How to increase your employees trust in you

through your actions?

by Bhavin Gandhi

Building a trust relationship with your employees is a tricky business in itself. Even
though you can't control your employee's perception of you, you can affect their idea
of you by your actions. And hence, in this blog, I will continue my conversation from
my last blog about how to build a successful trust relationship with your employees
through your consistent actions.
Listen to your employees: No relationship can be built successfully, if you are unwilling to listen. Same logic
applies here. As a manager, you should seek to understand your employees, and try to show empathy towards their
viewpoints. If you don't agree with the opinion of your employee, then don't try to shoot their idea immediately. Let
them tell the thought process behind their idea, and you might be surprised with what they can come up with. Lets
say, you still don't like their idea after hearing the entire story. In that case, you should try to explain your viewpoints
to them and explain your thought process to them rather than rejecting their idea directly. With this approach, they
will feel more connected with you and they will at least try to understand your perspective rather than just thinking
that "my manager doesn't like my ideas, so he always says NO". If you can at least get your employees involved in
the decision making process and seek their ideas before making the decision, you can build a better trust
relationship with them.
Keep your commitments: Let's say, you have a manager who tells you something (ABC) and does completely
different thing (XYZ). Will you be able to trust his/her words again? Same goes for your employees. If you don't keep
your commitments often, then they will have a really hard time trusting you. Thus, in order to improve your trust
relationship with your employees, you have to make sure that you do what you say you are going to do. By seeing
your consistent behavior, they will develop an idea on what they can expect from you, and hence, they will try to
trust your words on the basis of your past actions. Take this for an example, if the final decision about a problem is
outside of your direct control, then it is better that you tell your employees that you will "look into it" instead of telling
them that you can "fix it". In this way, they will know what they can expect from you, which is a key component in
building any kind of trust relationship.
Admit your mistakes: We are all humans, and hence, we are all prone to make mistakes. But if you make a
mistake and don't admit your mistakes, then it will send a wrong message to your entire team. They will consider
this as the new precedence, and they won't admit their mistakes either, when they make them. If you do something
wrong, then it is very important to apologize and admit your mistakes. This behavior will bring you and your team
members close together. When you accept your mistake, try to explain your intentions going forward and live up to
the new expectations that you have established. Everyone makes mistakes, the difference is what you do when you
have made one. If possible, try to share what you have learned as a result of your mistake so your employees don't
make the same mistake again. By sharing your experience, you will not only be improving your relationship with
your employees, but you will also be teaching them a lesson that you have learned.

Author: Bhavin Gandhi

Contact information: http://BhavinGandhi.com

With these pointers, I am ending my two part series blog about - 'manager-employee trust relationship'. If you have
any other ideas through which we can increase our trust relationship with our employees, then please share your
ideas with me through your comments here. Thanks - Bhavin Gandhi

Bhavin Gandhi | July 7, 2015 at 9:00 AM | Tags: 21st century, Building Trust, Communication with
employees, Employee engagement, Employee input, Employee relationships, Leadership,Management, Trust
your employees, Walk the talk | Categories: 21st Century, Leadership,Management |
URL: http://wp.me/p103Cm-e5

Author: Bhavin Gandhi

Contact information: http://BhavinGandhi.com