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7 Sure-fire Ways to Earn Your Employees’ Trust

by | Nov 7, 2023 | Adaptability, Communication, Influence, Positive Feedback, Recognition, Respectful Workplace, Trust

7 ways to earn your employees’ trust 

Employees are sensitive creatures, and one of the quickest things they pick up on is whether or not their boss trusts them.

Trust is a critical element for a healthy workgroup and company. Without it, morale and productivity suffer, good employees leave and the rumor mill works overtime.

What does a failure to display trust look like? Micromanaging and a lack of willingness to delegate are two of the most common traits.

Other behaviors that make employees feel as if you don’t trust them include:

  • Pridefulness or lack of humility
  • Failure to build relationships with individual team members
  • Dictatorial behavior
  • Failure to listen and accept other viewpoints
  • Failure to admit your mistakes or accept that others make mistakes

Here are seven tips for how to squelch your trust-busting tendencies.

1. Establish a Personal Connection

Great leaders make time to get to know their team and what each employee needs to perform well. This doesn’t have to be time-consuming. All it requires is a stop by someone’s desk to ask, “How’s it going? Do you have any questions about that new task you’ve been assigned?”

It’s easy to lose touch with your team when you’re constantly caught up in the hustle and bustle. But if you don’t pay attention to current projects and the challenges your employees are facing, you can’t provide the support they need to keep efficiency and productivity humming. And if you’re aloof most of the time, your team won’t feel comfortable coming to you when they need help.

In addition, demonstrate that you care about your team members as human beings, not just employees. Keep up with their personal lives. If someone has a death in the family or a sick dog, extend a simple expression of concern or maybe offer them some extra time off to show that you care. This can help build mutual trust and loyalty between you and your employees.

2. Show Humility 

No one wants to work for a know-it-all or someone who can’t admit when they’ve made a mistake.

If you find yourself falling into that habit, remember, you’re a business leader, not a god. No one expects you to know everything. In reality, the ability to admit a mistake or ask for help demonstrates strength.

Even better, acknowledge your team’s expertise by asking your employees for their opinions and implementing their recommendations as often as possible.

3. Connect the Dots for People 

Facilitation builds trust because you’re helping team members make alliances in other departments and broaden their skills.

Simply ask, “Is there anything you need to do your job better?” You’re likely to find many opportunities to help your employees.

For instance, Jenny needs help finding the right person to help her resolve an issue she’s having with your company’s accounting software. You introduce her to Max, your company’s accounting software wiz. This simple gesture shows Jenny that you’ve got her back. It shows that you want to see her succeed. This can go a long way in helping you build trust.

4. Make room for mistakes 

We all make mistakes. Some are small – such as a misplaced file – and some are cringe-worthy. Your employees will appreciate it if you quickly debrief them on the small mistakes and treat those as growth opportunities on the way to better performance.

Conversation starters may include:

  • Talk me through what led you to that decision.
  • What do you think went wrong?
  • Let’s talk about what can be done differently next time.

Rarely will someone make a mistake so huge that it affects the business and becomes worthy of heavy-handed involvement from you. But when a big problem happens, remember that it’s usually not one person’s fault, but a series of missteps and broken processes.

Treating employees’ mistakes as a business problem rather than a personal failure signals to your team that they can trust you to react appropriately when things go wrong.

5. Ditch the micromanagement 

It can be tempting to think you know the best way to perform a task. In reality, people perform better when they’re allowed to get a job done in their own way.

Other ways to throw off the shackles of micromanagement include:

  • Let your team make routine decisions without coming to you for permission.
  • Eliminate unnecessary approval processes.
  • Delegate tasks as learning experiences and set expectations up front.
  • Acknowledge your way is not the only way.
  • Encourage your team members to hold each other accountable – this should not come from you only.

In addition to making employees feel like you trust them, empowering team members encourages them to use their creativity to get the job done.

6. Demonstrate trust logistically 

It seems simple, but the lines of communication must be open in order to build trust. This doesn’t have to be complicated. A few logistics are all you need.

First, it’s hard to trust a manager you rarely see or speak with. Make yourself available by leaving your office door open as much as possible. Walk the shop floor, greeting people, asking questions and offering help.

