17 behaviours that build trust with your team

75%of teams report being dysfunctional.

You have a chance to beat the odds by building trust with your team.

Here are 17 ways to do that.

1. Pick up a few tasks from the backlog when you have a quiet week. (Ideally, tasks nobody else wants.)

SHARE THE PAIN

2. Take an on-call rotation once in a while.

SHARE THE PAIN

3. If your team has daily checklists, take it on sometimes.

SHARE THE PAIN

4. Jump into major incidents and help troubleshoot.

SHARE THE PAIN

5. Set up your desk next to your team members’ and be active in day-to-day conversations.

SHARE THE PAIN

6. When you need to reschedule a meeting, give plenty of notice and be open about why.

LEAD BY EXAMPLE

7. Close your laptop during 1-on-1s. (And as many other meetings as possible.)

LEAD BY EXAMPLE

8. When you disagree with a decision, let your team know why – and that you’ll rally behind it nonetheless.

LEAD BY EXAMPLE

9. When someone is interrupted in a meeting, make sure they get a chance to finish before moving on.

LEAD BY EXAMPLE

10. Make feedback as specific and immediate as possible. (Don’t save it for the annual review!)

GIVE (AND INVITE) FEEDBACK

11. Don’t sugar-coat critical feedback. Challenge directly, but speak compassionately.

GIVE (AND INVITE) FEEDBACK

12. Give people problems to solve instead of tasks to complete.

GUIDE AND DEVELOP

13. Ask where they’d like to take their career and their life. (Again, don’t wait for the annual review!)

GUIDE AND DEVELOP

14. Set goals for the team as a whole, and let them figure out how to get there.

GUIDE AND DEVELOP

15. Encourage team members to ask “why?” and challenge the status quo.

EMPOWER PEOPLE

16. Delegate decision-making authority, not just tasks.

EMPOWER PEOPLE

17. Tollerate honest mistakes, and encourage people to learn from them.

EMPOWER PEOPLE

When your team trusts you, they bring everything they’ve got to their work.

Trust builds in a virtuous cycle.

Let the cycle start with you.