How do you earn the trust of a team?

Question

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Earning the trust of a team is essential, especially in a senior role where
others look to you for guidance and support. I focus on a few key principles to
build and maintain that trust:

First, I lead by example. I believe that consistent, high-quality work and
reliability are fundamental to earning respect. When I commit to something, I
make sure to deliver on time and to the best of my ability. This sets a standard
for the team and shows that I’m dependable.

Second, I prioritize open and honest communication. Whether it’s sharing project
updates, discussing challenges, or giving and receiving feedback, I always
strive to be transparent. This creates a culture where team members feel
comfortable communicating with me, which is crucial for trust.

Another important aspect is supporting and empowering my team members. I’m
always available to provide guidance and help them overcome obstacles, but I
also encourage them to take ownership of their work. This not only helps them
grow but also shows that I trust their capabilities.

Consistency and reliability are key. I make it a point to follow through on my
commitments and be a steady presence in the team. Over time, this consistency
builds trust, as my team knows they can count on me.

Finally, I treat everyone with respect and empathy. Understanding and valuing
different perspectives helps create a supportive and inclusive environment where
everyone feels valued.

By adhering to these principles, I work to create an environment of mutual trust
and respect, which ultimately leads to better collaboration and a stronger team.

Anonymous · Answer

Earning the trust of a team is crucial for effective collaboration and
leadership. Here are some key strategies to build trust:

1. **Communicate Transparently**: Be open and honest in your communication.
Share information freely and avoid hiding important details.

2. **Listen Actively**: Show genuine interest in others' ideas and concerns.
Actively listen to their perspectives and feedback.

3. **Be Reliable**: Follow through on your commitments. Consistently deliver
quality work and meet deadlines.

4. **Show Competence**: Demonstrate your skills and knowledge in your role. Be
willing to help others and contribute to the team’s success.

5. **Respect Others**: Treat team members with respect and dignity. Value their
opinions and recognize their contributions.

6. **Be Supportive**: Offer assistance and encouragement when needed. Show
empathy and understanding towards team members.

7. **Admit Mistakes**: Everyone makes mistakes. Acknowledge your own mistakes
and learn from them. This shows humility and builds credibility.

8. **Build Relationships**: Foster positive relationships with team members.
Take the time to get to know them personally and professionally.

9. **Empower Others**: Delegate responsibilities and give team members
opportunities to grow and showcase their abilities.

10. **Consistency**: Be consistent in your behavior and decisions. Avoid sudden
changes that can erode trust.

Building trust takes time and effort. By demonstrating integrity, competence,
and genuine care for your team, you can create a positive environment where
trust can flourish.

Anonymous · Answer

The best way to earn the trust of your team is to make sure you are reliably
making their jobs easier. You need to talk to your coworkers and listen to them
so you can understand what their jobs are and what problems they face or at what
places can you step in to make their lives easier. You want to make sure that
you are not giving them extra work by being part of the team.
A great example is when I was at a previous company I was in charge of assisting
with importing new job listings into our system. Whenever the jobs get imported
another coworker of mine would need to manually locate those jobs in the system
to make sure that they imported properly and get the relevant job identification
ID to link that job to specific candidates. They told me that they needed to
wait around half an hour sometimes for the job to actually show up in their
search for them to be able to find the job ids. To assist them I edited my
import script to get them the job Ids back immediately so that they would not
need to wait. This saved them around half an hour of time every time they were
importing new jobs.
I was only able to make that improvement because I listened to my coworker and
understood what problems she was facing.

