Building trust and confidence among your direct reports is essential if you want to be an effective manager.

The Success Habit

When assigning tasks to your team, and more specifically to new members, give tasks that can be mastered and build from there. Don’t assign an extremely challenging task such that the poor employee is stressed, struggling and destined to fail. Start with the small success to faciliate the larger ones later on.

Furthermore, if an employee should fail at a given task, never criticize them publicly. Talk to them privately in your office and never make it seem like the end of the world. Explain why an action was wrong and how it should be done next time. Remember, people come to work wanting to do a good job.

Do You Expect Perfectionism?

I must admit I do, for myself, as a project engineer. But I don’t make the mistake of thinking that others are the same as me. People have different abilities.

As a manager, don’t pretend to be perfect – others will resent you for it. Involve your employees when formulating a plan to improve your business or divisional performance. This brings ownership and a better chance of success as your team want to “make their idea work”.

Building Trust

Some other ways to build trust:

• Give clear directions when you are assigning tasks. Explain why the task is required and how long they have to complete it.
• Share the vision or your goals. Don’t guard everything close to your chest because you think people only need to know the minimum to do the job. Communication is key. If you explain how each task fits in to the bigger picture, your team will appreciate its importance and take more care in their work as they understand how it affects other people’s work.
• Share your “success and failure” experiences. This makes you human and you will develop a better relationship with your team, making you a more effective manager.

Making People Management Easy

Use Employee Handbook Templates to help you manage your staff in half the time.
Note: these are designed for Australian businesses.

Trust or Bust: How to Win by Building Trust in the Workplace