In addition to authenticity, persuasive power and credibility, trust is the most important asset of leaders in attracting employees. Especially managers should be very aware of the importance of relationship.

"When top managers lose their trust"

The more reliable and correct leaders are, the greater their credibility, and the greater the confidence their employees have in them.

Managers are in the spotlight in this regard. "The reputation of Company and their top managers is the most valuable asset they own. The reputation determines the goodwill, the attractiveness as an employer, the international competitiveness. It takes years for a good reputation to be built up and it can be lost in a few moments. "This is the conclusion of Andreas Nölting in his article"When top managers lose their trust". https://www.springerprofessional.de/reputationsmanagement/corporate-social-responsibility/wenn-topmanager-das-vertrauen-verspielen/12180766

... the trust of the employees in leadership quality is dwindling

Nölting rightly asks the following questions: "But why do many entrepreneurs or managers go too far? Why are there so many managers who, with their greed or immoral behavior, do not live up to their responsibility as top managers? "

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He cites three examples, including Anton Schlecker. It is not always the large - albeit media-effective - bankruptcies that destroy trust in companies, their management and executives. Much more dramatic are the countless individual cases in small and medium-sized companies, but also in individual business units and departments of large corporations, which dramatically reduce the confidence of employees in the leadership quality.

Trust is the prerequisite and basis for mutual success.

When managing agile teams, whether in the middle class or large corporations, trust is a key criterion. Successful leadership gains through a high level of trust. It is important to take everyone with confidence.

A culture of trust does not work if only individuals live it - even though role models can, of course, do a great deal in the longer term. A key question at this point is: What is important every day for building and maintaining the trust of, with and to business partners, colleagues and employees?

Does trust make control redundant?

The importance of trust as relationship level from person to person is undoubtedly high. Reinhard K. Sprenger puts it in the book "Well positioned, football strategies for managers" (2008 Campus Verlag, Frankfurt / Main) in a nutshell: "Trust is safer than any security measure. Trust controls more successfully than any control system. Trust creates more value than any value-adding management concept. "

Which does not mean that trust makes any control superfluous. Too big would be the risk of abuse - after all, not every person knows how to deal with the freedom of absolute trust. Ultimately, there is and remains a tightrope between trust, which of course clearly focuses, and the need to control - depending on the manager and the individual employee or team.

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Trust and control - that's what science says

The Swiss trust and organization researcher Antoinette Weibel explains this in one Interview on hrtoday.ch : "A system of trust does not work without controls, if only because free-riders otherwise have easy play (...). In addition, control also helps detect flaws early and provide assistance. "

For me, it is clearly part of the job, in many areas even the duty of the manager to control - the decisive factor is the way and the "how much". And that's exactly what mutual trust pays off.

Good relationships are the cornerstones in companies for success.

“The air at the top is not only thin, but also cold. Employees meet their superiors with a certain distance. That is the flip side of the tunnel view, which we like to accuse our top managers: As the bosses' decision-making powers increase, the mistrust of the workforce increases towards “those up there”. “According to Alexander Gutzmer in his manager magazin contribution“Who the bosses trust".

Of course, it would be nice if people automatically and spontaneously trust each other, but it's not that easy. Even if managers, entrepreneurs and executives can do a lot: Designing themselves conducive and trusting working relationships, promoting a friendly working environment (for young jobseekers an important criterion for the choice of the employer) as well as positive social relationships, this of course also influences the attitude to work that Work behavior and employee performance.

To go in advance

Trust is an indispensable prerequisite for beneficial industrial relations. Leaders should take advantage of their position of power, so be sure to take the first step towards building a trusting relationship. Give them confidence, they act as a role model. Irrespective of the person's position, they deal with each other honestly and openly, allow controversial discussions and sometimes talk about their own private lives, making them more appealing to their employees. All this increases trust as well as a good feedback culture: how is criticism expressed, is the matter considered separately by the individual, is the boss not resentful and does the gaze move forward? If values ​​of employees are worked out together, rather than distributed "from top to bottom" by email, the trust in the enterprise lives.

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Those who are suspicious need not be surprised if mistrust strikes back. This mistrust often manifests itself through increased controls, yes, a regular control compulsion. Instead of letting go, we still want to put our stamp on the whole thing. We know such situations from the professional environment as well as in families. In both cases, it is not a good basis for building and maintaining trust. Somehow, that's pretty complicated: once we've built trust, we can take control. But without a minimum of control, many people can not build trust at all. Therefore, control is good, trust is better.