I once worked as a director of a charity and one of the divisions of that organization was full of problems, and as usual in such cases, the employees complained about the manager and the manager complained about the employees. While I was talking to the manager of that department, he told me, “The employees don’t trust me, I wish you would ask them to trust me and convince them that trust is essential for the success of the team!”
Trust is never asked of others, but given to us when we are worthy of it. Trustworthiness comes from the combination of two things: Competence and ethics. Competence means the information, experience and skills possessed by a person in the field in which he works, When we have to have surgery, we don’t just hand over our bodies to an honest, loyal and kind surgeon. We are also looking for a skilled surgeon who is known for his ingenuity and competence. As for ethics, it means the values that we believe in and that express themselves in certain behaviors, and I will talk here about seven basic behaviors that if we continue to do them, they will make others trust us:
- Be transparent and honest
Don’t confuse social intelligence with social hypocrisy; social intelligence means being who you are but in a way that others accept, and social hypocrisy means pretending to be what others want. I remember that my trust in one of the people was shaken a lot because I was with him on a visit to a friend and we noticed the strangeness of the colors that they painted the rooms of his house, so that person praised the high taste of the owner of the house and the wonderful harmony that characterizes the colors of the rooms, and when we left the house he said to me: (What a horrible taste!) I said to him: (And why did you show all that admiration?) He told me: (I was complimenting him!). Yes, there are people in our lives with whom we do not agree in many things, but we respect them and trust them because we feel their sincerity and that they are not trying to deceive us, on the other hand, there are people who go along with us in all matters and agree with us on everything and yet we do not respect them and do not trust them because we feel their insincerity. Nathwell Hawthorne says, “No human being can for a long time appear with one face in front of himself and another face in front of people without finally feeling confused by his ignorance of which one is the real face!”
- Show kindness and respect
Kindness and respect stem from a deep sense of human dignity and that others are human beings like us who deserve the care and attention we deserve. They feel what we feel when we are ignored or abused. At the end of one of the courses in which I was instructed, I felt ashamed and resentful of myself because one of the participants wrote in her review that I did not care much about the participants and I really remembered that I was more interested in explaining ideas than in human interaction with everyone in the course, especially that participant who was few words. Human beings are not like things, they have emotions, and a small amount of tact and kindness when practiced continuously leads to great gains. Learning communication skills with others does not work unless we carry within us a real interest in people and concern for their feelings, as people are not deceived by superficial techniques of kindness and they completely differentiate between those who care about them and those who represent them.
- I apologize if I made a mistake
We all sin because we are human. One of the most powerful things that boosts people’s trust in us is to apologize to them if we have wronged them. Some people try to justify their mistakes and ask others to accept this justification and call it an apology! Apologizing does not mean justifying the mistake, It means acknowledging it and asking for forgiveness from the other party. It’s not an apology to say to someone you’ve offended by speaking (I didn’t mean what I told you, I’ve been in a rage), Apologies to tell him (I made a mistake and I apologize).
- Show loyalty in the back of the unseen
One of the things that weakens our trust in someone is to see them speak ill of others in their absence. One of the things that boosts our trust in someone is to see them maintain their respect for others in their absence, even if they disagree with them. When you refuse in a council to remind others of the bad in front of you in their absence, those present at that council will trust you because they know that you will refuse to be mentioned badly in front of you in their absence. It is okay to criticize others in their absence and show that you disagree with them and do not agree with their actions, but provided that your criticism is far from personal attack and insult, and that you use in your criticism of the absent person the same phrases that you would have used if he were present.
- Explain to others what you expect from them
The reason for many problems that occur in our relationships with others, especially at work, is that we do not explain to them what we expect from them. We have to tell others what we expect from them and discuss these expectations with them and get their support for it. Clarity in expectations and obtaining the approval of others removes misunderstandings from relationships and builds trust in them. I once read about a relationship between a manager and one of his employees that became so bad that the manager decided to fire that employee and informed his assistant of that decision and the assistant asked him to give him one last chance to address the matter; the assistant manager asked that employee to write a list of things that he thought his manager expected him to do and then asked the manager for a list of things the employee was expected to do and then put these lists in front of each other and presented them to both the manager and the employee and each of them felt With great surprise because of the vast difference between these two lists, The solution was that the manager sat down with the employee and explained to him what he expected from him and they agreed together on these expectations and then all the problems that were poisoning the relationship between them disappeared.
- Think about the benefit of everyone and practice empathetic listening
When others who disagree with you feel that you are eager to come up with a solution that will ensure your benefit and theirs, they will trust you. Thinking about benefit for all means having the moral strength to postpone thinking about your own benefits until you understand what the other party wants and why they want it. This requires you to listen empathetically, that is, to temporarily abandon your own thoughts and assumptions, and to make all your concern in listening to the other to understand the content of his speech and his feelings about that content and then tell him what you understood from him, such as saying, “I understand that you feel wronged because you did not get the promotion you asked for” When we feel that the other person is keen on our benefit and that he is making a sincere effort to understand us, we can only trust him, no matter how much we disagree with him in opinion.
- Give promises and keep them
Nothing destroys trust faster than making promises and then breaking them, Nothing builds confidence more than fulfilling the promises a person makes to himself. Sometimes we may not be able to deliver on promises due to circumstances beyond our control, Then we should not shirk others or ignore our promises to them, but explain to them why we have not been able to fulfill these promises.
Finally, a study conducted by the FranklinCovey Foundation on the factors that lead to the loss of organizations showed that the lack of trust among the members of the organization is the factor that causes the greatest loss. We can imagine how an organization with no trust among its members will have less effective communication, delayed diagnosis and treatment of problems, and no new initiatives, innovations or ideas. There will be many cases of resignation and leaving work, all of which will reflect a loss on the institution, Rather, mistrust generates all sorts of negative emotions in the organization and absorbs all kinds of positive emotions from it. Whether we are parents who want to influence our children, professors who want to influence our students, or managers who want to influence our employees, our ability to influence and inspire others is directly proportional to how much they trust us. The seven behaviors I outline in this article build and reinforce this trust.
Yasser Al-Aiti