One caveat: You have to “manage by walking around” regularly. If you only talk to employees when something is wrong, they’re likely to fear your sudden presence in their midst rather than trust your being there.

Sharing meals brings people together, so host regular employee get-togethers.  A monthly team lunch to celebrate that month’s birthdays can be an excellent time to find out what’s really going on in your team members’ professional and personal lives.

7. Share success and give credit 

Nothing undermines trust faster than a boss who hogs credit for a job well done. Don’t be that manager or employees will stop sharing their good ideas.

In staff meetings, ask everyone to share a success story or something they feel good about. Publicly recognize when one or more team members resolve a long-standing issue, land a new client or find a way to reduce costs.

Praise is both highly motivating to employees and free. All it takes is a bit of thought on your part.

Trust runs both ways 

Source: Insperisty Staff, 2023

“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them”. 
– Ernest Hemingway

Did you know this about disc?

DiSC is an assessment that aids with effective communication

Your Colleagues

In the Your Colleagues section in Catalyst, users can:

  • Learn their colleagues’ strengths, when to pull them into a project, and what stresses them out
  • Compare preferences and tendencies across a range of workplace behaviors using the DiSC model
  • Gain access to tips that help them work better together in a variety of situations

Many Catalyst users review this section before heading into a meeting or kicking off a new project with a coworker.

4 Differences Between Learning and Development

by | Sep 26, 2023 | Continuous Learning, Executive Leadership, Influence, Leadership Development, Recognition, Trust

4 Differences between learning and development  

HR professionals are under a lot of pressure to prove that leadership development programs have a return on investment. When leaders’ time is precious and financial resources are limited, how do organizations get the most out of their programs? One way is to focus on the difference between learning and development. But what is the difference between learning and development?

Learning is defined as gaining new knowledge. Development is applying that knowledge to drive results and growth. When it comes to leadership, we simply can’t afford to build programs where leaders are learning but not developing.

For starters, if your leaders are learning but not developing, you might see one or more of the following:

1. The organization relies too much on self-directed learning.

It’s common to hear that leaders should own their development. Yes, it’s true that leaders should fully participate in development and try to apply what they’ve learned to get better. What this doesn’t mean is that we should only rely on self-directed learning.

Many organizations invest in huge online libraries of learning content. They promote them to leaders as a “one-stop shop” for building leadership skills on demand. Sounds great, right? As an added bonus, this content is often high quality and presented in a compelling way.

Unfortunately, this “build it and they will come” strategy doesn’t provide the same benefits as a more coordinated leadership development program. But what does a more coordinated program have? Leaders can also practice skills in a safe environment and socialize new behaviors while working with their peers.

Lately, leaders have been asking for more development experiences with a social component. In the era of virtual and hybrid work, leaders feel more isolated from their peers. According to DDI’s recent Global Leadership Forecast, their most desired development experience is instructor-led training. Meanwhile, self-paced digital learning is near the bottom of the list of preferred learning methods.

2. Leaders participate in programs but don’t change and grow.

Learning only becomes development when it’s applied on the job. When leaders go to training programs but don’t change their behavior, they may have learned, but they certainly haven’t developed.

Does this cause a lack of change and growth? It’s often a shortage of self-insight. Resources like 360 feedback tools and simulation-based assessments uncover blind spots. These resources also do a good job of showing leaders why they need to change and how they can do it. In addition, with the data and insights these tools provide, leaders become more committed to making a change.

Leaders also have a hard time changing when they feel their employee development isn’t connected to the organization’s business or cultural priorities. If the same learning programs have been in place for years despite significant changes to the organization, leaders may see the programs as outdated, irrelevant, or a mere formality. But how do top organizations avoid this? Regular leadership needs analyses are a good place to start. It can also be helpful for organizations to align development offerings with the challenges their leaders are facing today.

3. Learning is episodic and lacks “connective tissue.”

When learning is event-based and not part of a bigger development experience, it’s hard to build the momentum for meaningful leadership development. Leaders may have a desire to make the most of leadership development opportunities, but ultimately, they need guidance and direction to do it. As a leadership development professional, your job is to create that structure, accountability, and engagement.

