Three Daily Leadership Habits That Build High-Trust Relationships

Reap the benefits of a high-trust, inclusive culture

For over 30 years, my career has focused on building effective teams and inclusive cultures that get results. I’ve found that the most important, foundational element to creating lasting success is building, extending, and restoring trust among teams. When trust isn’t prioritized, it has a significant trickle-down impact on recruitment, retention, productivity, innovation, and eventually, brand reputation.

Here are three proven daily habits that can help leaders create a high-trust culture that retains employees and drives business results.

Daily Leadership Habit #1: Start With Yourself

Often when trust is low in a team or in an organization, leaders tend to place the root cause in an ambiguous place outside of their control such as a missed deadline by an adjacent team, the arrogance of a peer, or a “flavor of the month” initiative that never took hold. But trust flows from the inside out, not the outside in. You can’t control everything impacting trust, but you can place your focus on what you can influence, which includes your personal trustworthiness. And starting with yourself, it has a ripple effect on your team and often your organization.

Start with yourself by modeling humility. Are you genuinely looking for the right answer, or are you more concerned with being right? Are you focused on recognizing your teams’ contributions, or are you more concerned with getting credit? I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve personally experienced the emotion of wanting to “win” an ongoing disagreement with another team. Whether I was right or wrong wasn’t the point. My actions didn’t create trust. I wanted my team to come out on top but didn’t act in the team’s best interest.

Luckily, a mentor had the courage to ask questions about my part in this dysfunctional situation. With demonstrated respect and care for me personally, she encouraged me to address the situation differently, inspiring the team’s confidence and leading to a better result. A high-trust leader has both character and competence, with results as evidence of their competence. How we think and behave to get the results and who we are while getting the results leads to a strong culture of trust.

Daily Leadership Habit #2: Extend Trust to Others

Extending trust is not asking a team member to do something, giving them a “you got this!” pep talk, and then abandoning them in the name of the delegation. Extending trust to your direct reports includes clearly defining the desired outcome, the deadline, what resources are available, and what accountability looks like.

Accountability and check-ins around progress will vary, and they tend to depend on risk level. If your propensity is to deem every potential delegation opportunity as high risk and therefore micromanage—or even worse, decide that you might as well do it yourself—you are negatively impacting trust.

When team members feel valued for their contribution and have evidence that you trust them with greater responsibility, they’re more likely to be engaged. The important thing is to match the right amount of risk with the right amount of challenge. That includes encouraging your team to take action, learn new skills, and demonstrate their capabilities. Don’t forget to also be there for coaching, questions, and course correction.

Daily Leadership Habit #3: Listen First

The simplest way to put this habit into action is to measure how much time you spend talking in a meeting compared to your team members and how often you jump in to solve a problem without truly understanding it. When you go too fast, it often means you’ll go much slower in the end.

This is especially true when team members are sharing information that is difficult for them, whether professional or personal. You must become hyper-focused on understanding, not on replying. As an executive coach, I’ve witnessed more than one leader return a text or glance at their watch during a difficult conversation. In other words, they weren’t fully present, continuing the cycle of low trust in their team. Demonstrate respect through your focus. Building trust requires genuine concern and empathy.

To truly cultivate the connection that builds trust, develop the habit of truly understanding another person’s experiences, feelings, and emotions, in addition to the content of the conversation. And remain curious for longer than you usually do before coming in with a response or an answer to the problem at hand.

Starting with yourself, extending trust to others, and listening first are three habits that leaders can practice to build trust. As you develop these leadership habits, you’ll reap the benefits of a high-trust, inclusive culture and stronger business results.

Author Bio

Jennifer Colosimo is the President of the Enterprise Division at FranklinCovey, the most trusted leadership company in the world. In her role, she leads FranklinCovey’s strategic planning, sales, marketing, consulting, customer experience, culture, and revenue operations in more than 160 countries.