Not only do you have to trust yourself, you also need to trust your team to help inspire trust from them, especially if you’re just starting out or have recently made any kind of major changes in your life or career paths. Trusting someone else in order to make it easier for them to trust you almost feels like walking into a trap at first; however, the very definition of leadership is to go first ―lead your team by shining example ―so trusting your team and being appropriately vulnerable as a mindful leader is paramount to inspiring trust from them. As always, there are several other ideas to help you be more trusting in your team and help them trust you in return. Read on to learn more.
Your unique “flavor” of mindful leadership can only serve to enhance the ways in which you apply the ideas in this article to your life and career. Some of the most important aspects of building trust begin with your integrity and your ability to have patience with anyone who may be struggling with your leadership style at the beginning. By practicing mindfulness, vulnerability, and building trust, you can only strengthen your leadership skills and continuously build rapport with everyone on your team, both as a team and individually.
The underlying energy of this whole article should be that you’re working from a spirit of authenticity. If you aren’t being authentic, it’s only a matter of time before someone senses it and decides to find out more, so the absolute wisest decision is to be as genuine and real and yourself as you can possibly be. This doesn’t mean you go out of your way to tell strangers all your secrets, but you can definitely share some experiences and concepts that have helped you along the way. This sharing is important to help your team trust you, understand that you’re human and approachable, and it lets people know that you are open and an active participant in personal growth as well as the advancement of your team and company as a whole.
Here are a few other aspects or characteristics a mindful leader might display for building and subsequently enhancing and growing a culture of trust.
Acceptance
Accepting others for who they are brings a level of openness and comfort to an environment, and that is a very powerful tool. Practice accepting others by reserving all judgment about them until you get to know them. Keep your opinions suspended and neutral until you have more information to go on. This will quickly become a habit and will allow you to more easily accept everyone over time, no matter what.
Nonjudgment
This is very similar to the above as you simply withhold judgment about anything until you have enough information to make an educated or informed choice about which opinion to hold. If you think all manner of things about people based on assumption, this will be a detriment, so try not to think anything about anyone or anything so that their label doesn’t become their subconsciously programmed prison.
Vulnerability & Honesty
No one can trust a liar, including your team, so being honest is paramount, especially if you understand that the likelihood of getting caught is fairly high as linear time continues to move forward. When you choose to be honest, you can also choose to be vulnerable, and this makes you much more human and approachable for your team, not to mention much more trustworthy if they understand that you are an honest type. Oddly enough, people are less likely to ask questions of someone they trust or pressure them for information, so being honest achieves the privacy that secrecy cannot because it always backfires.
The Ability to Set Firm Boundaries Lovingly
As you build trust, there may be some tough conversations to initiate along the way. There may be disagreements, maybe a couple of incidents between coworkers… one way to calm the chaos is to sit down with your entire team and have open conversations about what is and isn’t inappropriate as far as individual and group behaviors are concerned. Writing down a set of rules or company culture guidelines as a team together can open up dialogue about how everyone is interacting and help people get to a much better place within themselves, among themselves, and in the company as a whole. If boundaries need to be drawn in the moment, it is your job to take that initiative, mindful leaders. No need to be angry or cruel; no need to be bossy or loud. Simply and calmly lay everything out and move forward with all of the resulting new information.
Communication
The ability to convey an idea, message, or instructions is extremely important in any leadership position. This is how you exchange messages with others, refine ideas, brainstorm new projects, and keep things flowing harmoniously in the workplace. Your communication should be concise, clear, and leave little to no room for misunderstandings. Make sure everyone knows anything vital firsthand directly from you to ensure against workplace manipulation. When everyone is on the same page, it’s much easier to get things done.
Coinciding Words & Actions
When you are somewhat consistent in your day to day activities and interactions with others, they will know and understand that you are in no way, shape, or form a hypocrite and you walk the talk. Not only is this important for building your team’s trust in you; it also affords you the incredible opportunity to lead by example and in doing so inspire others to be much better versions of themselves. This is priceless because it will also allow you to serve as a guide, mentor, and coach to really help everyone as comprehensively as possible. If you aren’t sure about coaching your team or would like to incorporate that skill into your career, please click here to learn about our Certified Mastermind Executive Coaching course.
Fairness
You know those people who try to tell you that life isn’t fair? Well, technically speaking, they are wrong because life is exactly fair. It just isn’t fair in the single-lifetime, small picture perspective we human beings tend to have. However, it is absolutely fair in that we attract everything we experience within our lives based on our inner wellbeing, our emotional energy. When you choose to add to people’s experiences of fairness, they almost always appreciate it and will be grateful to you. This is another example of how you are able to lead by example and help inspire your team to better themselves… while attracting better and better things into your own experience.
Non-Reactivity
An excellent way to ensure that your team is able to communicate with you, even about challenging topics, is by practicing non-reactivity. No matter how shocking something is that someone tells you, no matter how emotional someone becomes, try to practice non-reactivity and stay within your center of peace. This lets everyone know that you are even-tempered, can control yourself, and are reasonable enough to do nothing right away while emotions are high (unless, of course, there’s some kind of emergency). Non-reactivity makes you approachable and helps your team to feel as though you understand them and wherever they’re coming from.
Building trust should be a habitual practice and involve you as well as the entire team, so you may even choose to have a meeting from time to time for open discussions or maybe something fun like brainstorming sessions or team masterminds. You may also choose to make morning or lunchtime meditation mandatory for all team members; this is the simplest and most effective way to drastically reduce workplace stress and conflict, as well as increase productivity and employee morale.
What are some other ways in which you might build trust with your team? Have you tried any trust-building exercises in particular that work for you and your team? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!
Thanks so much for being here! We hope you’ll join us again next week for another article about trust.
For more information about the Mindfulness Movement or the International Mindfulness Federation, please visit:
