How to build or rebuild trust

What happens when trust breaks? How do we deal with this?

Certainly we all have experienced break of trust in our personal and professional lives. What happens when trust breaks and how do we cope with trust issues? To answer this question we first need to understand what trust means.

The definition of trust is a firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something. 

Authenticity, logic and empathy, these elements form the triangle of trust. 

Being your true you, be your true self is called authenticity. People need to see the real you to be able to trust you. If  people see that your logic doesn’t make sense, they are less willing to trust you. If you do not see that my empathy is directed towards you, you are far more likely to trust me.

When these 3 elements work at the same time, we have great trust. As soon as one of them is off, the trust is in danger.

What can we do ourselves to contribute to trust every day? First we need to know where trust is shaky on our side.

Empathy

The first shaky element is probably empathy. To have, develop and show empathy takes time and in our full scheduled days, the first thing we will drop is to invest time in empathy. What distracts you to create empathy?

Logic

Secondly the element of logic can also be wobbly. Logic needs to be of a certain quality, people need to understand it. Second, the way you communicate your logic, is very important. Professor Frances Frei explains it  brilliantly in her TED talk.

Authenticity

Last but not least authenticity. Be you. People have a good sense to instantly see if you are authentic or not. But what if you mute your authenticity to fit in or you adjust it to achieve a goal, what about your authenticity then? If you are different from your peers or colleagues, then it is a real challenges to stick to your real you.

We need to trust ourselves and be ourselves in every color we have. So be bold, be colorfull and outspoken. In leadership, create the environment and trust to allow people to be themselves and profit from all the different aspects of your authentic employees. I trust you can do it!

#EQmaters #designyourlife #lifedesign #beauthentic