An Impact podcast with Anthony Barrett, created for the Impact leadership playbook.
A leader's success can often be measured by the strength of their relationships. Built on a solid foundation of trust, such relationships enable leaders to listen to other perspectives, ask bold questions, gain a broader understanding before making decisions, and leverage strong human connections for engagement and buy in.
But how exactly are trusting relationships formed? What do they look like? And what can leaders do now to start building them?
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In this mini podcast (21 mins), created exclusively for the Impact leadership playbook, Dan chats to Anthony Barrett about building trusting relationships. Based in Cheshire in the UK, Anthony is a Senior Consultant for Impact UK. He has spent 12 years working as a coach, consultant and experiential learning practitioner across both the UK and Asia. Anthony is known for his insightful nature, a passion for both adventure and sustainability, and his curiosity about individuals and teams.
What is a trusting relationship?
“I went to AI and I just threw all my ideas down and said ‘what do you think trust is?’ And it came up with a definition: ‘A trusting relationship is one where both parties feel safe, respected and valued. The trust is built over time through consistent behaviours and actions that lead to reliability, honesty and integrity.'
Ok great, that’s what trust is on paper… but why? Why is that important? What does it give us?
So I was reflecting on this idea that trusting relationships are about the point when somebody’s going beyond their day to day – they’re doing something that’s outside of their standard asks. It’s the point when you’re reaching out to someone and asking them to do something that’s maybe a little bit risky, something that’s beyond what they should be doing. And that’s the point where the trust becomes involved.
So in standard management, there’s no trusting relationship really needed. But when you’re providing leadership and you’re starting to create new things or asking people to move on to different projects, or to lend their time to things, that’s when you need that trusting relationship."
What role do trusting relationships have in the leadership toolkit?
“I think it depends on where you sit within leadership. If you think of leadership as a position, then you need your team to be aligned, and you're responsible for that. And so when it comes to having people be motivated to deliver the things they need to deliver, again, trust just makes that easier (…)
When you've got a high level of trust, people will follow you, sometimes just out of curiosity, and nothing else is required. And you can stand there and be honest and admit that you don't understand the initiative either but that you think, as a team, you should go for it – and they'll go with you. High trust, more likely; low trust, much less likely. From that perspective, it's all about your team knowing that you have their back, and that they have your back, and they’re more likely to be less resistant to anything that needs to come through that you’re responsible for.
If we switch to thinking about leadership in terms of acts of leadership, you're talking about influence, not position. Trust is absolutely key here as you have nothing else – you have no job title to fall back on. People need to know that you're acting out of good intent, and that whatever it is it's going to benefit the cause. Then they're more likely to back you.”
What’s your top tip for a leader wanting to build trusting relationships?
“Less is more. Take time to focus on exactly what you want to influence and not spread yourself too thinly because you're trying to do too much. What do I need to do first that's going to make everything else easier? Or maybe even obsolete? Maybe it's taking the time to really get to know and understand the people in your team. Do that thing first and then watch the cascade effect as you go through your leadership journey.”
Listen to the podcast on Spotify
This mini podcast was created for our leadership playbook, an interactive resource capturing 45 years of learning about leadership.