In: Operations Management
Trust is the foundation of any group or team to be effective; it facilitates the team to accept and commit themselves to the leader’s goals and decisions. Research has proven that members of effective teams demonstrate a great deal of trust their leaders or employers and vice versa. Trust is always a transactional exchange between employer and employee or between the employees themselves. Interpersonal trust among group members ensures cooperation and reduces the need to monitor each other’s behaviour. Trust strengthen the bond between the individual through the simple belief that everyone is working towards the organisational goals and that members won’t take advantage of them. An organisation where there is a climate of trust, employees are more likely to take go beyond what they are asked to do and take risks by exposing themselves to vulnerabilities. Following are some of the ways which heighten the importance of the climate of trust in an organization.
1. Encourages risk-taking behaviour: When employees know that they have the backing of their employers and team members, they expose themselves to vulnerabilities for the greater good of organisational performance. They take their leader's word and deviate from their normal work by taking a risk.
2. Facilitating information sharing: When managers and employees trust each other, they regularly communicate with each other and share feedback. Employees in a trusting organisation know that their immediate supervisor will give their ideas a fair hearing and actively make needed changes. Employees, therefore, are more willing to speak out.
3. Reduces dysfunctional conflict: An organisation where trust between individuals is the order of the day, the dysfunctional conflict does not occur because every individual sees the action of each other as complementary to organisational goals.
4. More effective: When a leader or employer demonstrates the trust in the organisation, the organisational and group members help each other and exhibit respect for each other which in turn helps in increasing the morale of employees and makes it more effective.
5. Enhances productivity. Employees who trust their managers make it imperative that they will receive higher performance ratings which only goes on to say that productivity is increasing.