PROJECT MANAGEMENT TIPS: How TRUST is built within the team members!
Four foundation pillars that you need to build trust either with your project stakeholders or with your project team members. Source: Susanne Madsen, Leadership Coach.
(1) Competence. The first one is competence. You must absolutely demonstrate that you are capable of doing a good job. It sounds obvious but we sometimes overlook it. What does it mean for you? It means that you must demonstrate that you master project management. That you’re good at planning, that you’re good at doing risks and issues, that you’re good at doing progress reporting etc.
(2) Connection. But there is another aspect. You must also demonstrate that you absolutely understand the bigger context of the project, the subject matter expertise. So that’s all part of being competent and doing a good job, but it takes more to build trust. We also have to build a connection. People have to feel that you can empathize with them. That means that you’re able to walk in someone else’s shoes. You can demonstrate that by spending time with people, asking questions, listening to them, and understanding what’s going on for them. Then that person will feel that you understand them and that’s going to help strengthen trust.
(3) Honesty. The third element is honesty. You must demonstrate that you are reliable. Now most probably managers I know don’t walk around being dishonest, but what does happen is that they made over promise. They may say, “Yes I’ll get the minutes out by this time tomorrow or yes we will try to deliver this by middle of June.” But if you over promise, what happens is that you may not deliver on your promises and that comes across as dishonesty and that will severely impact your trust.
(4) Communication. The fourth element is communication. You must demonstrate to your stakeholders that you are able to communicate clearly about project progress. You must be clear so clearly communicate risks and issues. Be upfront about the true progress and the true state of your project and also be clear about how they can contribute and help get a project back on track for instance. All of these aspects help to form that circle of trust.
Naturally, these are processes that take practice and time to show results. However, there’s no better time than right now to start. Once you’ve developed a sense of trust with your resources then you’ll be surprised at how better they’ll perform for you and the project.
So, we invite you to reflect on this. Which aspects are you stronger in and which aspects do you need to strengthen? We also invite you to join our “Project Leadership and Stakeholder Management” course to learn and practice the above knowledge and skills.