For this reason, many organizations have adopted a learning journey approach. This approach treats development as behavior change that takes place over time. Leaders achieve behavior change through a focused mix of formal learning, one-on-one coaching, assessment, and online reinforcement tools (like job aids, microcourses, chatbots, and practice simulations). In a learning journey, leaders are given a road map for development as well as all the ways they can apply their learning on the job.

DDI research on the impact of learning journeys shows that organizations that adopt this approach are 3.4X more likely to have high-caliber leadership development. These organizations are also 2.9X more likely to have high leadership strength and 2.5X more likely to be financially successful.

4. Learners don’t have support from their leaders.

Learners have the best opportunity to develop when their own leader supports them with coaching. In this environment, learning is the means to better performance, but not the end. For learning to become development, the learner’s leader must challenge them to apply new skills and provide meaningful feedback.

Some well-meaning managers may send struggling leaders to training programs so that “HR can fix them.” While someone struggling with their leadership skills should certainly participate in leadership development, relying on HR to fix performance issues is a sign that the leader’s leader could play a more active role in their development.

Source: DDI, 2023

“If you cant fly, then run. If you cant run, then walk. And, if you cant walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward”. 
– Martin Luther King Jr.

Did you know this about disc?

DiSC is an assessment that aids with effective communication

Your Colleagues

  • In the Your Colleagues section in Catalyst, users can:

    • Learn their colleagues’ strengths, when to pull them into a project, and what stresses them out
    • Compare preferences and tendencies across a range of workplace behaviors using the DiSC model
    • Gain access to tips that help them work better together in a variety of situations

    Many Catalyst users review this section before heading into a meeting or kicking off a new project with a coworker.

5 Can’t Miss Keys to Fostering Innovation in the Workplace

by | Aug 30, 2023 | Active Listening, Adaptability, Feelings, Influence

5 keys to fostering innovation in the workplace

In business, it’s critical to adapt to and create change in order to stay ahead of the competition. When you foster a culture of innovation in the workplace, the payoff can be greater business achievement.

It can’t just be the members of your leadership team who are tasked with coming up with ideas to do things better or faster. It requires a commitment and input from all levels of the company.

  1. Create opportunities for sharing ideas

Does your organization have a culture of innovation? Can your employees come to you with ideas? Or do you regard questions and suggestions as disruptive?

When employees have the opportunity to be innovative and contribute to your company’s mission and goals, it increases their level of engagement. They feel a part of a whole and see how their work moves the business forward. It’s a terrific motivator.

Your goal is to create an environment where sharing ideas is OK. Be receptive and appreciative of your employees’ interest and input. While every suggestion may not be something the organization takes on, the ideas are worth considering.

Once you tap into the intellectual capital of your employees, you – and they – may be surprised at what you uncover. But you may find there are some who are reluctant to get involved; they’re likely afraid of failure or think their jobs aren’t innovative or creative.

To pave the way for employees who are reluctant, consider having a group brainstorming session. Ground rules should dictate that there are no bad ideas. This is also where you make sure the more timid employees have an opportunity to participate.

Consider having everyone write their ideas on index cards and tape them on the wall. Or for a hybrid and remote team, create a survey that’s always available for individuals to share ideas. Whichever you decide, this makes it so the idea is the focus of attention – not the individual. This will provide the opportunity for all to share ideas, not just the superstars.

  1. Provide the right resources

You have to give your team enough time, budget and encouragement to truly innovate. They need all three resources to be successful.

Time is usually the resource that’s lacking. There’s never enough of it – we get embroiled in the daily to-dos and don’t consider future needs.

This may require a shift in culture for your organization. Allowing time for brainstorming, research, testing, failure, recalibration and implementation is difficult. It takes commitment and planning. Innovation and creativity don’t happen without the investment of time.

What can you do to provide the resource of time needed to foster innovation in the workplace?

  • Set aside weekly chunks of time for team discussions about what’s working or not working – and how it can be made better.
  • Challenge your employees to help you overcome an obstacle with an inventive way of dealing with it.
  • Split them into teams for a friendly competition on problem-solving.
  • Offer training and development on creativity, change, teamwork and motivation.
  • Embrace failure as just another step toward getting it right.

As for budget, are there resources your team needs to be more creative?

