✅ FREE ACCESS: Mindset Mastery: 7 Productivity Keys For High-Performing Leaders
Have you ever wondered how the world’s most successful leaders cultivate trust and respect among their teams?
That’s essential to establish a productive and meaningful work environment.
Today, We’re going to learn 6 tips for building trust and respect as a leader to cultivate the dream team you’ve always wanted.
But before we get into it, make sure you grant your lifetime access our free eBook:
Mindset Mastery: 7 Productivity Keys for High-Performing Leaders.
This is your chance to learn specific techniques for self-growth, problem-solving, decision-making, and team management.
Let’s dive in.
Building Trust And Respect as a Leader Method
We will unfold the 6 tips for building trust and respect as a leader in order of deployment, form the basic to more advance strategies.
In that way, tip #1 will be the most fundamental and the tip #6 will be the most sophisticated one.
So the tips end up working as stages of development for your leadership capacity.
Let’s start with the most fundamental one, then.
Tip #1: Lead by Example
Some time ago, I launched a poll to my audience on social media asking this:
Great leaders are great when they…
And I gave 2 options:
- Option #1: When they give example.
- Option #2: When they give recognition.
100% of voters chose “example” as the main feature of a leader. That was thousands of people.
So, no wonder the first of 6 tips for building trust and respect as a leader is to lead by example.
But what does that mean exactly?
It means modeling the behavior and values that you want to see in your team.
The questions is: what are these values?
Every successful entrepreneurial business becomes successful because they pursue and achieve these 2 things:
- Great results
- Great Culture
So, the culture of your business must be the basis for the values people need to model and you, as a leader, must not only make them public, but, more importantly, live by those values.
If you want your team to be punctual, you need to be punctual. If you want your team to be productive, you need to be productive.
Leading by example not only sets the tone for the rest of the team but also shows that you are willing to do the work that you expect from others.
How to apply:
Identify the behavior you want to develop in your work environment based on the culture you want to build as a team.
Make a short list as bullet points to make them simple and identifiable.
Make sure you model them yourself instead of asking your team members to do so.
By doing that, people that are not a good fit for the workplace culture will stand out, helping you making the necessary corrections.
I present the proper course of action you need to take in this situation in the Mindset Mastery eBook provided in the description.
Tip #2: Communicate Effectively
The second of 6 tips for building trust and respect as a leader is to communicate effectively.
Does that sound as a cliche for you? It’s because it is. Why?
Two reasons:
Reason #1:
Most people don’t know what they are talking about when they talk about effective communication.
Reason #2:
If you disregard accidents and illnesses, all the problems you have to solve in your live are relationship problems.
And relationship problems happen mostly by bad communication.
That’s why we are always talking about it. So, you can imagine how big this topic is.
For the scope of this conversation, I will focus on the #1 factor that will make you a highly effective communicator.
And that is: Active Listening.
But what is active listening?
Well, Active Listening is a communication technique that requires being fully concentrating on, understanding, and responding to the person who is speaking in a way that provides advancement, whatever that advancement mean in the context of the conversation.
It requires giving one’s full attention to the speaker, asking questions to clarify understanding, and providing feedback to ensure that the message is accurately received.
Active listening helps to establish trust and build stronger relationships, as it shows that you are interested in and values the other person’s perspective.
Ok. So why is active listening the #1 factor of communication skills development?
Look, when you speak, everything you hear is what you already know.
But when you listen, you will always acquire a new piece of information.
And information means in-formation.
That means, when you actively listen to someone, you acquire new pieces of information you can use to help them find the advancement they need.
Through feedback, you can highlight points of interest and bring clarity to what is being discussed.
You also become more conscious of the type of challenges your environment faces, how people react to them, and how you can fill the natural gaps.
By listening actively you don’t steal you team members’ achievements and position yourself as a supporter that will be trusted and respected.
How to apply:
Ask more than you answer, listen more than you speak, keep eye contact, and provide specific feedback directed to the solution, not judgement.
