Importance of Trust in the Workplace

As I reflect on the importance of trust in the workplace I am inspired by the data and documents that continue to emerge about the importance of “Trust in the Workplace”. Building Trust 2013: Workforce Trends Defining High Performance is research that explores the overlap of leadership, trust, and collaboration-and has been conducted annually by Interaction Associates since 2009 in partnership with the Human Capital Institute. Building Trust 2013 increasingly shows that trust originates from the tone at the top—specifically how leaders lead is more important than ever. This article also identifies the risks that leaders take each day, why don’t they take a risk on building trusting relationships?
 
The article further discusses that employees must have the tools and resources for success, adequate information sharing, allow for consensus decision making, acting in alignment with the company’s values, and provide the employees an inspiring shared purpose to work toward. The key findings in this article have been enlightening as productivity continues to climb, customer loyalty increases, and talent engagement is high with organizations who build trust. I believe that “Leaders” at every level in the organization can no longer say it is someone else’s job to build a culture of trust and delegate it to an Human Resources Function.
 
I would invite you to obtain a copy of this article for further reading. My questions are: What are you doing as a leader or future leader to promote trust in your organization? What is your organization doing to promote trust?