Written by Carlos Del Cueto and Matthew Vandermeer
In her book Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown writes that “trust is more of a cognitive assessment than an emotion”. What exactly are we
assessing? Depending on the situation or challenge we face – or to put it perhaps more accurately, depending on what our priorities are at a
point in time – we will be assessing different parameters that in turn yield different kinds of trust. We find it useful to think of these
kinds of trust as separate beasts, if you will, and to be clear with ourselves which kind of trust we are really dealing with in different
situations. Let’s break it down, and with each type of trust each of us – Matthew and Carlos – will share some examples from our own lives.
Predictive Trust
Matt: I can remember some leadership training I did in a previous job. There was a conversation about trust – who you trust on your team
and why. One person came to mind right away. She was totally driven by her own incentives. A lone wolf. She didn’t want to collaborate, and
she put her KPIs and needs ahead of everyone else’s. But here’s the strange part: she was the person I thought of. I didn’t trust her to be
a great teammate, but I did trust that I could predict how she’d respond in almost any situation. She’d do whatever was best for her. And
because of that, I knew what to expect. Carlos: My friend Pablo. Love the guy, but if we were going somewhere together and we agreed to
leave at 10am, he would take an extra 30 minutes to get ready. The way I learned to live with this was to tell him, for a 10am start, to be
ready at 9:30am. He would apologise for being late when he arrived at 10, and I was perfectly content with the outcome. In other words, I
could rely on him being 30 minutes late. Predictive trust is not the kind of trust we need for high performance. It can be helpful to know
what to expect from someone, for sure. But it is also detrimental when what we are predicting is counterproductive behaviour that we simply
learn to live with.
Vulnerability-based Trust
Matt: For me, vulnerability-based trust shows up anytime I say or I hear “I don’t know” or “I need help.” One time it really stuck with me
was watching a former GM of mine. He was open about what he wasn’t great at, and he let others on the team – people who reported to him –
step in and lead in those areas. In that job, this kind of thing was rare. There was this unspoken belief that if you made it to GM, you
were supposed to be all-seeing and all-knowing. Clearly b*llsh*t, but it was the vibe. Because he was okay not being the smartest in the
room, his team actually stepped up more. We felt empowered, and we performed better. Carlos: There are a few people in my life that I have
approached to say: “I know I am failing at X, and it’s probably because of something I’m doing, but I’m not exactly sure what it is. Can
you help me?” I recently approached a colleague whom I trust has nothing but my best interest at heart with precisely this question. She
sat in on a session with me and, because she knew what I was struggling with, she was better able to help me articulate a key obstacle in a
way I hadn’t considered. Hearing her feedback was a gamechanger. Vulnerability-based trust is key for team performance if we are to truly
work as a team. When Patrick Lencioni writes about trust in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, this is the kind of trust he is
talking about. It takes time to earn and develop it, and we can also take a systematic approach to doing so. At Leading Teams, we use a
model called the Relationship Pyramid to help us be deliberate in building vulnerability-based trust within a team.
Performance-based Trust
Matt: Carlos, when I saw this question, I immediately thought of you. You probably remember – way back when you first started, you were
observing me work with a team. Not long after that, another part of the same business needed help, but they specifically asked for me to do
it, not you. They’d seen me in action. They had a baseline of performance to go off, so they trusted me. As much as I knew you were ready,
they didn’t yet. They just hadn’t seen enough. But it didn’t take long. Once they saw more of you, that changed and now you’re the one
working with that team. That’s performance-based trust. People need to see it before they believe it. Carlos: As a professional musician, I
never fully trust anyone in my ensemble until we have done a live performance together. Until I see how someone handles themselves in the
high stakes, high pressure situation that is a concert, I simply don’t really know if I can truly trust them to really be available to the
rest of the team and really play with us, as opposed to them just making sure they get their notes right.
At Leading Teams we break down performance-based trust into an assessment of someone’s competence and character. Do they have the skills to do the job? Can they apply those skills under pressure? Is the person good for their word? Are they willing to put the team’s needs ahead of their own when required? Anyone leading a team will benefit from rigorously assessing the degree of performance-based trust they have in each member of their team. This will support them in deliberately choosing how to lead each member.
Understanding which kind of trust is at play—predictive, vulnerability-based, or performance-based—does more than give you insight. It gives you choice. You can be clearer about what kind of trust you’re building, what kind you’re relying on, and where things might be breaking down.
It’s worth asking:
● Are you relying on predictive trust where performance-based trust is actually needed?
● Is there space in your team for people to say “I don’t know” or “I need help”?
● Do your people know what it takes to earn performance-based trust from you?
● Are there behaviours you’re tolerating—because they’re predictable—but they’re holding the team back? Being clear about the kind of trust
you’re building gives you the chance to lead more deliberately. And in our experience, that’s where the good stuff starts.
