Building Trust: 5 Steps to Nurturing Relationships for Great Work

Trust is a fundamental aspect of any relationship, whether personal or professional. Building trust is not easy, and it can be challenging to take the necessary risks and be vulnerable. To help you understand how to build trust, I have put together five steps to follow.

Trust me, they work. ← see what I did there?

Recently, I produced a Friday Questions video in this human community about trust. To do the HUGE topic justice, I did some research to refresh my perspective on what trust really is and how to nurture it. This article shares the elements that I believe help nurture trust within relationships that enable great work to happen.

As you would know by now, I only write about things I have directly experienced, so I know from my direct experience that these actions build trusting relationships.

TRUST: Choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions. —Charles Feltman

Trust doesn’t come easily to everyone. It is so dependent on your own personal experience with trusting people and being trustworthy as a person. The challenge with trust is that it feels risky to some. Like the quote above, it requires vulnerability and with vulnerability there is always risk.

So how to we intentionally create trust?

Five steps to building trust

Step 1: Be consistent

Consistency builds reliability. This brings in many threads, but I always tend to remember Horton the Elephant. Of course, it goes a step further than saying what you mean, and meaning what you say, consistency also comes through action.

When people see that you are consistently you, not only does a sense of reliability emerge, but so does safety. And when people feel safe in a relationship, they also feel they are able to trust within that relationship.

Horton the Elephant shows us what it means to have power in your word.

“I said what I meant and I meant what I said.” Horton the Elephant, Dr Seuss

Step 2: Tell the truth

This seems to be an obvious one, but also not often the pathway chosen. Telling the truth can feel really inconvenient sometimes, but in my opinion, it is the only way to go. Telling the truth actually makes it easier for you to deliver on Step 1, consistency.

And remember, it is easier to tell ‘your’ truth, so authenticity helps you with Step 2.

Step 3: Have clear boundaries

Boundaries are an important topic in design character work. Some attributes of our ‘professionalism’ make it difficult for us to establish, maintain, enforce, and honour them in ourselves and others. Understanding where your boundaries lie gives you language to advocate for them.

Boundaries keep yourself and others safe. How? They signal to people what’s okay and what’s not okay. The rules of engagement are clear, and the likelihood of a misstep is reduced. This de-risks being in a relationship with you for others. It also establishes the standards that you expect from others and makes it safer for you to be you and do what you do.

Establishing new boundaries keeps you safe.

Step 4: Communicate clearly

Communicating clearly (and often) about what’s happening with your work, being transparent about decisions you’re making, what’s on your mind, what you’re pleased about, and what you’re not happy with helps people you work with know where you (and so they) stand.

To be able to communicate clearly about where you are at requires a very important prerequisite: self-knowledge. This doesn’t just come naturally; we are not born knowing who we are. Self-knowledge requires discipline, reflection, and some excavation. It is not a navel-gazing exercise; it is critical work for success in this world. You must know who you are to establish clear boundaries.

Step 5: Show vulnerability

While on the topic of ‘professionalism’, we become socialised into norms and behaviours which are unique across different organisations we work within and for. Sometime these norms get in the way of our own authentic expression of our work, or the way we work.

It’s better to say “I don’t know” when you don’t. You don’t have to have all the answers all the time. Sharing when you don’t know something builds credibility. People know when you don’t know something anyway, so just be honest (back to step 2).

At the end of the day, people trust those they can rely on.

Who is Melis Senova?

I am a coach and advisor to design leaders, C-level executives and leaders in government. My work in This Human is dedicated to the next generation of designers and leaders.