Since the “Great Resignation” organizations and government agencies have recognized a pattern with increasing employee turnover—attributed to quitting as opposed to layoffs or discharges (Akinyooye & Nezamis, 2021). Companies are paying more attention to voluntary employee turnover because of the impact it has had since the Covid-19 pandemic. Some organizations have responded by charging task forces, creating employee turnover data dashboards, and committing to retain and engage talented employees; but, as Dr. John Townsend of the Townsend Institute for Leadership and Executive Coaching (2022) contends, employee engagement and trust go hand in hand.
This insight article will explore ways of building trust, and consider what impact high-trust organizations have on their employees’ brain/mindset, as well as social and emotional wellbeing. Next, we will consider the importance of focusing trust inward (towards oneself), so that it can be more effective when focused outward to develop trust with others. Finally, the post will conclude by sharing how the findings on trust have impacted and shifted my personal outlook and behaviors as a leader and executive coach.
Recent research on trust indicates that one of the most essential building blocks of trust is empathy. In his 2017 book The EQ Leader, Stein shares how empathy “has been broken down into [three] different components.” He describes these components as first emotionally oriented, “the ability to understand someone’s feelings.” Next as cognitively oriented, “ability to ‘read’ the other person’s thoughts,” and last, as action oriented, “actively caring—wanting to help a person in need.”
Leaders and organizations who are effective at building trust are able to put feelings into words. They can understand the sentiment of groups and individuals within the organization, and take an active stance on caring about the groups and individuals in a way that is meaningful to them. As Dr. John Townsend describes in his 2022 Townsend Institute video on Trust and the Brain, trust in Hebrew is described as feeling “careless.” He goes on to break down trust into two constructs: “functional trust” and “relational trust.” Functional trust is about dependency and reliability of a teammate to deliver on expectations within a team. Relational trust is about feeling cared for, and safe to take emotional and professional risks within a team or organization. Trust is self-generative in the sense that it builds an organization’s, and an individual’s capacity for more positive social and emotional thinking, behaving, and interacting.
Trust and empathy shape what is called prosocial behavior, or behavior that is for the benefit of others. In his lab Dr. Paul Zak runs experiments to test trust, he found participants who demonstrated trust, such as being generous with money towards others with whom they do not know, were found to have high-levels of the hormone oxytocin in their bloodstream (2018). Neuroscience research has found the hormone oxytocin to be associated with attachment emotions such as love, trust, joy, and excitement (Swart et al., 2015). Employees in high-trust organizations who demonstrate trust for another experience an increase in oxytocin. This increase in the hormone oxytocin in the blood stream of the trustor could show up as recognizing peers and colleagues publicly or privately for their work and contributions towards a goal. It could also show up in the form of generosity of an employee’s time, effort, and connection with the mission of the organization. These prosocial behaviors at scale strengthen employee engagement within an organization. And when empathy, or actively caring about colleagues and the goals of the organization are cared about at scale, relational and functional trust accelerate and generate trust in the institution.
One important factor to consider about trust is how it starts with one person. In Zak’s experiments on trust and reciprocity, individuals in the lab were paired up and given money in a fixed amount such as $10 (2018). Then they were instructed to decide on what amount to allocate to the individual on the other side receiving the money (decision maker 2). Decision maker 1 was provided the information that “whatever is sent comes out of [decision maker 1]’s account and is tripled in [decision maker 2]’s account… The more money [decision maker 1] sends to [decision maker 2], the greater the degree of trust”, because the greater amount of money sent equals greater risk to decision maker 1 that it will not be reciprocated.
What Zak’s trust game experiment found was that 95% of decision maker 2 participants reciprocated in some amount. Zak explains “the money sent by [decision maker 2] to [decision maker 1] is an index of the former’s reciprocity or trustworthiness.” Zak’s study illustrates how first, trust originates by trusting another. Being trusting of others requires starting a social interaction with another individual based on the belief that they can be trusted.
Practical Application of Trust as a Leader and Coach
The neuroscience research on trust has profoundly shaped my understanding of what it means to gain and earn trust from the clients I coach, to colleagues I interact with in the workplace. It means that in order for executive coaching clients, and my organizational peers, leaders, and direct reports to trust me – I must first demonstrate I am willing to trust them.