It’s harder than it seems because in a substantial number of times, active listening means to avoid giving people the answers you already have in favor of their development.
Tip #3: Show Empathy
The third of the 6 tips for building trust and respect as a leader is to show empathy.
Another triggered word.
Let’s make this simple: Empathy is a skill.
What is the outcome of this skill? What do you gain with that as a leader? That’s the core question.
This is the measurable result an empathic leader produces to a business:
Increased employee satisfaction and retention rates.
Why does that matter is a more sophisticated question that is worth answering here.
At least the oversimplified version of it.
When team members feel understood and valued by their leaders:
- They are more likely to be engaged in their work.
- They feel a sense of loyalty to the company
- And they tend to stay with the company for the long term.
The immediate results of that is lower turnover costs and higher productivity, ultimately contributing to the company’s success.
It’s that simple.
Thriving companies are made of inspired people.
How to apply:
The challenge here is to produce empathy in a personal level without producing apathy in the professional level.
Unfortunately, the second can happen as a consequence of the first, if you’re not careful.
So here is how to avoid that trap:
Set workplace rules and make sure they are public and explicit.
That will self regulate the team based on clear and pre-determined expectations.
If something falls out of those expectations, the workplace, as a living environment will provide the context for course correction.
So when you, as a leader, approach a suboptimal situation, that context will completely break the idea of punishment. Team members that need developmental feedback will be less likely to be in defense mode.
Of course, that also depends on your approach about the problem.
In the Mindset Mastery eBook in the description I talk more about the 4 Processes of Thinking by Dr. Albert North Whitehead to help you develop an effective problem-solving process for situations like this.
Tip #4: Give Recognition and Feedback
The fourth of the 6 tips for building trust and respect as a leader is to give recognition and feedback.
Ok, so here is a feedback crash course for you:
- Always praise your team members in public.
- Always provide constructive feedback in private.
That alone will give team members a good dose of recognition.
But that’s not possible if you lack the mindset of a leader.
Here is what I mean by that:
In the book Leaders Eat Last, Simon Sinek says:
“Leaders are not responsible for results. Leaders are responsible for people that are responsible for results.”
Practically, The orientation and mindset a leader must have is one of service and support.
As a leader, you must be willing to invest time, energy, and resources into developing your team members’ skills and talents, and create a culture of collaboration, trust, and respect.
Why does that produce winning companies?
Because 10 winning team members can achieve more than 1 whining leader.
How to apply:
Build relationships: Take the time to get to know your team members and build trust-based relationships with them.
This means actively listening to them, showing empathy, and demonstrating that you care about their well-being.
Empower your team: Give your team members the tools, resources, and autonomy they need to succeed.
This means setting clear expectations, providing feedback and guidance, and then stepping back and letting them take ownership of their work.
Create a culture of psychological safety: Foster a culture where team members feel safe to speak up, share their ideas, and take risks without fear of retribution.
This means leading by example, encouraging open communication, recognizing and owning your own mistakes as a leader, and turn team members’ into powerful opportunities for learning and growth.
Tip #5: Set Clear Expectations
So for the fifth of 6 tips for building trust and respect as a leader, we start with a question:
What is the bottom line of clear expectations?
Here it is:
If your team members don’t know where they are going, they can’t succeed or fail.
If nobody knows if they are winning or not, nobody knows if the business is thriving or not.
It’s a big deal.
But again, this is a term that has been used over and over again, so what does it mean exactly?
Write this down:
Setting clear expectations means providing your team with goals, objectives, and systems, to outline the standard definitions of success, behavior, and performance based on those items.
Why does that matter the most?
For at least 3 reasons:
- You make possible that everyone works toward the same goal.
- You make possible that everyone works under the same value structure.
- You make possible the everyone achieve results that matter.
What I’m saying is that without clear expectations, top-performing team members might be achieving results are not aligned with the goals, values, and priorities of the company.
