Lack of trust appears to be a growing problem throughout the workforce today. Unfortunately, effective leadership is nearly impossible without trust. Trust alone, however, is not enough to create high-functioning teams. Credibility and respect are also crucial in leadership.  Without these three foundations’, a leadership void is likely to emerge and organisation productivity decelerated.

Recent studies painted a grim picture of employees’ attitudes toward their employers, resulting in a negative effect on employee retention, as well as low levels of productivity. A recent poll of more than 2,000 workers, revealed barely 7% of employees trust senior leaders to look out for their best interests.

Distrust in the workforce

Distrust is poison for an organisation’s productivity and is likely to take shape in organisations where change is the norm—which seems to be every organisation today. Changes in personnel or changes in direction can create an environment in which trust is sabotaged. This constant state of flux is likely to produce mixed messages and lead to a communication void that breaks down confidence and trust in management.

To overcome distrust, Dale Carnegie Training provides three key principles for results-oriented leaders to build high-performing teams:

Trust: Managers need to be honest, reliable and loyal not just in theory but in practice. Encourage employees to be self-sufficient by supporting their decisions whenever they can instead of stripping employees of decision-making responsibilities and create a learning environment by identifying the problem and encouraging solution based thinking.

Credibility: This is built when an employee knows a leader can make them better at doing a job. Results-oriented leaders do not work in isolation, leaders should engage, support and guide their teams by providing them with the tools they need to do their job well.

Respect: Managers build respect when they show their appreciation for employees’ unique perspectives and contributions. Employees desire independence to do their job. When they feel valued, accepted, recognized and treated with dignity, they are more inclined to perform at higher levels and remain with the organisation.

Modelling behaviour

So how does a results-oriented leader model the key elements of trust, credibility and respect? They do so within themselves, with individual team members and with their team as a whole.

Employees naturally observe what managers do as the correct way of doing tasks. When a manager’s words and actions do not line up it easily causes a sense of distrust among employees.  Results-oriented leaders must recognise good work habits in a team. They lead from a mind-set of “we” and not “I”. They get the team engaged so they work together to achieve their goals. A results-oriented leader is there to assist and develop.

Engage to exceed

Although trust of management is lacking throughout the workforce, leaders can rebuild trust, credibility, and respect by demonstrating consistent behaviours in their own work practices and by serving as role models.

Results-oriented leaders engage their team members to not only accomplish goals, but exceed them. They do this by supporting employees’ sense of personal connection to the organisation and work at hand -building trust, maintaining high standards for personal accountability-building credibility, and reaffirming each employee’s level of contribution to the team-building respect.

The foundation for results-oriented leadership resides in demonstrating this combination.

“In today’s high pressure work environment it can be easy for a leader to lose sight of the employee’s view of the work and become entirely focused on the project outcome. This is why it is so important that results-oriented leaders balance the pressure for outcomes with the needs of their team members”, concludes Neville De Lucia, Director at Dale Carnegie Training, Gauteng.

What differentiates Dale Carnegie Training is its unique four-phase training cycle that integrates the components: attitude change, knowledge, practice and skill development. These newly learned principles evolve into acquired lifelong skills that produce long-term behavioral change.