As a leader, I remember the moment I started learning about the research on trust. It was during an offsite retreat where my senior leader and COO pulled our leadership team together, and during the offsite we read Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team book and completed the personal histories as a leadership team in a small, dark, but warm conference room together (2012).
Since that moment, I’ve been intrigued by the social and emotional constructs that shape trust in the workplace, and in personal and professional relationships. Over the course of the past decade, what I’ve learned about trust has taught me how it and other attachment emotions, such as love and appreciation, can strengthen the connection a person has with themselves as well as others. Curiosity about trust strengthened my internal dialogue and connection with myself. It has allowed me increased self-direction, self-assurance, and self-appreciation. My curiosity about trust helped me to see how often I relied on external sources or relationships for validation, and helped me discover how I am capable of providing healthy validation and reassurance to myself.
Conclusion
As I continue to experiment with building trust in the teams I lead, and as my direct reports experiment with building trust in the project-based teams our office supports, we collect information on trust and how it influences the complex change and transformation initiatives we lead and manage. What the information our office collects on trust has taught me is that the more I, and/or members of my team, show up with a willingness to trust and with a posture of positive regard for others, the more likely trust will be reciprocated. The opposite holds true as well. The strength of my posture of positive regard for others and willingness to trust others, appears to be directly related to the strength of positive connection and regard I have for myself (or my team members have for themselves) at the time I am being called to trust in the professional arenas where my team and I lead complex change and transformation.
Now as an executive coach, one of the first things I share with future clients is how my style of coaching is unique. I share how that what clients can expect from me is unconditional positive regard. Like doctors, I believe coaches have specialties, I share with clients how one of my specialties as a coach is trust. This style and specialty of trust have allowed me to form secure, safe, and trusting relationships with clients in a relatively short time period. This helps increase the value and impact of coaching because the foundational bonds of trust are established, and the work can begin to shift focus to the leader’s agenda. Trust is then strengthened and earned by empathizing the complexities surrounding the leader’s developmental goals. It is secured by how I can accurately understand and attune to the mindset, behavior, and emotional shifts and aspirations the leader has; and partner with them to connect these aspirations their developmental goals and plan.
My findings, research, and personal experimentation with trust has impacted and shifted my personal outlook, and behavior as a leader and coach. As a result of what I’ve learned about trust—how it first must begin with me, and that the strength of trust I can offer others is directly related to the strength of trust I have for myself – I’ve been able to personally see and experience, which has also led to an expansion in my capacity for empathy and accuracy in attuning to the emotions and thoughts of others. This dramatic increase in healthy empathy has increased my personal effectiveness at responding to the needs of others, either during one-on-one interactions, or during complex change and transformation initiatives with groups, or during coaching sessions with executives.
In my current season of growth and development, I’m curious and committed to continuing to experiment and learn about, not only the many different facets and constructs of trust, but also the power of self-perception and self-regard in establishing secure relationships and trust. More specifically how an individual’s relationship and perception of themselves, and courage in trusting themselves and others, influences trust in relationships and how it relates to the efficacy of complex change and transformation initiatives occurring within the organization.
References
Akinyooye, L., & Nezamis, E. (2021, June). As the COVID-19 Pandemic Affects the Nation, Hires and Turnover Reach Record Highs in 2020 : Monthly Labor Review (Chart 5: Quits and layoffs and discharges, total nonfarm, seasonally adjusted, December 2000-December 2020 in thousands) [Data set and chart]. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2021/article/as-the-covid-19-pandemic-affects-the-nationhires-and-turnover-reach-record-highs-in-2020.htm
Swart, T., Chisholm, K., & Brown, P. (2015). Neuroscience for Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan.
Townsend, J. (2022, September 6). Trust: Building Trust & The Brain [YouTube]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZcwNUUp828&feature=youtu.be
Zak, P. J. (2018). The Neuroscience of High-Trust Organizations. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 70(1), 45–58. https://doi.org/10.1037/cpb0000076