Do your brokers really trust you?

No leader ever wants to look incompetent, but the fear of losing face could be losing you the trust of your employees – at serious detriment to your business.

The latest leadership research by the Forum Corporation found an overwhelming 93.2% of Australian and NZ workers claim they must have a leader they can trust, and 68.2% believe trust in leadership is more important now than in the past.

However, a quarter of workers feel they trust their leaders less now than before, and 18.1% admit they either do not trust their leaders at all, or only to a small extent.

An apparent reluctance from leaders to admit fault could be contributing to this situation, found the survey.

Nearly half of all workers stated that their leaders never or rarely apologise, and just 18.6% said their leaders acknowledge their own mistakes.

When pressed as to why they don’t apologise, leaders revealed the key contributing factors as fear of looking incompetent (51%), fear of appearing weak (18%), a belief it wasn’t necessary (18%), a view that ‘the boss’ doesn’t have to (7%), and that it depends on the situation (6%).

Cynthia Stuckey, managing director of Forum Asia Pacific, says the results clearly show a trust gap in organisational leadership across the region.

"The lack of trust in leadership directly impacts employee engagement levels, which can reduce productivity and increase staff turnover,” she says.

“There is a need for managers to focus on regaining employees’ trust in organisation leadership as part of their engagement strategies to ensure they attract and retain the best talent."

The report found the top ways for leaders to gain the trust of their employees are:

• Act in accordance with their own statements – act as they expect their employees to act.
• Listen to employees and understand their concerns.
• Follow through on commitments.
• Encourage employees to offer ideas and suggestions.

How do you keep the trust of your team? Join the discussion below.