Anonymous · Answer

1. Connecting with them at personal level
    1. I have tried to connect with each team member at a personal level outside
       the scope of work, so we build empathy, good working relationship.
 2. Decision
    1. Leverage data (Qualitative, Quantitative) to rationalize decisions
    2. Make decisions quickly, but be open to changing it with new data
 3. Clarity in project goals and Communication
    1. Be clear on the target customers, their pain point and goal of the
       project
    2. Communicate the requirement, decisions etc. clearly to all the
       stakeholder and partners
    3. Ensure the teams have understood goals, scope clearly
 4. Involving the team early in the project and getting buy-in
    1. As PM, I would focus on the What and why part of any initiative. I’ll
       engage my team early on to give them full business context
    2. We’ll work together to come up with a solution or ‘How’ part of the
       initiative.  Team should feel appreciated for their expertise which in
       turn makes them to be vested in this
 5. Accepting mistakes openly, learning and fixing it
    1. PMs operate under a lot of ambiguity. As such, they are bound to make
       mistakes with few decisions.  I would accept my mistakes openly with the
       team and acknowledge the impact of it on the team.  I’ll be open to
       accepting suggestions on how to get better at avoiding such mistakes in
       the future.
    2. Showing honesty and vulnerability builds better team dynamics
 6. Encourage participation and open communication
    1. I’ll encourage team members to air their opinion and ideas etc. without
       hesitation
    2. As a team, I would encourage all of us to ‘disagree, but commit’ to the
       decisions we made as a team.
 7. Defending/Supporting team’s decisions
    1. It’s important that the team feels protected when taking risks and
       decisions are challenged by leadership. As a PM, I’ll stand by my team
       and defend our decision.
    2. I’ll own any mistakes with the decision, rather than blame the team
 8. Working together as ‘We’ to solve challenges and give them the due credit
    1. I’ll ensure the team get its due credit for delivering value to
       customers, instead of hogging the limelight
 9. Accepting mistakes or flaws, but working together to solve them to reduce
    the risk to deliverables
    1. Team members are bound to make mistakes that might result in delays or
       customer complaints. Instead of pointing fingers at them, I’ll be
       empathetic of the situation and work with the team to resolve the concern
       quickly and come up with a solution to avoid those mistakes in the
       future.

Anonymous · Answer

My approach to building trust with team members, especially cross-functional
team members is to first build a strong working relationship. When onboarding to
a new team, I prioritize setting aside time with each team member to introduce
myself, ask about their preferred style of collaboration, and learn about the
work they are actively doing. In turn, I also share more about myself, my past
work and approach to collaboration. Once a relationship is established, I work
hard to maintain these relationships through frequent check-ins and
communication, actively involving team members in all relevant discussions, and
asking for feedback. I believe it's important to make team members feel valued
in order to strengthen your relationship and trust with that person.

Anonymous · Answer

As the engineering manager, earn trust is the first step to build a high
productive team.
To earn trust, firstly, I listen attentively and talk candidly. For example, 1:1
is the most critical thing for a manager to know his people. I let the engineer
own the agenda, I put undivided attention for their speaking. To help me
understand deeply, I may ask questions for clarity. I also open for their
feedback. When talking issues, I am talking transparently and revealing my real
feelings.  I communicate with purpose and clarify. I provide reason and context
behind decisions.
Secondary, to earn trust of the team, I treat others with respect. I learn the
unique strength of each people and empower them to be their best. I also
self-critical, I am willing to admit the mistake or change the mind based on new
information.
Thirdly, to earn trust as a manager, I need to advocate for the team, and
 always close the loop. For example, recognize a team member's achievement in
shared Slack channel, in status report or other big team meetings. Following up
action items, address concern from team members during 1:1 or other meetings,
make sure the issue is addressed.
Lastly, be the role model. Lead by example, the actions speak louder than words.

Anonymous · Answer

To earn trust within a team, I believe it’s important to start with a small,
achievable task and deliver a high-quality result on time. Once I’ve proven that
I can deliver reliably, I gradually take on more complex tasks, building
credibility along the way.
Equally important is asking the right questions and actively participating as a
team member. At XYZ, when I joined a new team, I gained trust by ensuring that
we only committed to tasks we could realistically deliver. Once we met our
goals, I took the initiative to showcase our accomplishments to leadership,
highlighting the team’s impact and visibility.
By consistently delivering results and advocating for the team, I was able to
earn the trust of both my teammates and leadership.

Anonymous · Answer

Earning trust is not easy, but it is certainly achievable.
I experienced this when I joined my last team. The entire team consisted of
long-time members who had been on the project for 8-10 years and had a deep
understanding of the system. On the other hand, I was new to both the team and
the OTM/GTM module, which I had never worked on before.
In the initial days, I focused on listening and observing during meetings. I
made it a point to understand each team member's way of working and their
perspectives. I also put in extra time outside of work hours to learn the system
so I could start contributing effectively.
Once I began offering valuable and actionable feedback, the team started to
trust me. To build trust, I believe it’s important to:
 1. Understand the system thoroughly.
 2. Listen actively and respect others' inputs.
 3. Contribute and ensure your feedback adds value.