Does everyone have the right digital tools that will help create innovative solutions? Is there additional training needed for increased learning and development in new areas of focus? What’s it going to cost you to bring out the innovation on your team?

Encouragement is the secret sauce in fostering innovation in the workplace. The first step is to make clear the company’s key objectives so that new ideas focus on what’s important for the organization.

The next step is to make your workplace a safe place to take a risk. Remember, not everyone wants to speak up for fear of failure or rejection. But everyone has ideas – it may just take some time and practice to get them to share.

For ongoing encouragement and learning, suggest books or articles on creativity and innovation to help employees find out how to tap into their own creative ideas.

You also could have employees spend time job-shadowing someone in the company. It just might spur one of them to do their job differently to align better with company goals.

If you’re open to hearing about it, your employees will likely embrace the opportunity to make a positive change. Most people are surprised at how innovative they can be, given a chance.

  1. Promote freedom and flexibility

As we’ve discussed in previous blogs on how various generations like to work, many employees are more comfortable working wherever they are, rather than the confines of a cubicle or traditional nine to five schedule.

They feel restricted – especially from an innovation perspective – if they’re required to work a certain way, at a certain in, following very specific instructions.

It’s largely because of generations Y and Z that organizations are reconsidering how employees get work done. We’re seeing more workweeks that include alternate days off, flexible schedules, longer workdays with more days off, varied start times, remote schedules, etc.

While some businesses can’t afford to organize shifts based on employee preferences – customer needs take priority – some organizations can be more flexible on when employee productivity happens.

When your employees are working at a time, place and pace that’s best for them, they’ll be more apt to offer creative and innovative ways for getting work done. And, if they feel they have the freedom to work in the way that’s best for them, they’ll likely feel more valued and be more engaged.

Innovation can flourish, and your bottom line sees the result when productivity and employee engagement are at their peak.

A side note: The perception that a company has an old-fashioned work structure may make it difficult to attract and retain employees.

  1. Build a diverse team

What is the design of your team? Is it a diverse group of thinkers?

News flash: If you’ve hired like-minded people of similar experiences, backgrounds, skill sets, mindsets, age, etc., you’re on a path to innovation failure. For innovation to make a real difference, you need a variety of ideas.

Take a fresh look at your team. If they’re all like you, make sure your next hire is somebody who breaks the mold. Then, listen to them. Innovation doesn’t work if you hire people with varied skills and experiences but insulate yourself from their ideas.

Encourage your staff to experience new things, brush up on professional development and tap into what’s going on in your industry. When they learn about trends or new concepts through education, invite them to figure out how to incorporate those into their work.

  1. Work to individual strengths

Find the right people for each task. This may be different than a job description. It’s about productivity and where their skill sets fit best. You can enhance your employees’ innovation when the skills and tasks align.

Let’s say you’re trying to streamline your processes for greater efficiency. You might gather a group of workers together and charge them with finding ways to restructure the process.

You could pick your top four superstars and turn them loose on the project. But take a moment to think about it: Is there someone whose natural bent can bring something different to the team? Someone you wouldn’t typically seek out for a special project?

What about Joe? Although he usually stays in the background and lets other shine – because he believes there’s really no “innovation” or “creativity” in his job – you remember something: He’s the guy who reads math and statistics books for fun.

Could Joe’s acumen be the catalyst for a new process at your company? Joe – who never thought innovation was part of his job description – is suddenly the company’s newest innovator.

Given his success on this project, he’s ready to tackle the next challenge. You’ve just unleashed innovation in the workplace!

“Innovation is taking two things that exsist and putting them together in a new way”. 
– Tom Freston

Did you know this about disc?

DiSC is an assessment that aids with effective communication

Conversation Starters

With Conversation Starters on Catalyst, teams have an easy and fun way to tackle common challenges that hinder performance and move to tangible change. By combining DiSC with simple discussion guides, teams can talk about personality-based differences and how they affect group performance.

You will:

  • Get to know each other faster
  • Communicate more clearly
  • Make better decisions together

Getting started is easy!

  1. Visit the Your Groups feature on Catalyst
  2. Create and save a group with people in your organization
  3. Click into Conversation Starters and choose a topic

10 Characteristics of a Good Leader

by | Aug 8, 2023 | Adaptability, Communication, Decision-making, Executive Leadership, Influence, Trust

10 Characteristics of a good leader 

No matter how much or how quickly the world changes — how automated or disrupted work and life become — one fact remains: outstanding leaders create a positive path forward for us all. But what does good leadership really look like?