It’s a waster of energy and time. A deadly sin for most businesses.
How to apply:
Start with the end in mind.
Before setting clear expectations, you need to define the end goal and vision for your team or business.
What are the long-term objectives that you want to achieve?
What are the values and principles that guide your organization?
Having a clear picture of where you want to go will help you set expectations that are aligned with your vision and values.
Involve your team in the process.
Setting clear expectations should be a collaborative effort that involves your team members.
Ask for their input and feedback on what they think the goals and standards should be.
This will not only help you gain buy-in from your team but also ensure that the expectations are realistic and achievable.
Communicate clearly and consistently.
Once you have set clear expectations, it’s important to communicate them clearly and consistently.
Use multiple channels such as team meetings, emails, and performance reviews to reinforce the expectations and ensure that everyone is on the same page.
Hold everyone accountable.
Setting clear expectations is only effective if there are consequences for meeting and not meeting them.
As a leader, it’s important to hold everyone accountable for their performance and behavior.
This includes recognizing and rewarding those who meet or exceed expectations and providing constructive feedback and coaching for those who fall short.
In the Mindset Mastery eBook available in the description, you can learn about how to objectively evaluate your team members based on results and culture using the Eisenhower Matrix.
Tip #6: Build Relationships
The final tip for building trust and respect as a leader is to build relationships with your team members.
But wait. Why is that? Why do I have to develop an interpersonal relationship with team member as a leader in the first place?
Does that matter to the bottom line of the business?
The short answer is a loud “yes”.
The long version is:
If your team members don’t feel they matter, they won’t feel that the work they do matters, and they will try to find that somewhere else.
When team members feel connected to their leader and to each other, they are more likely to feel invested in the success of the team and the company as a whole.
So, building relationships allows leaders to understand the unique strengths and weaknesses of each team member, which in turn allows them to better delegate tasks, offer support, and provide constructive feedback.
This can ultimately lead to more effective and efficient teamwork, and better outcomes for the company.
If you still not convinced, let me tell you that when leaders prioritize building relationships with their team members, they are demonstrating that they value and care about them as individuals, beyond just their role in the company.
This produces a powerful impact on employee morale, motivation, and retention because great professionals are looking for meaning more than they are looking for money.
Because, guess what! Great professional can pick where and how they make money.
On top of all that, building relationships with clients and customers is part of business sustainability and growth.
Have you ever talked with an employee of a company and heard some complaint about the job?
Awkward to say the least.
When clients feel that they have a personal connection with a business, they are more likely to choose that business over competitors, even if their prices or offerings are similar.
How do you think clients will feel that connection when it’s not you the one connecting directly with them?
Building relationships requires an investment of time and effort, but the rewards in terms of team cohesion, productivity, and customer loyalty are well worth it.
How to apply:
Assess the current state of relationships:
Start by evaluating the current state of relationships within the team.
This could be done through one-on-one conversations with team members or through anonymous surveys.
Understanding the current dynamics can help leaders identify areas that need improvement and potential roadblocks to building stronger relationships.
Foster a culture of trust.
Leaders can foster a culture of trust by being transparent and honest, keeping promises, and holding themselves accountable.
When team members feel they can trust their leader, they are more likely to open up and share their thoughts and concerns.
Encourage open communication.
Encouraging open communication is key to building strong relationships.
Leaders can set the tone by actively listening to team members, asking for feedback, and providing constructive criticism.
This helps create an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas.
Provide opportunities for team building.
Creating opportunities for team building can also help strengthen relationships.
This could include team-building activities or simply providing opportunities for team members to socialize and get to know each other better.
These activities can help foster a sense of companionship and build stronger connections within the team.
Building Trust And Respect as a Leader Takes Time And Effort
So there you have it, 6 tips for building trust and respect as a leader.
Remember that building trust and respect takes time and effort, but it is essential for any successful team or business.
Which of these 6 tips is more challenging in your workplace? That’s your homework to start the workplace improvement you need.
