Issues that impact employee performance are nothing new. Knowing what causes these problems is the first step to resolving them. I’ve seen and experienced many issues impacting performance first hand. At one point or another in your career, you’ve also likely experienced something that impacted your individual, team and or organizational performance.
45% of people say lack of trust in leadership is the biggest issue impacting their work performance!
As an organizational improvement and talent management practitioner – I was curious if what I had encountered in my work held true to a broader section of the workforce. That’s why Tolero Solutions conducted a survey.
45% of people said lack of trust in leadership was in fact the biggest issue impacting performance. Though sadly not shocking – if you want your business to be successful – that’s not a number to be unaddressed.
“Me, I’m dishonest, and you can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest. Honestly, it’s the honest ones you have to watch out for.” – Captain Jack Sparrow
Leadership Development & Coaching
So, how does lack of trust in leadership impact your employee’s performance?
Trust is the foundation of any successful relationship, both personal and professional, and when it’s broken, it is extremely hard to repair. When employees feel they can’t trust leadership they feel unsafe, like no one has their back, and then spend more energy on self preservation and job hunting than performing at their job. Talent acquisition costs and employee turnover costs increase. (Which estimates put at between 150% – 200% of the employee’s salary)
You may have heard that organizations with great cultures have increased performance. Great cultures don’t often exist without trust. Lack of trust in leadership is a red flag that your business may have a “toxic” culture. No one likes to come to work every day and feel they are walking into a toxic waste dump. Employees will do the job requested of them, but without trust among their peers and leadership, they’re not likely to go above and beyond to help create a high-performance organization. Your business can provide a poor customer experience causing a decline in customer satisfaction and repeat business and brand loyalty. This leads to declining profits or inability to deliver on the mission.
Lack of trust reduces transparency and communication. Reduced transparency and communication lead to low innovation and a lack of agility and responsiveness to changing conditions. When employees lack trust with peers or leaders they often avoid communicating with them out of fear of retaliation or simply because they feel that they can’t trust them to be transparent. So why bother returning the favor. To achieve maximum employee performance, employees need to promptly and transparently communicate any potential problems or concerns to leadership. And ideas for innovation and improvement. Without trust, this is not likely. Innovation and agility can decline. Problems can go unaddressed and impact the bottom line.
How can you increase employee trust in leadership to increase performance?
Listening. Accountability. Empathy. Communication. Recognition.
These are all actions that can build trust.
Take care of your people. Instead of spending time and money trying to repair broken trust, take the time upfront to develop trusted relationships among teams and between leadership and employees. If leadership takes care of employees, your business performance only increases.
Recognition increases trust between leadership and employees. Leadership needs to recognize employees for a job well done. If you want your people to support business goals and support leadership in trying to achieve them, even in times of great demand or uncertainty, they need to know leadership is listening to them and values and appreciates their ideas and positions.
Increase empathy and compassion. As a leader, empathy and compassion are imperative to gain trust and commitment. Without trust and commitment from those you lead or represent, good luck achieving your goals and becoming successful! If you want high performance, then respect, recognize, and appreciate your people. This will help build trust and increase performance.
To put it simply, listening is critical. To build trust, leadership must listen to employees. Its critical leadership learns to listen and seeks to understand. Don’t neglect to take action and follow up as appropriate. Some even suggest that with every office conversation, listen like there’s going to be a pop quiz at the end, and this skill can make or break your grade. Once employees feel leadership really listens, it goes a long way to increasing trust and performance.
A culture of trust creates a positive employee experience. A workforce that has high trust between one another, and between leadership and employees, is a more engaged and committed workforce. A more engaged and committed workforce is a higher-performing workforce. The more high performing the workforce, the higher likelihood it is you can deliver on mission. And the higher-performing the workforce the more innovation and revenue are likely to increase. For most for-profit businesses increased revenue is a top priority.
Profit, or on-going revenue growth, is a requirement for long-term sustainability. Increased profit is dependent on a multitude of factors. Many of these factors are related to your strategy and your people and their performance. Increasing profits, or mission delivery, requires being focused on your people and increasing trust and performance. If your organization’s executives and managers lead with an authentic, open, honest, empathetic, and accountable style, you are more likely to inspire the best in your people and gain the support needed for success.
Leadership Development & Coaching
*Incidentally – 28% said lack of communication and 30% said lack of resources.
About Scott Span, MSOD, CSM: Scott is CEO at Tolero Solutions. As a people strategist, leadership coach, and change and transformation specialist, his work is focused on people. Through consulting, training, and advisory work he supports clients to survive and thrive through change and transition and create people-focused cultures and a great employee experience. Through his coaching work, he supports people willing to dig deeper to identify and overcome what’s holding them back, change behaviors, accelerate performance and achieve their goals.
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