Building Trust in Teams

I have found triangulating with highly believable people who are willing to have thoughtful disagreements has never failed to enhance my learning and sharpen the quality of my decision making. It typically leads me to make better decisions than I could have otherwise and it typically provides me with thrilling learning. I urge you to do it. To do it well, be sure to avoid the common perils of: 1) valuing your own believability more than is logical and 2) not distinguishing between who is more or less credible. In case of a disagreement with others, start by seeing if you can agree on the principles that should be used to make that decision. This discussion should include exploring the merits of the reasoning behind the different principles. If you agree on them, apply them to the case at hand and you’ll arrive at a conclusion everyone agrees on. If you disagree on the principles, try to work through your disagreement based on your respective believabilities. I will explain how we do this in more detail in when I get to my Work Principles. This sort of principled and believability-weighted decision making is fascinating and leads to much different and much better decision making than is typical. For example, imagine if we used this approach to choose the president. It would be fascinating to see which principles we would come up with both for determining what makes a good president as well as for deciding who is most believable in making such determinations. Would we wind up with something like one person one vote, or something different? And if different, in what ways? It certainly would lead to very different outcomes. During the next election, let’s do this in parallel with our ordinary electoral process so we can see the difference. While believability-weighted decision making can sound complicated, chances are you do it all the time— pretty much whenever you ask yourself, “Who should I listen to?” But it’s almost certainly true that you’d do it a lot better if you gave more thought to it. #PrincipleofTheDay

You stay late again tonight. Your team left hours ago. But you're still here. Fixing their work. Making their decisions. Carrying their weight. You tell yourself it's faster this way. That they're not ready yet. But deep down, you feel it. The exhaustion. The loneliness. The quiet fear that you're doing this all wrong. Other leaders' teams run without them. Why doesn't yours? Here's the truth: 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻'𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳 𝗮 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗳 𝗻𝗼 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱. The best leaders don't create followers. They create more leaders. And you? You have everything it takes to be that leader. You have the skills. The heart. The determination. You've just been using them to do the work instead of growing the people. That changes today. Because you're not just a doer. You're a builder. And builders know when to put down the hammer and hand it to someone else. Here are 5 simple ways to start building instead of doing: 𝟭. 𝗧𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 When they ask "What should I do?" don't answer. Ask "What do you think we should try?" 𝟮. 𝗟𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 Stop catching every mistake before it happens. Small failures today create strong leaders tomorrow. 𝟯. 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 "𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻?" 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Ask it after every project. Every mistake. Every win. One question that turns any moment into growth. 𝟰. 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝘀𝘄𝗲𝗿 Walk them through how you think. Let them see the process, not just the result. 𝟱. 𝗚𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲, 𝗹𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗲 Tell them what success looks like. Then step back and let them figure out how to get there. The shift feels scary at first. You'll want to jump in. To save them. To make it perfect. Don't. Bite your tongue. Trust the process. Watch them grow. Because here's what happens when you lead this way: They stop needing you for answers. They start surprising you with solutions. Your late nights turn into healthier choices. And your team? They become leaders beside you. That's when you'll know. You're not just leading. You're multiplying. ♻ Repost this to create better leadership cultures. ➕ Follow me (Meera Remani) for more insights on leading with impact, not exhaustion.

A group of people isn't a team. Until they have trust. After 25 years of working with leaders, I've learned this: Trust isn't a given.  It's earned. Slowly.  Methodically. With each interaction.  With every hard choice. Some leaders get there intuitively.  The best ones build it intentionally. Here's their blueprint: PILLAR 1: CHARACTER TRUST (Integrity) Without integrity, nothing else matters. • Do what you say you'll do • Take radical ownership of mistakes • Be honest even when it's uncomfortable • Make decisions based on principles, not politics PILLAR 2: CAPABILITY TRUST (Competence) Respect follows competence. • Demonstrate you know what you're talking about • Choose problems that advance the mission • Make good decisions under pressure • Deliver results, not just stories PILLAR 3: CONSISTENCY TRUST (Reliability) Consistency compounds momentum. • Build reliable patterns your team can count on • Follow through on commitments repeatedly • Codify your reliability with systems • React calmly under stress PILLAR 4: CONNECTION TRUST (Relatability) People follow leaders they feel connected to. • Care about their success, not just their output • Understand what motivates each team member • Be confident enough to be humble • Invest genuinely in your people The sequence matters: Try to be relatable before you're reliable?  You'll seem fake. Try to show competence before integrity?  You'll seem dangerous. Build the foundation first. Trust is harder to build than to break.  But this is what makes it so valuable. When you have it, everything else becomes possible. • Ambitious goals • Difficult conversations • Teams that exceed expectations Most leaders try to drive performance before they deliver trust. Don't be most leaders. ♻️ Share this if you think your team could be more trusting. 🔔 Follow Dave Kline for more practical leadership insights.

