5 Strategies to build team trust and boost collaboration
Building strong relationships between colleagues and fostering trust among them makes everything run much more smoothly. When colleagues trust each other, they plan more effectively, work more efficiently and grow stronger as a group. But when trust is missing or damaged, it can affect everything from overall morale to employee engagement and, yes, team performance. As a team leader, you can help build trust by teaching people to trust each other and become more autonomous together.
Building trust is not a one-time, simple activity. Whether you want to establish trust in a newly formed team, rebuild broken trust or reinforce existing trust, it is part of the ongoing maintenance of your team’s health. We share 5 strategies that can help build trust in your team. Let’s go for it!
1. Promote honesty and open communication
Employees want to feel heard, respected, and valued by their peers. When employees feel like they can share their honest opinions and feedback, it leads to better ideas and stronger outputs. But if the culture on your team doesn’t allow for open dialogue, it can turn toxic. People can be passive-aggressive, confrontational, gossipy, or condescending to one another.
Establishing healthy workplace communication practices and psychological safety is essential because all of this can be detrimental to the team’s trust.
2. Create opportunities for creative collaboration
For people to grow trust, they have to learn to problem-solve together and to rely on each other to get the work done. A great opportunity for teams to build these skills is tackling tasks outside of their day-to-day. Facing new challenges and having to get creative helps teams be more resourceful and see things from new perspectives. And this will help build the open-minded, curiosity culture that will take them to the next level.
You might also be interested in reading: 7 key management skills to lead successful IT teams
3. Let your team self-organize
People start trusting each other more when they learn to make decisions together. That’s why teams need to take on some leadership for themselves. Good managers tend to give employees a structure to work within, and great managers know how to create a structure that still allows for employee autonomy.
It can be tough to find the balance, but the more self-directed your team is, the more they’ll learn to trust each other. Not only that, but teams need to take it and can also drive job satisfaction because employees want more of a say in their work.
4. Be clear about roles and responsibilities
One of the best ways to get people to trust each other is to clarify what every team member is responsible for. This means each employee knows what their job entails, but it also means they clearly understand their colleagues’ roles and responsibilities. When people know exactly what’s within and outside of their job description — and each others’ — they’re more equipped to take and give ownership of tasks.
5. Provide constant feedback
The more comfortable people feel about giving and receiving feedback from their peers, the more they can grow individually and as a team. When people begin to see that growth in action, individual employee engagement and overall confidence in the team will increase.
Want to know more about Clarika? We offer an autonomous team that will be ready for you and can deliver accelerated results risk-free and at a great value. Contact us!
