On Building Trust

Today's post was written by Lindsey Bousquet who lives in Putnam and works in Pomfret, CT. This article was part of a homework assignment in out "Leadership Skills" program where Lindsey focused on a leadership strength. Her work is reprinted here with permission.

"I feel that my best strength is that I build trusting relationships with people at all levels. This is very important for many reasons. One is that you cannot lead someone if they do not trust you. They want to know where they are going, how they will get there and why they are going there to begin with. I would never follow someone who I did not trust and I know neither would anybody else. My crew people asked me for advice and how to do certain things long before I was their manager. It was because they trusted that I would know the right answers and the correct way things had to be done. In a 'crisis' situation they would always come to me trusting that I could help.

"Another reason trusting relationships are important, is employees need to feel like they can talk to you. If a person has a problem or just needs to vent they need to trust that you will handle things properly. Nobody wants to talk to someone who is just going to ignore you or worse, inform people who do not need to know what your problem is. I feel very good in saying that all my crew people trust me enough to come to me with all their problems. They know I will handle them correctly and privately. Only the parties involved and my store manager need to know.

"The final reason is building trust increases your sphere of influence with your employees. This means that you can be more effective in how you manage your store. My crew people see how I act and what I do and are influenced by this behavior. They trust it is the correct, if not only way to work in our company. By having them act as I would act and do as I would do the store runs smoothly and effectively without me I having to do it all myself. "

About me: Dan Pelley offers a series of five programs leading to a Certificate in Supervisory Management. The five programs are "Managing People, "Leadership Skills," "Managing For Results," "Proactive Leadership," and "Participative Management." Lindsey Bousquet recently completed "Leadership Skills" in Danielson, CT. Click here to learn more about our programs for supervisors.

Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
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