put, unhealthy teams are out of balance.

Trust is complex. In some cases, Trust comes easily. In others, the intangible thread that binds is delicate or even defective from the start. So how do we create an environment where Trust is implicit? First, we have to be explicit about what Trust means to each of us.

RELATED: How To Know If Your Team Is Surviving Or Thriving (podcast)

What is Trust?

Trust is a buzz word and not as easy to define as the other words, such as knowledge or purpose. As the final core concept of our Professional Team Engagement Model, Trust is vital to any team that wants to operate out of their Strengths. Trust is about knowing that team members are who they say they are and do what they say they will do. Consistency and predictability are hallmarks of any trusting relationship. When individuals make a deliberate, ongoing effort to understand each other, the team becomes more robust and resilient.

RELATED: On the Importance of Trust

In this Episode, you will Learn…

What trust means, questions that can help you identify the level of trust on your team, what happens when trust is missing, and finally, examples of what this looks like in action.

We also share some questions for helping you understand the purpose of your team. With strengths in mind, think of your team and ask yourself these questions:

• What do we value in each other?
• What do we need from each other?
• Do we have trust?
• Do we prioritize relational connections?
• Have we created an open team environment that can handle conflict, change, and accountability?

Teams with a lack of trust are unmistakable. Often, many of the issues that emerge fall into these categories:

• Going Rogue
• Team Tension
• Splinter Cells
• Special Behavior

We have also realized that to create an environment of Trust, teams first had to develop a shared expectation for how to BE a member of the team. So we, and they, came up with twelve “BE” statements to help them build and regain trust.

1. BE honest
2. BE respectful
3. BE convicted
4. BE vulnerable
5. BE compassionate
6. BE supportive
7. BE courageous
8. BE generous
9. BE patient
10. BE grateful
11. BE willing
12. BE open

About The Leadership Vision Podcast

The Leadership Vision Podcast is a weekly show sharing our expertise in the discovery, practice, and implementation of StrengthsFinder. Leadership Vision uses StrengthsFinder to work with People, Teams, and Culture. We believe that knowing your Top 5 Strengths is only the beginning. In fact, our highest potential exists in the ongoing exploration of our talents. Subscribe to the Leadership Vision Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

Please contact us if you have ANY questions about anything you heard in this episode, or if you’d like to talk to us about helping your team understand the power of Strengths.