By doing these things, I was able to gain the trust and confidence of my team.

Anonymous · Answer

The best way to earn the trust of your team is to make sure you are reliably
making their jobs easier. You need to talk to your coworkers and listen to them
so you can understand what their jobs are and what problems they face or at what
places can you step in to make their lives easier. You want to make sure that
you are not giving them extra work by being part of the team. As a team lead its
my responsibility to ensure any issues in the team is handled and making sure
team is running smoothly.
A great example is when I was at my previous company as a team lead when I heard
the feedback from people across the regions that they are not able to access the
latest known TE\UE issues and some teams wait until  next day to get the updates
from US team. As a lead  I need to make sure all the results data and known
issues list provided to global team regularly by using Jira\Dashboard reporting
system.I took in charge of providing this data regularly to our global teams .
 This saved them around 12-24 hour of time every time they were checking new
issues.
I was only able to make that improvement because I listened to my team and
understood what problems they were facing.

Anonymous · Answer

in the past program, working with a team of 30 people, including partners,
customers and consultants, I earned their trust by being hones and transparent,
I asked about their opinions and showed interest in their ideas, while being
data-driven, and making sure we created an environment of psychological safety.
I used a adaptive leadership style, starting with a more transformational,
driven approach, ensuring we were working towards the best possible business
outcomes, and then, when the team was performing, I moved to a more coach-style,
enabling leadership style, helping them grow further in their role and taking on
more responsibility. That is one of the things I enjoy the most of this job,
working with others, learning from them, disconfirming my believes and also
sharing my experiences.

Anonymous · Answer

I prioritize transparency regarding team vision and goals, keeping everyone
informed about developments outside the team. I hold regular 1:1 meetings that
include relevant action items for both of us. I provide constructive feedback
while also asking for feedback in return. I clearly communicate my expectations
and focus on helping team members grow in their careers by assigning work based
on their interests and passions.  Recently I have one example to share in case
of promotion case. As employee is eagerly grow to next level, I helped him in
building promotion case , helping the relevant material to add and asking right
people for the feedback etc. But unfortunately it could not go through because
of some of the key evidence does not exist as per values of the company.
Regarding this we also had discussed in our previous 1:1's. Later I had a very
tough 1:1 to discuss the promotion feedback and make him ready for next round of
promotions.

Anonymous · Answer

One of the first things I do when I form a team is to ensure psychological
safety. The core team takes some time together to draw up a social contract.
This list each members working style, likes, dislikes, pet peeves, super powers
etc. Each member is free to provide as much or as little information as
possible. This breaks the ice within the team and makes it easy for ach of us to
know each other a bit more better. Few other rules I have are no senior managers
or executives in retros, talk about the issues not about the person, help me to
help you, "I don't how to do this" is not a competency issue but a call for help
etc. All these helps breaking communication barriers and ensure transparency
thus establishing trust within the team.

Anonymous · Answer

As a new transplant, my primary goal is to avoid being a blocker for the team.
To achieve this, I prioritize quickly getting up to speed by thoroughly
reviewing all relevant team documents. This helps me understand the current
state and identify areas where I can immediately make an impact.
Once I've identified where I can contribute, I focus on helping the team move
forward and gaining their buy-in. For example, at XYS, I actively participated
in meetings and leveraged my transferable skills to add value. When the team
needed metrics to measure performance in the legacy system, I provided insights
and solutions, which helped build trust and demonstrate my capability.
This approach allowed me to gradually gain the team’s trust and eventually take
on a leadership role. The key lesson I learned is to start small, execute well,
establish a network, and build on that foundation.

Anonymous · Answer

To Earn trust you need to start and execute small and build relationship on that
over time. At Auctane, when I joined the company - I inherited a small team, my
first initiative was to build relationship with the team members and figure out
who are the decision makers. I actively participated in meetings and started
contributing in ways to move the needle. For e.g when the team had missed some
of the metrics, i pointed those to be incorporate so we get a better
understanding of our systems. In the subsequent weeks I learnt about the
strengths of my team and tried to put my team members in the best possible
position to succeed.

Anonymous · Answer

The way I would go about earning trust in a team would be to first contribute
from my side and tell the team what I am thinking. This will show my interest
and that I am not going to just sit around doing nothing. After showing that I
am willing to contribute and talk with each team member on a personal level to
get to know them, I believe I will earn their trust.

