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Trust Your Team

I’m going to start by asking a question … are you a jack of all trades?  Are you the best at everything you do?  Or, are there people who know better than you?  This same question holds true with teams you are on.

When you hire a team, or are brought onto a team, the people that are chosen are normally there to expand on the current set of skills that the team has available to them.  So, I want to ask, why not trust them to do what they were brought on to do?

Lots of people get lost in the fact that they want to lead a team and by doing that try to control each of the interactions whic occur on it.  This sense of control could make it feel like the project is going smoothly and efficiently, but at the say time will likely start to make people feel untrusted which in turn affects productivity.  If people are constantly looking over their shoulders, to see if they are being monitored, or feeling pressured to work, the work that they produce will suffer.  But not only that, their desire to exceed expectations will likely also diminish.

Instead, in a team situation, you need to really stop and let your just work and do what they were brought on to do.

Of course, there will be times that this trust has been abused but those times generally followed up by some tough conversations where the situation is addressed.  If it isn’t, it still is not a reason to not trust the team, it is an issue for the team leads (or managers) to deal with.  Lack of trust breeds negativity in the work environment which in turn is counterproductive.

I would like to encourage you to trust those with whom you work.  Your team will end up being a lot more productive if you can.

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