Based upon our decades of research and experience in the field, we’ve found that good leaders consistently possess certain essential qualities. Read on to learn what they are, and how to begin cultivating these 10 characteristics of a good leader within yourself, on your team, and at your organization.

  1. Integrity

Integrity is an essential leadership trait for the individual and the organization. It’s especially important for top-level executives who are charting the organization’s course and making countless other significant decisions. Our research shows that integrity may actually be a potential blind spot for organizations. Make sure your organization reinforces the importance of honesty and integrity to leaders at various levels.

  1. Delegation

Delegating is one of the core responsibilities of a leader, but it can be tricky to delegate effectively. The goal isn’t just to free yourself up — it’s also to enable your direct reports to grow, facilitate teamwork, provide autonomy, and lead to better decision-making. The best leaders build trust on their teams through effective delegation.

  1. Communication

The best leaders are skilled communicators who are able to communicate in a variety of ways, from transmitting information to inspiring others to coaching direct reports. And you must be able to listen to, and communicate with, a wide range of people across roles, geographies, social identities, and more.

  1. Self awareness

While this is a more inwardly focused trait, self-awareness and humility are paramount for leadership. The better you understand yourself and recognize your own strengths and weaknesses, increasing your self-awareness, the more effective you can be as a leader.

  1. Gratitude

Being thankful can lead to higher self-esteem, reduced depression and anxiety, and better sleep. Gratitude can even make you a better leader. Yet few people regularly say “thank you” in work settings, even though most people say they’d be willing to work harder for an appreciative boss. The best leaders know how to demonstrate sincere gratitude in the workplace.

  1. Learning agility

Learning agility is the ability to know what to do when you don’t know what to do.
If you’re a “quick study” or are able to excel in unfamiliar circumstances, you might already be learning agile. But anybody can foster learning agility through practice, experience, and effort.

  1. Influence

For some people, “influence” feels like a dirty word. But being able to convince people through logical, emotional, or cooperative appeals is an important trait of inspiring, effective leaders. Influence is quite different from manipulation, and it needs to be done authentically.

  1. Empathy

If you show more inclusive leadership and empathetic behaviors towards your direct reports, our research shows you’re more likely to be viewed as a better performer by your boss. Plus, empathy and inclusion are imperatives for improving workplace conditions for those around you.

  1. Courage

It can be hard to speak up at work, whether you want to voice a new idea, provide feedback to a direct report, or flag a concern for someone above you. That’s part of the reason courage is a key trait of good leaders. Rather than avoiding problems or allowing conflicts to fester, courage enables truth-telling so leaders can step up and move things in the right direction.

  1. Respect

Treating people with respect on a daily basis is one of the most important things a leader can do. It will ease tensions and conflict, create trust, and improve effectiveness. Respect is about more than the absence of disrespect, and it can be shown in many different ways, but often starts with being a good listener.

Source: Center for creative leadership

“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality”. 
– Warren Bennis

Did you know this about disc?

DiSC is an assessment that aids with effective communication

DiSC Quadrants

Although the DiSC dimensions form four distinct styles, it is probably more useful to think of the DiSC circle in continuous terms. Consider that each of the four styles blend into their neighboring styles much the same way that colors blend into one another on the color wheel. Red and yellow are distinct colors, but they both blend to form a new color, orange. In the same way, the D and i styles are distinct, but the space between them on the circle represents an equally distinct set of traits. 

The Counterintuitive Wisdom You Need to Get People to Embrace Change

by | Apr 18, 2021 | Adaptability, Change Management, Communication, Influence, Newsletter

Common wisdom in management science and practice has it that to build support for a change project, visionary leadership is needed to outline what is wrong with the current situation. By explaining how the envisioned change will result in a better and more appealing future, leaders can overcome resistance to change. But research, recently published in the Academy of Management Journal, leads us to add a very important caveat to this.

