by “Trust is good, control is better.” This is the opinion of many bosses. On the other hand, I hear from employees that they can no longer trust their closest colleagues. They tell me about nasty power games and deceitful evil behavior. Do we mistrust rather than trust each other? Do men trust each other differently than women? What can bosses and colleagues do to strengthen mutual trust in the team? To this end, I spoke to the business psychologist and business coach Eva Schulte-Austum, who has been dealing with “trust” for years. She has conducted 350 interviews worldwide and studied trust research. In her book “Everyone can trust” she gives 9 recipes for more trust and a fulfilled life.
Eva, what exactly is trust?
Eva Schulte-Austum: Trust is the willingness to surrender control and accept uncertainty. At the same time, we assume that our counterpart does not take advantage of it. So we assume it has a positive intention.
Is there a difference between trust in a private and professional context?
Eva Schulte-Austum: Basically, building trust in the private and professional context works according to the same mechanisms. We assess the character and the competence of a person and then decide whether we trust them.
Characteristics include traits such as honesty, respect, support, or discretion. We trust more easily those who are kind to us and act with integrity. Competence, on the other hand, includes aspects such as knowledge, experience, and results. They serve as an indication of whether someone has the necessary skills to meet our expectations.
If someone disappoints us because they don’t know better, or they lack the necessary experience, we forgive them relatively quickly. On the other hand, if our counterpart disappoints us for selfish reasons, we won’t forget it anytime soon. Character strength is, therefore, more important for building and maintaining trust than technical competence. This applies in both private and professional contexts.
Why is a trusting relationship between colleagues so important?
Eva Schulte-Austum: Where there is trust, a team wins something that you can neither demand nor force: loyalty. Loyalty to a person, especially when things get difficult. The support of the colleague who is going down in work. Standing up for one another when someone on the team is in trouble. Commitment to tasks that do not fall within your own area of responsibility.
Research also shows that teams in which there is trusting cooperation work more productively. The employees are healthier, more relaxed, and happier. They are significantly less ill, suffer less stress, and are more satisfied with their job. Not only does each employee benefit from this, but the entire team.
New employees are often viewed with skepticism in the team. Do we mistrust rather than trust in our job?
Eva Schulte-Austum: This is actually the case in Germany. In this country, people have a stronger need for security than in other countries, such as Sweden, Switzerland, or Vietnam. In Germany, people are generally more skeptical than elsewhere – also towards new colleagues.
A major reason for this is trust myths, so-called half-truths about trust, which persist in our heads. The top 3 in the job are: “Trust is good. Control is better.”, “Mistrust protects me from bad experiences.”, “My counterpart has to earn trust first.” Those who believe these half-truths are initially more skeptical and therefore less willing to trust people they haven’t yet known.
The world of work is getting faster and faster. Will we still have the time in the future to first build trust with colleagues?
Eva Schulte-Austum: In the future, we will have less and less time to slowly build up the necessary trust over time. Our working world is constantly changing. We need trust so that we can face these challenges with confidence. Because only then will we be ready to break new ground, support changes, and take risks. And that is essential to be successful in the future.
The good news: сontrary to the assumptions “Trust has to be earned” and “Trust takes time”, trust can very well be built up quickly. Research shows that whether we trust or not is above all a personal decision. This turns trust into a competence that can be learned and trained.
Especially for executives whose main task in the future is to manage good relationships – with customers, colleagues, and employees – trust becomes a necessary core competence. Because this ability not only influences your own success, but also the success of the team and thus of the entire company.
But how do you manage to build trust quickly?
Eva Schulte-Austum: The fastest and most effective way to build trust is to make an advance payment yourself: the leap of faith. To make a conscious decision to trust the other person first – at least until he teaches us better.
The skeptics among us may now shake our heads and think “Well, once I trust other people in principle, then I’ll be disappointed more often.” In fact, the opposite is the case, as research shows: if you give away trust carefully, you will have positive experiences in most cases.
The reason: trust obliges because it starts at a very sensitive point: our honor. Regardless of whether we want to win the trust of customers, colleagues, or the boss. The fastest and most effective way to gain trust is to give it away yourself.
Honesty is very important to many employees. What does it have to do with trust?
Eva Schulte-Austum: Honesty is one of the most important characteristics to judge whether we can trust someone. It is shown in the fact that someone is ready, to tell the truth, even if he has to fear negative consequences.
Respectfully formulated feedback, for example in the form of honest and constructive criticism, can create trust. If, on the other hand, honesty is used as a weapon, for example, to hurt or embarrass others, it has the opposite effect.
Is trust actually a question of gender? Do women trust each other differently than men do?
Eva Schulte-Austum: In fact, from a scientific point of view, there is a small but measurable difference. Men base their trust in other people more on competence. They pay more attention to whether someone has the necessary experience, expertise, and results.
Women, on the other hand, attach great importance to the strength of character such as helpfulness, honesty, respect, and discretion. But for trust to really grow and develop, it needs both: character and competence. And the genders agree on this again.
Many bosses think “Trust is good, control is better.” What do you tell them?
Eva Schulte-Austum: Neither trust nor control are good per se. Both have their strengths and their weaknesses. We should therefore always ask how much trust and how much control is appropriate in a given situation. An “either-or-thinking” does not do justice to a differentiated view.
Rather, it is about rethinking the right balance between trust and control, because only the right balance makes both effective. As a rule of thumb: weak trust thrives better in a controlled framework. Control only needs to be deeply trusted.
What are the most important recipes for trust, and what can managers and colleagues do in day-to-day business to strengthen trust?
Eva Schulte-Austum: Whether we want to gain trust or want to be seen as trustworthy ourselves – both are based on the same recipes. In my book, I present a total of nine requirements that ensure that we have successful and trusting relationships – both professionally and privately. Here are my three most important trust tips for successful relationships:
Transparency – Make one’s own actions understandable and clarify mutual expectations. This makes it easy to avoid misunderstandings.
Reliability – Be reliable over the long term. Only promise things that you can and really want to keep. Empty promises harm every relationship in the long run.
Sincerity – Be loyal and with integrity. Strengthen others’ backs when it matters. Follow your own principles and values instead of just talking about them.
