“Without trust, communication breaks. Here’s why: In any human interaction the required amount of community is inversely proportional to the level of trust.” Ben Horowitz

We’ve all been hurt and betrayed somewhere along the way.  You can probably quickly stir up a memory of a time when you trusted someone and they broke that trust.  Chances are that, while the intensity of the pain from the betrayal may have subsided, remembering the moment you discovered the break in trust still stirs up emotion on some level.

Transactional Trust

You may have one description of trust while someone you work with has an entirely different view of what trust is.  You may feel that trust comes over time after a person repeatedly operates consistently.  This view of trust comes through a lens of predictability in which you trust that someone will do “Y” because they said they would.  On some level, this form of trust is built through transactional experience.  When you learn to trust someone in this manner, you do so because they have “built up” enough credits for you to trust them.

Relational Trust

On the other end of the spectrum is trust that comes through relationships.  This type of trust is built over time and comes more from experiencing others.  In relational trust, there is a high degree of authenticity that only comes from doing life together.  It’s a trust that is built when you are “in the trenches” with others.  In these moments you have the opportunity to see how people handle adversity.  You not only see how they fall, but you see how they get up.  Seeing how people react in their moments of challenge and frustration is critical to determining how much they can be trusted.

In his book Trust: Knowing When to Give It, When to Withhold It, How to Earn It, and How to Fix It When It Gets Broken, Dr. Henry Cloud lays out what he refers to as the “anatomy of trust” drcloud.com.  According to Dr. Cloud, trust is much more than simply asking to someone to trust you.  It turns out that there are actually the following five different aspects to building, maintaining, and even rebuilding trust:

1. You trust when you feel as if you are understood.
2. You trust when you feel the other person is for you and not just themselves.
3. You trust when the other person has the capacity to deliver results.
4. You trust when the other person has the character to do the task at hand.
5. You trust when someone has the track record to deliver what is needed from them.

How to Lose Trust

It’s easy to lose trust.  All you have to do is live a life that is inauthentic, focused on self, be incapable of doing the work, or be tone deaf to the world around you.  You can work for years building trust at the highest level, but let one of these things happen and you’re deemed not trustworthy. You becoming an effective leader, however, requires more than understanding how to keep from losing trust. Simply knowing how not to lose something is akin to playing defense. When it comes to trust, you have be offensive minded. You have to understand the process of building it.

How to Build Trust

Its not easy to build trust.  Just because you ask people to trust you doesn’t mean they will.  To be trusted you must first demonstrate that you are trustworthy.  It can happen only through following a defined plan of action.  While not necessarily easy, the following actions can certainly be a part of that plan:

1. Work intentionally to understand those around you.  This happens when you generally ask questions of others.  You have to get to know them at the deepest levels possible.  This doesn’t mean you have to agree with them.  Agreeing and understanding are not the same.
2. Make every effort to ensure that those around you are as successful as they can be.  This means that you actually may have to sacrifice your wants, needs, and desires for someone else.  Its one thing to serve another person, but its something else entirely when you sacrifice for them.
3. Work to ensure that you are as competent and capable as possible.  This doesn’t mean that you are perfect in your job, but it does mean that you must be able to perform the tasks associated with your job well.  Nice people who are incapable of delivering are still nice people, but they can’t be trusted to do what is necessary due to a lack of skill.
4. Work to demonstrate that you are able to operate as a person of good character, even when others my take the easy way out.  You prove yourself trustworthy when your character is consistent with the words you espouse.
5. Build a body of work that demonstrates you are trustworthy.  There’s no shortcut to this step.  This only comes from an extended period of time as you live life in front of others.

As Dr. Cloud points out, the presence of trust is foundational to building relationships.  When trust is absent we will never feel safe and a lack of safety puts us into a defensive posture.  Without trust, we will not take the risks necessary to succeed.  As a leader, it is your responsibility to create the environment in which trust can flourish.  If you don’t lead the way then no one else will.

“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.” Stephen R. Covey