Anonymous · Answer

לזכות באמון של הצוות כמנהל מצריך שילוב של מספר דברים יחד: 
1. להקשיב למה שיש לאנשים להגיד. זה מאד חשוב לתת לאנשים להתבטא ולהעביר מסר לצוות
שכל דעה נחשבת. להבין את הרציונל מאחורי הדעה שהוצגה ובמידת ואני לא מסכימה איתה,
להציג את ברציונל מאחורי הדעה שלי. לא להנחית החלטות ולא לייצר מצב שאנשים לא רוצים
להציג את דעתם. זה הופך עובדים לרובוטים וזה הדבר האחרון שרוצים, בטח במנהלי מוצר 
2. לשתף את העובדים שמה שקורה בארגון, לספר להם על האסטרטגיה, לחשוף אותם להחלטות,
להסביר את מאחורי הקלעים כדי שיוכלו להתחבר ולהבין 
3. לעזור לעובדים לפתור את הסוגיות והבעיות שיש להם מול ממשקים כדי שידעו שאני מגבה
אותם ועוזרת להם כשנדרש לקבל את המטרות והמשימות שלנו
4. להתעניין בחיים האישיים שלהם, בטוב טעם כמובן... להראות אכפתיות אמיתית כלפי
הבריאות, המשפחתיות והחיים האישיים שלהם

בנימה אישית, כשנכנסתי לתפקיד, היו מספר אנשים שעבדו תחתיי שרצו את התפקיד שלי
וקיבלו אותי בצורה מאד עוינת יחסית. עם הזמן הם למדו שלא באתי לפגוע או להקטין אלא
להעצים ולתמוך בהם ובקידום המשימות היעדים שלנו יחד. היום אני מרגישה שיש לי מערכת
יחסים מצוינת עם כלל העובדים והממשקים שלי בארגון. אני מקבלת פידבקים רבים בנושא
ומרגישה שזו אחת החוזקות שלי.

Anonymous · Answer

I would want to start by understanding my role on the team - how specifically I
am working to help my teammates, what teammates I am going to be collaborating
with, etc. This would take the form of a short discussion with the team where I
can pick their brain of what they're looking to improve and what can be improved
in the team's functionality overall.
Once I understand my role, it is time to start executing on my responsibilities.
From a technical side, familiarize myself with all procedures if I haven't
already. I am a strong believer in letting my actions speak for themselves
rather than words, which don't often have firm backing behind them. By working
diligently on my responsibilities and reaching out to others if I have a
pressing question that I've taken time to think about myself, I will be able to
earn their trust.
For example, if I was working on a fixed income desk, I would speak to fixed
income traders/researchers and understand what they are looking for me to do in
order to aid their daily business, and strive to work towards that while
adding/changing responsibilities as I see fit.

Anonymous · Answer

Firstly, I will be learning each team member's strengths and areas of expertise.
Without understanding the team there is no gaining of trust. I am going to be
very communicative in what I do and why I do it, both within the team and
outside of it, so the team understands the reasoning behind my actions. By
showing the team that everything I do is for the benefit of the team and the
wider company, this will ultimately earn the trust of them.

Anonymous · Answer

Myself would be a best example how to make trustful interactions between
co-workers. I respect each one in the team. For instance, in team call, I'll
will seek each one suggestions and feedback and I never reject others opinion.
Analysis it and if it is good, accept it and appreciate them.

Anonymous · Answer

you earn the trust of your team by openly communicating issues , being
trustworthy and having their back no matter the situation

Anonymous · Answer

Firstly, if I want to earn trust to in team, I should make myself trustable,
work hard, be kind of , and stay professional. Then I should more commuits with
team members that I can family with them and let them know I worth to be
trusted. Finally, I think keep doing right things, if I try my best to make all
staffs which I response for have a good quility, i can earn trust in a team

Anonymous · Answer

1. Set motivating goals. ...
 2. Let your people decide how they do their work. ...
 3. Use job crafting. ...
 4. Be open and communicate often. ...
 5. Build genuine relationships. ...
 6. Encourage personal and professional growth. ...
 7. Show vulnerability, while maintaining credibility.

How do you earn the trust of a team?

Did you come across this question in an interview?

Answers

Also asked as

Try Our AI Interviewer