A root cause of resistance to change is that employees identify with and care for their organizations. People fear that after the change, the organization will no longer be the organization they value and identify with — and the higher the uncertainty surrounding the change, the more they anticipate such threats to the organizational identity they hold dear. Change leadership that emphasizes what is good about the envisioned change and bad about the current state of affairs typically fuels these fears because it signals that changes will be fundamental and far-reaching.

Counterintuitively, then, effective change leadership has to emphasize continuity — how what is central to “who we are” as an organization will be preserved, despite the uncertainty and changes on the horizon.

This is a straightforward and actionable notion that we put to the test in two studies. The first study was a survey of 209 employees and their supervisors from a number of organizations that announced organizational change plans (including relocations and business expansions, reorganizations, structural or technical changes, product changes, changes in leadership, and mergers). The focus was on how effective the leadership was in stimulating employee support for the change, measured through supervisor ratings of employee behavior. As predicted, results showed that leadership was more effective in building support for change the more that leaders also communicated a vision of continuity, because a vision of continuity instilled a sense of continuity of organizational identity in employees. These effects were larger when employees experienced more uncertainty at work (as measured by employee self-ratings).

In the second study, we tested the same idea using a laboratory experiment so that we could draw conclusions about causality. 208 business school students participated in the study, and the context was potential changes in the school’s curriculum. They received one of two messages allegedly from the dean of the business school. One conveyed a vision of change for the curriculum, and the other conveyed the same vision of change but also conveyed a vision of continuity of identity. Independent of which message they were exposed to, students received one of two versions of background information that suggested either low uncertainty or high uncertainty about change outcomes. We then assessed their sense of continuity of identity and their support for the change as expressed in actual behavior: help in drafting a letter to persuade other students to support the change. The results of this second study were similar to those of the first: Support for change was higher when the vision of change was accompanied by a vision of continuity, because in this case people’s sense of continuity of identity was higher. Again, the effects were stronger when uncertainty about the change was higher.

The implications of this research are straightforward. In overcoming resistance to change and building support for change, leaders need to communicate an appealing vision of change in combination with a vision of continuity. Unless they are able to ensure people that what defines the organization’s identity — “what makes us who we are” — will be preserved despite the changes, leaders may have to brace themselves for a wave of resistance.

Source: Harvard Business Review – by Merlijn Venus, Daan Stam, and Daan van Knippenberg

3 Ways to Be an Influential Leader

by | Nov 9, 2020 | Influence, Leadership Aha!, Leadership Development, Newsletter

Leadership provides the opportunity to influence others. It is a great joy, but also an incredible responsibility. Influence is the ability to move others from where they are now into something new. However, influence is not a one-way transaction. We are influencing others and being influenced on a daily basis. When we race through life distracted and busy, we forfeit the opportunity to intentionally influence others. Thus, we must be intentional about what we take in and how we impact those around us.

People are always tuned in and observing our actions, words, and attitudes whether we realize it or not. We can choose intentional influence, and whether our influence is positive or negative.

As leaders, we cannot settle for influence that is good enough. Great opportunities and exceptional work are never born from settling for good enough. So, how do we have influence that far surpasses good-enough thinking?

1. Make the choice to be a positive influence. Great leaders understand that influence is equally as important as reputation. Reputation precedes us, and it creates an expectation of what is to come from you. Influence generates reputation and is what’s left behind after others interact with you. It’s the piece of you that you leave with others and the sentence that comes to mind when others think of you. Having a positive impact and leaving others with a positive sentiment is a conscious choice.

2. Accept responsibility for your influence. Good leaders understand their ability to influence others. Great leaders go beyond this and also accept responsibility for what is influencing them. They guard their intake and are vigilant about how they are being influenced. They are intentional about their inner circles and what information they consume. This is critical because, ultimately, we give out what we take in. We reproduce what we are.

3. Aspire to inspire. Great leaders are inspiring, especially during challenging times. They are able to bring out the best in others and instill hope that draws people in. Great leaders are equally inspiring as they are inspired themselves. They know the purpose that drives them and tap into their mission to motivate others.

Influence is a two-way street. How others pour into you will dictate how you pour into others. Being intentional about your influence takes you, and those around you, from good enough to great.

Sourced from Kevin Brown at leadercast.com

Leadership is influence. Nothing more. Nothing less. – John Maxwell