Establishing Trust as a Leader - Research Paper Example

Establishing Trust as a Leader Abstract Trust plays a crucial role in leadership including the ease to influence change and increasing productivity. Perspectives such as character based and relation based explain the role that trust plays in affecting the outcome and behavior in a workplace. The followers who view the leader as considerate tend to focus on their duties and are more willing to behave according to organizational standards. The performance of employees also tends to be better when there is a high level of trust between the leader and the followers. Therefore, when a leader enters a new organization or forms a group, the key task should be to establish trust among the members. There may be hesitation from employees initially but as the conditions become conducive, trust is gradually established and the members become free to express their views. The main constraint in building trust is consistency in behavior, demonstrating concern and making decisions by the leader. INTRODUCTION For any leadership to be effective, trust plays a crucial role including the ease to influence change and the ability to increase productivity in an organization. Trust distinguishes an excellent leader from a good one and makes an individual credible. Trust can make employees to complete their work effectively and go an extra mile without asking for extra compensation. Therefore, leaders need to listen and value other people’s ideas as well as communicate honestly to establish trust with team members and stakeholders. The ability for leaders to make and keep promises also enables them to build trust while entering in a new organization. Trust should thus be recognized as an important element that a leader in an organization must have to contribute to effective functioning of various departments. This paper reviews the theoretical perspectives regarding trust, the impact of trust on leadership and how leaders can build trust in a new organization. Theoretical perspectives on trust in leadership. The trust concept is important and has been linked to various disciplines such as management, organizational justice, psychology and relationships among others. There have been different perspectives on the role that trust plays in affecting the outcomes and behavior in a workplace. One perceptive is the relationship based perspective that focuses on the followers understanding of the relationship between the leader and the follower. When the relationship between the parties is based on goodwill even though there is a standard economic contract, the relationship is of high quality. Trust will affect the way employees reciprocate to the care and expression of a leader in a relationship. The followers who feel that the leader cares tend to care back. Another perspective of trust is the character based perspective which is based on how the character of a leader affects the ability of a follower to be vulnerable in a relationship where followers are submissive. Individuals under common leadership form attitudes and behave according to their own conclusions about the attributes of a leader in respect to their integrity and fairness. Both relation-based and character-based perspectives therefore hold the view that trust is not an attribute of the leader in a relationship but a belief or a view held by their followers (Dirks and Ferrin, 2002). Impact of Trust in Leadership. Different organizations, groups and individuals including social scientists have different opinions on the impact that trust has on leadership. In the relation-based perspective, followers who view the leader as considerate tend to focus on their duties and are more willing to behave according to organizational standards. In the character-based perspective the decisions made by the leaders such as promotions and performance evaluation affect employees therefore a leader needs to be trustworthy. Followers who trust their leaders tend to be comfortable when dealing in matters that put them at risk while followers who do not trust their leaders use more energy to justify their performance. A follower may be distressed when the level of trust is low for leader making them have minimal commitment to the organization. This makes the employees to easily quit their job when they feel that the leader will is fair in decision making. Both the relation-based and character-based perspectives imply that the employees’ performance is higher when they trust the leader. Commitment to the set goals is higher when the followers believe that the leader is honest and will not take advantage of them. The level at which people generally trust others varies hence an individual’s propensity to trust affects how one interacts with leaders. The time period for which a relationship has been going on affects the level of trust with a long relationship duration having a higher level of trust. According to Dirks and Ferrin (2002), trust increases performance of individuals by directing their efforts to a common goal and reducing personal motives. In a positive environment, the relevance of trust may not be seen but in situations where an organization is on the decline, trust becomes important. Establishing trust in Leadership. Trust has different dimensions that reflect on issues such as integrity and the concern for an individual’s welfare. Leaders can therefore realize the results of trust when they have an understanding of dimensions of trust such as cognitive and affective forms of trust. When a leader enters a new organization or forms a group, the key task should be establishing trust among the members. There may be hesitation from employees initially but as the conditions conducive for trust are gradually established, the members freely express their reactions (Corey, 2007). The way in which a leader will do their introduction and create a rapport with the members has significant effect on creating an atmosphere of trust. The introduction can tell whether the leader is open and the degree of trust that the leader has on the members. It is also important for the leaders to show interest in individual members as well as the organization at large to establish trust. When the leader shows that they are concerned about the members, there is a high probability of the members reciprocating and increasing productivity in the organization. The leader should say what the expectations of the group are in the first place and model honesty. Leaders should also be aware of their own actions because they impact on the level of trust that the members will have (Corey, 2007). Members of an organization become actively involved in meaningful challenges and are able to take risks when there is a high level of trust. According to Corey (2007), a new leader should be quite observant of the signs that indicate trust is lacking such as not dealing openly with conflict. In order to get members in an organization to open up so as to build trust, scripted exercises can be done but only in rare instances. The leader should inform the members of the silence or lack of cooperation where necessary and show openness in the organization. A leader should have a strategy of making and keeping commitments to members in order to build trust. When positive phrases and developmental criticisms are used individuals are encouraged and do not perceive it negatively. A new organization’s leader should also develop systems that reward trust and take punitive measures on distrust cases. It is also important for a new leader to be fair and not to abuse power. The level of trust in an organization is also dependent on the individual members and groups. When the members are encouraged by the leader to expose fears, a level of trust is built. Members should understand that they have an interdependent relationship with the leader and keep them informed so as to create a climate of trust (Kramer and Cook, 2004). Constraints on Trust Building. Trust has numerous benefits to the organization and the responsibility of building trust is mainly on the leader or manager. The manager needs to be consistent in behavior, decision making and in demonstrating concern towards their followers. Dirks and Ferrin (2002), claim that the main challenge in building trust in an organization is the behavior of leaders. The challenge of how leaders behave can be attributed to selection of leaders based on their technical competencies but not how well the leaders interact with followers. Circumstances in organizations put leaders in situations where a decision made can meet or violate the expectations of parties involved. For example, a cost cutting measure may meet the expectations of managers but compromise on the subordinates’ demands. Leaders may also find a challenge to treat all employees the same way especially where they are of different potential. The challenge of trust is accelerated by the fact that leaders face a high level of critique from followers and therefore whenever the leaders fail to meet the expectations of employees, it is easily noticeable. When the followers focus on the trustworthiness of a leader as opposed to the dilemma faced by leaders in decision making, unfulfilled expectations are higher which has a negative outcome on the employees. A single incident where trust is broken drops the trust level significantly making it difficult for leaders to consistently maintain trust (Kramer and Cook, 2004). CONCLUSION Any leader entering a new organization needs to consider trust as key to the functioning of the various departments. The leader should offer a good impression by creating a rapport with the members in the organization when they are introducing themselves. When the leader cares about the welfare of the individual members, the members reciprocate by concentrating on the goals of the organization leading to increased productivity. Members in an organization will also be willing to take up challenges and this creates a climate of trust. Establishing trust is not only the responsibility of the leader but also of followers hence members should cooperate with the leader to establish an interdependent relationship. The leader should be able to make and keep commitments and establish systems that reward trust while taking punitive measures against distrust. References Corey, G. (2007). Theory and practice of group counseling. Belmont: Cengage Learning. Dirks, K. T., and Ferrin, D. L. (2002). Trust in Leadership: Meta-Analytic Findings and Implications for Research and Practice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87. Retrieved from http://apps.olin.wustl.edu/faculty/dirks/metaanalysis.pdf Kramer R. M., and Cook K. S. (2004). Trust and distrust in organizations: Dilemmas and approaches. New York:Russell Sage Foundation. Read More