Many teams I work with are surprised when I say this: Conflict isn’t inherently a problem. In fact, when I encounter a team with no visible conflict, I become curious and sometimes even concerned. Because what appears on the surface as harmony is often something else entirely: - Unspoken disagreement - Withheld input - Fear of disrupting the group One leadership team I recently supported described themselves as “very aligned.” But when we introduced anonymous team reflections, a different picture emerged. Team members had concerns, ideas, and doubts that had never been voiced. Because they didn’t feel it was safe to challenge, disagree, or complicate the discussion. This is a common pattern - it’s not the presence of conflict that damages teams, but how it’s handled. 🧠 Productive friction - the kind of disagreement grounded in trust, focused on ideas, and managed with intention can sharpen thinking, clarify strategy, and deepen engagement. But when tension is left unspoken or expressed without care, it erodes connection and trust. 🔬 Research supports this distinction. Amy Edmondson’s work on psychological safety shows that high-performing teams are not those with no conflict, but those where people can speak up, especially when it’s difficult. So the question isn’t “how do we avoid conflict?” It's: Have we created a culture where disagreement is safe, useful, and expected? If not, it’s time to design one. That’s exactly what I help leadership teams do: 1️⃣ Build psychological safety 2️⃣ Create rituals for productive disagreement 3️⃣ Turn silence into contribution Let’s build teams that don’t fear conflict but know how to use it.

The higher your position in your org, the more telling is the impact of your internal rules, your personal belief system. People form beliefs to make sense of the world. Say you're a young manager and you believe that while hiring digital marketers, it is better to go with the younger one (if all else is same). This rule is only really a rule of thumb. It is simple, it helps you decide quickly. That doesn't mean it is right every time. Now say you're a senior leader and you have spent your career believing most acquisitions fail (maybe because of something you had read or heard years ago--it is hard to cheaply get first-hand experience of acquisitions). When the opportunity emerges to grow your company by making acquisitions, you're going to come up with reasons to stall progress that will bemuse your peers. Say you happen to be the CEO. Now your views have the power to stall growth for the entire org. The higher you go up, the more telling is the impact of your personal belief system, your own book of rules. Test your beliefs. You can do that, depending on your situation, in any of three ways. Be aware when you're enforcing your rules. This is tried and tested but hard, initially at least. Seek the opinion of those who are unafraid to tell you the truth. This is easier, but when one is influential one tends to gather friends for a season, not friends for life. Pay a professional to draw out and show you the truth. That's what coaches are for. Just the awareness that you may be operating under a set of untested rules that no longer hold is a good start. #decisionmaking #awareness #curiosityovercertainty

The lesson I take from so many dispersed teams I’ve worked with over the years is that great collaboration is not about shrinking the distance. It is about deepening the connection. Time zones, language barriers, and cultural nuances make working together across borders uniquely challenging. I see these dynamics regularly: smart, dedicated people who care deeply about their work but struggle to truly see and understand one another. One of the tools I often use in my work with global teams is the Harvard Business School case titled Greg James at Sun Microsystems. It tells the story of a manager leading a 45-person team spread across the U.S., France, India, and the UAE. When a major client system failed, the issue turned out not to be technical but human. Each location saw the problem differently. Misunderstandings built up across time zones. Tensions grew between teams that rarely met in person. What looked like a system failure was really a connection failure. What I find powerful about this story, and what I see mirrored in so many organizations today, is that the path forward is about rethinking how we create connection, trust, and fairness across distance. It is not where many leaders go naturally: new tools or tighter control. Here are three useful practices for dispersed teams to adopt. (1) Create shared context, not just shared goals. Misalignment often comes from not understanding how others work, not what they’re working on. Try brief “work tours,” where teams explain their daily realities and constraints. Context builds empathy, and empathy builds speed. (2) Build trust through reflection, not just reliability. Trust deepens when people feel seen and understood. After cross-site collaborations, ask: “What surprised you about how others see us?” That simple reflection can transform relationships. (3) Design fairness into the system. Uneven meeting times, visibility, or opportunities quickly erode respect. Rotate schedules, celebrate behind-the-scenes work, and make sure recognition travels across time zones. Fairness is a leadership design choice, not a nice-to-have. Distance will always be part of global work, but disconnection doesn’t have to be. When leaders intentionally design for shared understanding, reflected trust, and structural fairness, I've found, distributed teams flourish. #collaboration #global #learning #leadership #connection Case here: https://lnkd.in/eZfhxnGW

