Are you trustable ?

Only 5% of UK employees and 3% in EMEA get an apology from their boss whenever they make a mistake, which is affecting levels of trust in leaders and employee engagement according to a global survey by The Forum Corporation (Nov. 2013). This Survey found that there's currently a significant trust gap between how staff view their managers and how managers think their staff view them.

One area where bosses fell down in the survey was in saying sorry – 49% of staff claim their boss never or rarely apologises for their mistakes, yet in contrast nearly 60% of UK managers believe they always say sorry.

(source : Forum's Global Leadership Pulse Survey, on to 11 November 2013).

According to Forum's global survey the most frequent things bosses do to damage employee trust are:

- lying,

- taking credit for others’ ideas or blaming employees unfairly,

- gossiping,

- poor communication

- and lack of clarity !!

While being able to trust your boss was very important for 93% of the employees surveyed, 30% of UK staff say they trust their managers less today than they have in the past. Leaders had an even more cynical view than the employees, with 38% of managers saying that employees trust their managers less now than in the past. Overall, less than 5% percent of employees said they trust their leaders “to a very great extent” today. When managers aren’t transparent in their actions – and that includes accepting responsibility for errors, being truthful with their employees and acknowledging hard work – that tends to breed mistrust among employées.

(source : Forum's Global Leadership Pulse Survey, on to 11 November 2013).

Seniority is one of the most influential factors affecting trust levels; people’s trust in leadership is directly related to their length of employment in the company. For example, a worker who has recently been hired may express a trust level of 65, but this figure drops to 60 after 2 to 5 years of employment, and to 57 once seniority has exceeded 5 years. The researchers explain this apparent paradox. “Trust levels are High when a leader has been on the job at least as long as his or her employees. Levels decrease signficantly when an employee’s seniority exceeds that of his or her boss.”

(source : Index of Leadership Trust 2009 », Institute of Leadership & Management and Management Today, 2009)

Segalla’s study involved 700 managers from 40 countries educated in the best business schools in Europe, Asia, and non-European Anglo-Saxon countries . He measured participants’ general trust in other members of society and compared it with their trust in their firms. Segalla was intrigued to discover that while the average general trust rate was 3.7 (on a scale of 5), the average firm trust rate was just 3.0, and even worse, the average boss trust rate was a mere 2.7. “This is especially disturbing when you consider the high caliber of those surveyed.

They testify to the world’s best efforts at developing managers; they have chosen to work in their companies and are critical members of their teams … ”

Question : And how can firms retain good people when employees do not feel their organizations are trustworthy?

Wrong ! Trust, or “the art of reducing fears, inhibitions, and the roughness of human relationships,” is now considered a critical component of organizational performance. This is due to its ability to provoke the increase in engagement necessary for sustainable performance. There’s at least one topic that everyone agrees on: trust is a key ingredient for company health. But levels of this key organizational value are low. But through trust—part of the “implicit contract”—is on everyone’s mind, it’s in danger. Do leaders have to wait for the return of a better economic climate to rebuild trust? Not according to Hervé Sérieyx and Jean-Luc Fallou, who believe that the decline in trust is not inevitable and that there’s a way to develop it sustainably.

“In an information and knowledge society, the economy is no longer reduced to the equation Capital x Work = Performance," say Hervé Sérieyx and Jean-Luc Fallou. Now it’s Capital x Work x Trust = Collective Performance. Just slightly less than half of employées trust what the company and their managers have to say. A challenge for the future, regaining trust will require a proactive approach driven by leaders and supported by all operational managers.

(Source : » La confiance en pratique : des outils pour agir » by Hervé SÉRIEYX and Jean-Luc FALLOU, Maxima 2010).

The Forum Corp. study found that whilst trust in the UK workplace has suffered in recent years, there are certain actions that both employers and employees agree can bolster trust in addition to acknowledging personal mistakes. According to the survey, the four most effective tactics for inspiring trust are:

- Listening to employees and understanding their concerns

- Walking the talk – managers doing as they say

- Following through on commitments

- Encouraging employees to offers ideas and suggestions

To anchor a culture that values and exploits the teaching value of failure, employees must feel comfortable identifying and pointing out mistakes. A leader must be able to respond to failures in a positive and serene way (even if it is only a façade!). When employees know that pointing out a problem will not put them in an uncomfortable position, they are in a much better position to discuss the difficulties that arise along the way openly and honestly. By creating a climate of open dialogue that leaves space for the notions of perfectibility and evolution, and by asking their teams the right questions, leaders can promote engagement in the process of decoding problems. Be careful, though, not to fall into the opposite extreme of laxity: it is important to clearly define what is acceptable and what is not by setting limits that are not to be crossed; this is the other essential facet of maintaining a reassuring environment.