Trust seen in the workplace

A colleague of mine told me recently “at this point I don’t #trust anyone in this office”, being away I knew that there were some changes, but because of the way he said it he immediately created a picture in my head that something is wrong making me more aware of what is happening around which is why I want to talk about trust at the workplace.

The irony is that after he said that, he went to another colleague and he started whispering which caught my attention and wanted to learn more about how some people are capable to trust more or less than others and how trust is making an #impact in departmental #growth. After asking some of my colleagues and friends what trust represents for them at work I came up with a few insights about the different perceptions and how to win the trust of your peers.

Trust is rooted in #psychology and “associated with friendship”, which is why at work nobody expects to trust anyone since colleagues are people who entered in an involuntary relationship and in a constant “#battle” for either power, title or recognition and even you are not going to be trusted. Friendship is created only outside of work and that’s when the trust begins, of course there are situations when colleagues become friends but even then, there will be small cracks as the #professional relationship will override the friendship.

A negative example of creating trust between #management and employees was to micromanage employees, for example a manager to whom you would ask for help and get a reply “I have already shown you how to do that” would only put a stop in asking for help and then to trust your manager and collectively to damage not only productivity but the employees spirit and trust.

Trust, like loyalty is a two-way street and from most of my experience to win someone’s trust one needs to be first an #initiator, the more open a team member is and open to new #relations the more likely is he or she will win the trust of their colleagues and it’s the same principle successful #teams are created. Same is with management. Transparency, honesty and integrity are also a few attributes that lead to win trust in the organisation and therefore achieving the organisations common #goals.