A Product Manager is nothing without the development team. Yet, it is so easy to take the spotlight as a PM. Here are 10 ways to share the glory: 1) Celebrate Team Achievements Publicly Always acknowledge the team's hard work in company meetings, emails, or on social media. A public shout-out boosts morale and shows that you value their contributions. Perhaps invite a team member to join or replace you in a big presentation of a successful release. 2) Share Credit Generously When discussing successes, use "we" instead of "I". Highlight individual contributions and how they impacted the project's success. I often forget that even though I truly believe in every word of this post. 3) Provide Growth Opportunities Offer team members opportunities to learn new skills or take on new responsibilities. Investing in their growth shows you care about their professional development. Work with their team leader so everyone has a varied set of tasks to complete to make the work interesting. 4) Listen Actively Make time to hear your team's ideas and concerns. Active listening fosters a collaborative environment where everyone feels heard and valued. Never skip a retro! 5) Give Constructive Feedback Provide timely and constructive feedback that helps team members improve and grow. Be specific about what they did well and where they can enhance their skills. Remember to provide negative feedback privately. 6) Recognize Efforts Not Just Results Acknowledge the hard work and dedication, even if the project didn't turn out as expected. This encourages a culture of effort and resilience. 7) Foster a Positive Team Culture Encourage teamwork and camaraderie. Organize team-building activities or informal gatherings to strengthen relationships. It can be as trivial as taking lunch together. 8) Be Transparent Share information about your vision, company goals, and any changes. Transparency builds trust and shows respect for the team's role in the bigger picture. Be their corporate ally! 9) Empower Decision-Making Allow team members to make decisions in their areas of expertise. This trust empowers them and increases their investment in the project's success. 10) Express Gratitude Personally A simple "thank you" can go a long way. Take the time to personally thank team members for their contributions. Name the success so it is not a lazy, generic gratitude. There you have it, my 10 tips to ensure your development team feels valued and appreciated. Do you share your glory with your team? Sound off in the comments! #productmanagement #productmanager #teamappreciation P.S. To become a great Product Manager who leads with appreciation, check out my courses at www. drbartpm. com :)

Trust is the secret ingredient for a thriving team. It pays you back more than you'd think. In my previous leadership team, we had a split where some members thought new hires should only get access to all of the benefits after they had passed probation - which included a four-day workweek. I didn't. I think you get more from people when you start from a place of trust. Elevate your team's performance by empowering them. Here’s how trust impacts performance: 1. Higher Productivity: ↳ Trusted teams are 50% more productive (HBR). ↳ Employees spend more time working and less time seeking approval. 2. Increased Engagement: ↳ 70% of employees are more engaged when they feel trusted (Gallup). ↳ Engaged employees bring more energy and passion to their work. 3. Lower Turnover: ↳ Trust reduces turnover by 40% (Edelman). ↳ Employees stay longer in environments where they feel valued. 4. Better Problem-Solving: ↳ Teams that trust each other collaborate more effectively. ↳ Trust encourages open communication and quicker resolution of issues. To build this trust, leaders should: - Listen. - Create transparency. - Set clear expectations. - Confront and face reality. - Provide the right level of autonomy. - Recognise and reward achievements. Trust your team and watch them exceed your expectations. 🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩 Find this useful? Repost this & follow Tom Head for more content that's worth your time. ⬇️

Every great CFO has one thing in common: they’ve been underestimated. I’ve lost count of the times I was introduced as “the numbers guy.” The person who handles compliance. The one who makes sure the reports get filed. And for a while, I let that perception stand. But the truth is, being a CFO is about far more than reporting. It’s about strategy. It’s about shaping the future, not just recording the past. I remember one particular project where the CEO turned to operations for the big strategic decisions. Finance wasn’t at the table. We were expected to “run the numbers” once everything had already been decided. It stung. But it also lit a fire. Instead of waiting for an invitation, I started showing up differently. I simplified the financials so leaders could act on them. I translated risk into strategy. I proved that finance could be a driver, not just a scorekeeper. And slowly, the perception shifted. That’s the thing about great CFOs. They’ve all had moments where they were underestimated. What makes them great is that they didn’t stay there. They turned it into proof. Proof that clarity is influential. Proof that finance belongs at the heart of strategy. Because once you’ve been underestimated, you learn the most powerful lesson of all: Your value is not in the title, it’s in the impact you create.

Leaders: create an environment where your team doesn't second guess themselves. Failure is okay. Difficult conversations need to happen. Worthwhile work is hard. But here's the thing: your team will fail to execute according to your standards when you've built a system around fear (whether intentional or not). And even worse, the standards they can achieve. Here's how I try (and fail at times) to build a culture of trust on the marketing team: Encourage Transparency: Make it safe for your team to share challenges, ask for help, and voice concerns. Have monthly or quarterly meetings with every team member, make it a safe space to share their concerns. Show Your Vulnerability: Lead by example, show your own vulnerability. Admit your mistakes, and model how to learn and move forward. Get Agreements: Fear often arises from uncertainty. Be clear about goals, priorities, and what success looks like. Share Before Ready: Encourage your team (and yourself) to share work-in-progress ideas, drafts, and projects. Waiting for "perfect" never works. Give Feedback With Empathy: Feedback should be constructive, not destructive. Focus on the behavior, not the person. Fear can stifle even the most hardworking and intelligent. It also blunts creativity, slows your team, and severely limits trust. It's your job to remove the barrier.