Build employee trust to boost bottom-line at no further cost

Workers who trust bosses work longer hours and take fewer sick days. Photo/Fotosearch 

By SCOTT BELLOWS

In Summary

• The bottom line: employee trust in senior managers dramatically increases an organisation’s performance.
• All employees go through three stages to build trust in their bosses:  belief, decision, and action.
• Demonstrate your ability, goodwill, and integrity to gain their trust and they will provide you better performance and profits for years to come.

George Mwinamo fought long and hard. He searched up and down. He sent out dozens of CVs hoping for the perfect job. Finally, George attains the coveted position of his dreams and prepares for first day of work.

Following a gruelling commute up Mombasa Road, he finally reaches Upper Hill. Staring at the office building, George starts to feel butterflies fluttering in his stomach. 

He senses his anxious energy as he simultaneously holds on to his earlier excitement. Braving his mix of emotions, George walks inside.

Many have experienced similar emotions at various stages in careers.

Fast forward 10 years. Over time George hopefully achieves many lofty career goals and, as a result, now reads the Business Daily to gain insights on how to manage his company. 

Let us unlock one of the best kept secrets that increase both your firm’s profits and performance without costs.

You read correctly: free steps to boost your bottom-line. The answer may surprise even the most seasoned Kenyan executive among us: Trust. Contained within the confines of the five-letter word unlocks untapped power that leaders desperately need to achieve success.

Many research studies carried out across multiple countries in businesses both big and small show employee trust is a key integral part of a firm’s success. 

The bottom line: employee trust in senior managers dramatically increases an organisation’s performance. Research by this author at the USIU-Africa involves surveying and interviewing hundreds of loan officers across sub-Saharan Africa. 

Top bosses who build trust among employees yield multiple company benefits including higher profits. Employees who trust the senior leaders in their companies work longer hours, take fewer sick days, pay greater attention to detail, and produce higher quality and greater quantity of work products.

So a logical business executive should jump up and down demanding to know how to gain, build, and maintain employee trust. Leaders must follow a process to build employee trust in their leadership. 

Various western nations retain high trust cultures. Americans, for example, inherently trust bosses very quickly. 

Then Americans break trust when a boss displays unacceptable characteristics. East Africans, on the other hand, build trust slowly.

Kenyans wait to trust a boss until the latter demonstrates they deserve the trust. So in Kenya, a boss really earns trust.

Whether in Ghana, France, Japan, Brazil, or in Kenya, all employees go through three stages to build trust in their bosses:  belief, decision, and action.  The faster a leader moves employees from believing in their boss to making a decision in their minds to trust the boss then to actually taking action on those beliefs, the faster the leader’s company may earn higher profits.

One may think that even more characteristics of a boss must be shown, but academic and practical research both show that the above three traits incorporate almost all that the employee needs to build trust in senior leadership and improve performance exist solely within ability, goodwill, and integrity. Any other characters hardly matter psychologically compared to the core three. 

Now, think about your own boss. Most likely, your psychological reasons for trusting or not trusting the senior managers of your firm revolve around your perceptions about their ability, goodwill, and integrity. 

But how do you think that your own employees perceive you? Do your employees find you fully capable in each of the three key trust characteristics? 

Visit the USIU website to view different bosses and vote in our survey on which boss gives off the initial impression of trust in the three core character areas: www.usiu.ac.ke/blog/businessdaily.

Everything you do as a leader should revolve around the three trustworthy characters. Your employees need not know that you actively raise their conscious and subconscious psychological feelings of trust.

In every action and communication to employees, demonstrate each of the three characters: demonstrate your ability, demonstrate your goodwill, and demonstrate your integrity. 

Never let even a simple e-mail slip out of your laptop that does not reflect these core traits. My first experience as a CEO of a large financial institution came when I was 28 years old. Knowing that my young age made employees doubt my ability, I purposefully worked to show my intelligence and capabilities. 

Many Kenyans could have doubted Kethi Kilonzo in the beginning of the Supreme Court election case, but she solidly proved her ability. What is your key area that you must demonstrate?

Your goodwill?  Your integrity? You must understand yourself and how others perceive you before you can use the powerful tool of trust to lead others.

Demonstrate your ability, goodwill, and integrity to gain their trust and they will provide you better performance and profits for years to come.

Prof Scott is the director of the New Economy Venture Accelerator (Neva) at USIU’s Chandaria School of Business and Colorado State University.