Empathy in Action: How I improved Trust in My Team
As a leader, one of the key components to success is establishing trust within your team. A high-performing team is built on a foundation of trust. Over the past few months, I have been exploring this topic and incorporating it into my daily routine. In this post, I will share a summary of what I have learned.
Why building trust is important?
Meta-analytical studies on this topic confirms that intra team trust has an above-average impact (ρ = .30) on team performance[1]. Disclaimer to the readers who are not from statistics background: “Correlation does not imply causation”. Meaning it is likely that increasing level of trust would increase team performance. But, statistics cannot assure that trust is the root cause for this phenomenon.
For simplicity, we can assume correlation is good enough for us to consider it as important factor.
What is trust?
In a team setup, trust can be simply considered as how much confident are you about each others abilities, intentions, and actions. Trust is bidirectional and it requires both parties actively work towards building a relationship with respect for each other.
Charles H. Green, author of The trusted advisor[2] puts Trustworthiness into mathematical equation to make it more precise.
The credibility and reliability part of trust are rational. They can be measured and improved with demonstrated subject matter expertise and consistent delivery of small promises.
Intimacy is a more subtle component. It is less talked about in business relationship; however it plays a vital role. Empathetic communication helps to build intimacy.
Self orientiation is about keeping the focus on the goals of the other side. Trustworthiness would increase if you reduce your self-orientation. In other words, if you can shift your mindset more towards perspectives of other person.
Empathetic communication
After reflecting on my context, I decided to focus on improving intimacy with empathetic communication. It involves having conversations with respect and understanding. We listen with attention and connect to the feelings and experiences of the other person. Turning questions into more open ended question can help other person to open up their views, feedback, thoughts.
My personal experience
I started having open conversations about aspirations, fear, hopes, wishes & desires, ambitions, good days, and bad days. It allowed me to connect on a deeper level and be accepted by the recipient.
For example, there was a case of analysis paralysis. They were not able to move forward on their own because of the fear of making wrong choices. While going through the materials on “building trust” I came across this blog from MOUNICA VEGGALAM [3] which talks about the situation of self-doubt mode. I could immediately connect the dots and take corrective actions. Through our 1:1 meetings, I reassured them that if our choices go wrong we can revisit them at a later stage. This helped them to gain back their confidence and execute the project.
Embracing empathy has shown better results in my relationship across different layers including my team, leadership, and peers. As mentioned earlier it is hard to measure but I can admit that results are visible at the emotional level. It also helped to reduce some stress arising because of conflicts. I can relate to other side of the coin through active listening.
Conclusion
Time investment to learn on this topic and effort to apply them in practice helped me to overcome challenges faced in the team. It improved my relationships in my work-life and also reduced mental fatigue.
References
[1] Trust and Team Performance: A Meta-Analysis of Main Effects, Moderators and Covariates. -de Jong, Bart & Dirks, Kurt & Gillespie, Nicole. (2016). Journal of Applied Psychology. 101. 10.1037/apl0000110.
[2] The Trusted Advisor — Maister, Green, and Galford
[3] The Secret to Building Trust as a Leader: Insights from My Journey With 2 Executive Coaches and a Spiritual Teacher — MOUNICA VEGGALAM