Trust in Leadership – Can it be earned?

When it comes to leadership, trust is an incredibly important element. How can a leader expect people to follow them if they are not seen as being trustworthy? However, trust cannot be bought or given, it has to be earned.

So how do you instil trust into your followers? How do you make them trust you and follow you in every move that you make? There’s no right or wrong answer but there are some tips that you can follow, here are a few to get you started:

Have a vision that others can relate to

In order to gain trust from your followers, you should always have a vision or an end goal that’s mutual. If you all want the same things then they will relate to you and understand the various decisions that you will have to make along the way.

Be fair

Make sure that you don’t show prejudice to anybody and show fair treatment to everyone. You should be in touch with your followers by knowing what they care about and what they like to do and you should never judge them. Showing fairness will instil trust and it will bring a likeness to your character.

Lead by example

A leader should always act as they want other people to follow them. This might seem obvious, but leading by example can be difficult. As a leader, you know that every decision you make will be scrutinised and it will be hard to keep everyone on your side. As long as you stick to your values and you show that your decisions are of a positive nature then people will understand your actions.

Be honest

As a leader being honest shows that you have integrity and it brings an element of sincerity to your actions. If people see you as being misleading or deceptive, this will only instil anger and doubt and it will not initiate trust.

Inspire and be imaginative

Show people that you are in confident in every move that you make and you will inspire your followers. Whilst trying to inspire them you should also be creative and imaginative and always strive to achieve difficult objectives.

Trust in leadership can be incredibly difficult to earn but I hope the above qualities and tips may give you a helping hand.

This article was written by Andreas, a financial writer for moneysupermarket.com.