The Success of Trust

Trust in leaders can be described as the faith in the intentions and the confidence in the actions of the leaders (Asencio & Mujkic, 2016). Trust undeniably plays a significant role in not only the effectiveness of the leader and the efficiency of the follower but also on the success of the organization as a whole.

When organizations have trust in their leadership, they see higher job satisfaction, a greater commitment to the organization, a greater focus on results, and a larger readiness to accept change.

Leaders should focus on maintaining a high job satisfaction as research has shown that employees that are satisfied with their job have higher levels of performance (Asencio, 2016).

When leaders perform duties, such as performance evaluation, coaching, or training, employees feel distressed unless they have trust in their leader. When this trust is absent, the employee’s job satisfaction plummets during these activities (Asencio, 2016). Without trust, leaders will have a hard time performing managerial duties without adding stressors to their followers.

When followers trust their leaders, they feel more secure in their job and thus will stay longer, perform at higher levels, and grow more professionally.

The second way trust influences the success of organizations is by facilitating a higher level of trust in the organization from its employees. Transformational leaders have been proven to promote organizational commitment (Asencio & Mujkic, 2016). This trusted leadership style uses the high level of interpersonal trust in the leader-follower relationship to cultivate a broader outlook in that of the followers. These followers are able to shift their focus off of personal self-interests to the mission and goals of the larger entity.

When there is trust in leadership, followers are more aware of the truly important tasks and the expected outcomes. These employees tend to perform beyond the normal expectations and standards and thus achieve higher levels for the larger organization because their intrinsic needs have been satisfied (Asencio & Mujkic, 2016). Simply, these people trust that the organization will take care of them because their leadership has proven it.

“Leadership plays a decisive role in enhancing organizational creativity, launching and driving innovation projects, and implementing innovation projects and overcoming resistance” (Kesting, 2015, p. 22). Good leaders have teams that are not focused on personal agendas but are focused on obtaining the agreed-upon goals for the larger team. When teams do not focus on results, they fail to grow, lose in the market and lose valuable employees. The ultimate measure of any team is the results they are able to deliver (Lencioni, 2002).

Research has proven that there are links between employees who are focused on innovation and results with trusted leadership (Kesting, 2015). If leaders want to have followers who are focused on results, there need to be high levels of trust in their relationship.

Having agility in the marketplace is a key differentiator for any organization and could be the difference between high or low profits.

“In a never-ending pursuit for continual improvement — called kaizen by the Japanese — change must occur. Since leadership is about coping with change, leaders need to motivate and inspire subordinates to overcome the normal resistance to change” (Satterlee, 2013, p. 115). Effective leaders must create an acceptance and a readiness to change in their followers in order for organizations to grow.

The best way leaders accomplish creating this readiness to change is by cultivating a trust-filled leader-follower relationship. Because change involves uncertainty and risk-taking, subordinates are normally averse to embracing new initiatives. People normally avoid change, unless they feel safe and secure. Because of this natural avoidance, trust plays such a critical role in motivating people through changing events (Matthysen & Harris, 2018).

It is simple — if employees trust their leaders, the employees will achieve excellence, will be bought into the organization’s goals, will be focused on hitting those goals, and then will be ready to change as the organization needs.

Trust creates an atmosphere of radical innovation, creativity, and greatness. If an organization is looking to gain a market advantage, increase efficiency, or reduce talent cost, then they should embrace this important leadership method of trust.

Related posts:

Unlike other public blockchains, GaiaWorld game chain requires even faster transaction speed as it aims at an ecosystem dedicated to game applications. It’s no secret that Bitcoin and Ethereum, the…

As plans for the next school year began to unfold, we checked in with our members who work in education and youth to weigh in. We wanted to learn more about their hopes, concerns, and ongoing plans…