I recently shared on my LinkedIn profile an article about “The Seven Ways To Build Trust” taken from the work of Jack Lannom and it can be summarised as bringing:
1. Character
– these are the core attributes you bring as a human being to the relationship and must be linked to the kind of leader you want to be and include such things as integrity, courage, inspiration, passion, humility and honesty
2. Competence
– this is about the level of skill you bring to perform the tasks required of you in your role 
3. Confidence
– people want you to feel and BE confident so they can feel confident in your leadership
4. Caring
– for people to trust they want to know and feel that you care about them as a person. For it to work it must be authentic and genuine. Make people feel significant and the level of trust is lifted straight away
5. Communication
– being open in what you share and how you share it is the quickest way to deepen or destroy trust. Make sure what you intend is what you send and importantly is what they receive.
6. Consistency
– be the kind of leader and the kind of person you want to be “all of the time” so people can rely confidently on their expectations and their perceptions. Make reality match expectations and perceptions and you have high levels of trust
7. Commitment
– bring passion and energy to what you stand for so your actions match your words and your thoughts.
Developing trust with critical stakeholders in your life takes dedicated and disciplined effort. Create a stakeholder map and determine the current level of trust with each of them and then decide what you want it to be within the next twelve months. Then use the seven ‘C’ s to develop an action plan for each stakeholder.
Make it conscious and you make a difference.
Why build trust? Because it makes “doing business” more enjoyable, more effective, more efficient and more courageous. None of us has time to spare playing games – build trust, and this allows you to be ‘real’ with each other and work in the high performing space with each other.
