Should you trust your staff?
Sep 16 2009
Trust no one. That seems to the resounding message of the age, with proposed legislation set to prevent you from dropping your friend’s kids off to a football match without getting a criminal record check first.
Little surprise then that the majority of small business owners don’t trust their staff. According to our latest poll, 33 per cent say they doubt the honesty of all of their workers, with 76 per cent distrusting at least some of their staff. Less than a quarter of respondents trust their workforce completely.
And why should you trust them? The late nights, cancelled holidays and years of worry lines aren’t investments that are easy to quantify. Of course your staff aren’t going to care as much as you. A measured dose of mistrust is surely a healthy approach to running a small business.
Or is it? Having some faith in your employees can go a very long way. Brian McConnell started his engineering company Hydrock from his home and has built it up to be worth more than £50 million. For McConnell the key to his success is simple. ‘I believe that if you’ve got the right people then you can do anything. It’s all down to the people,’ he says.
Blind belief in people obviously won't get you anywhere, but automatic distrust is hardly a recipe for inspirational leadership. Show your staff a little trust and they might return the compliment. After all, you hired them.
Comment by Tony Law
Wednesday 16th September 2009Trust is something we all rely on in business. If my clients lie or forget data or details then they break our trust. Blind faith is perhaps what the F1 driver had when he trusted the instruction to crash his car to assist his colleagues winning chances. With financial markets still not moving freely and the trust between bank and customer badly damaged we all need to value and keep what little just we have left particularly with employees who can go that extra mile if we trust them!
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