Maybe you’re new to a team and you’re learning to trust your new teammates. Or maybe there’s someone you don’t trust anymore due to past actions (or past inaction). How do you rebuild that trust? Or, better yet, how can you prevent that loss of confidence in the first place? In this third confidence-boosting lesson, we will continue to uncover how to build confidence in a team by focusing on ways to increase the confidence you have in other people. We will break down actions you can take, both as a team member and as a leader, to build working relationships that you can trust.
In case you missed the first two confidence-boosting lessons:
- In the first lesson, we learned what the word “confidence” really means and we discussed actions to boost your self-confidence.
- In the second lesson, we discovered how to build confidence in a team setting by focusing on ways to increase the confidence other people have in you. This included actions you can take to show others that you are capable, honest, trustworthy, and reliable.
Disclaimer: I’m an engineer, not a therapist. In this article, I’ll only talk about what I’ve seen work in organizational team settings. If you’re running into conflicts with someone on a student team, don’t be afraid to reach out to a school guidance counselor, resident assistant, or faculty member that you trust. Similarly, if you’re having issues with a colleague that you’re struggling to resolve on your own, reach out to your manager, Human Resource (HR) department, Ombuds Office, or employee assistance program.
Actions to increase the confidence you have in other people
Building confidence in a team setting can be very challenging because you can’t control what other people think or do. But you can definitely control how you act, which over time can foster a trusting, confident team. In lesson 2, we discussed ways to ensure your teammates have confidence in you so that they can trust you and believe in you. This third lesson is all about setting up your teammates for success so that you can trust and believe in your teammates.
While the objectives between lesson 2 and this lesson are the exact opposite, building confidence in a team is a two-way street. If your team can trust you and rely on you, they’re more likely to return the favor.
The actions below will help you develop trusting relationships across your team. I’ve split each section into two parts based on whether you’re trying to build confidence as a team member or as a leader.
- Actions for team members → employees, students, club members, and other peer-to-peer interactions
- Actions for leaders → managers, team leads, advisors, teachers, and other leader-to-team interactions
1. Educate others
Build up the team around you by constantly teaching, coaching, and mentoring to help develop your teammate’s skills and knowledge.
Sharing knowledge can seem counterintuitive if you’re in a competitive environment. But, even if you want to rise up to be a superstar in your organization, you can get a lot farther with the help of your team than without. Strong, confident teams need to constantly look for ways to improve, both individually and collectively.
When you go out of your way to share information with a co-worker, a lot of amazing things can happen!
- You’ll increase your own knowledge in the process. Teaching is an excellent way to build up your own understanding. Plus, your co-worker will be more willing to return the favor down the road (and you’ll build a trusting relationship in the meantime).
- You won’t waste time trying to do someone else’s job, because you’ll have confidence that your teammates are pulling their own weight. This will allow you to focus on the important tasks you need to do.
- Teaching others how to do your job may help distribute your workload and may actually give you opportunities to take on even more exciting and challenging tasks later (you aren’t stuck doing the same old thing every day).
“Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.”
Robert Noyce, Intel Co-Founder
Educate others: actions for team members
Take time to share knowledge with your teammates. This could range from mentoring someone regularly each week to sharing a helpful website link.
Did you learn something beneficial in a meeting? Bring that information back to the rest of your team.
If you’re feeling ambitious, you can even build a community of practice to foster more knowledge sharing across your team. A community of practice could be regular meetings where teammates volunteer their time to teach about a specific topic. Employees could share their knowledge on a company wiki. The goal is to share experiences and learn from each other.
Educate others: actions for leaders
Create a culture where sharing knowledge is an everyday habit. Make recording, finding, and obtaining knowledge as easy as possible. Find ways to increase your team’s knowledge, such as:
- Assigning experienced employees as mentors to newer employees.
- Encouraging people to sign up for related classes or training sessions.
- Allowing your team to participate in workshops.
- Starting the beginning of every team meeting with a mini-lesson.
- Investing in effective knowledge management systems.
- Making knowledge sharing and mentoring a part of an employee’s performance review.
2. Define expectations
Define expectations so that you and everyone on the team know exactly what to do. This includes clear expectations for goals, tasks, priorities, as well as defined roles and responsibilities for everyone on the team.
Why is setting expectations on a team so important?
Clear expectations will keep the team focused, making the team more efficient and effective. It will prevent wasted time, such as time spent working on the wrong deliverable or resolving misunderstandings. Additionally, realistic expectations will prevent unnecessary emotional tension, like stress and frustration when expectations are unachievable.
Define expectations: actions for team members
Ask for clarification on any tasks that do not have well-defined expectations. Here are some questions to consider asking:
- What’s the main purpose of this task?
- What are the deliverables and when are those deliverables needed?
- Is this task a high priority compared to other tasks that you’re working on?
- Are there others that should be involved? This can include collaborators working on the task with you, mentors to guide you, individuals who will provide you inputs, or stakeholders that need to be involved from other teams.
- What other resources (websites, facilities, materials, etc.) are available to you?
- How often should you status your progress on this task?
When your tasks rely on inputs from others on your team, set your teammates (and your task) up for success by clearly defining what you need. In other words, if you want to be able to trust your teammates, it starts with clear expectations on your side.
Lastly, work to keep your own expectations in check. Do you have incredibly high standards that your teammates can’t meet? It’s going to be very difficult to trust your teammates if you’re holding them to unrealistic expectations.
Define expectations: actions for leaders
When assigning tasks, set clear expectations. Be as explicit as you can. Give examples. Set priorities and deadlines. It can also help to explain why this task is important, including how it can benefit the team and the person you’re assigning the task to.
Communicate expectations across the team to prevent disconnects, especially for tasks that are related or dependent on each other.
If you’re in a position to offer bonuses, awards, or promotions, make it clear how people on your team can earn those incentives. This will help create a culture of equality and trust across the team.
3. Communicate Regularly
Good communication skills are the foundation for every tip on this page. For example, we need to be able to communicate with our teammates to share knowledge and to discuss expectations as we discussed in actions #1 and #2 above. This section takes communication one step further by focusing on how often we talk to our teammates.
Regular communication increases accountability on your team. It will also give you the opportunity to correct issues or misunderstandings before it’s too late. It can thwart resentment and grudges. All of which are important if you want to be able to trust your teammates.
How often should you communicate with your team?
How frequently you check in with your team is completely dependent on your tasks, your objectives, and your team. For tasks that are extremely collaborative, you might need to meet with your teammates every day. For more independent tasks, maybe you use a shared site to post weekly status updates and only meet once a month to talk through details that need more attention. How often you communicate may also change over time. For example, when you’re new to the team and need to build good working relationships, you’ll need to spend more time asking questions and getting to know everyone on the team.
Communicate regularly: actions for team members
Check-in with your teammates and leaders regularly. Communicate the status of your tasks and ask about how others are doing with their tasks. What’s going well? What challenges are there? What do you need help with? Does someone on the team need your help? How can you help set up your teammates for success?
When working to build trust, it’s important for you to be honest and to not judge others when they are being honest.
Communicate regularly: actions for leaders
Check-in with your team regularly. This can be accomplished in various ways, such as regular meetings or asking for periodic statuses via email.
As a leader, make sure you’re giving your team enough resources to do their job. If you see someone struggling with a task, how can you set them up for success? Some options may include:
- Assigning them a mentor who can help walk them through the task
- Ensuring they have the right tools and materials to do the task.
- Extending the due date if they simply need more time to figure things out.
- Resigning tasks across the team based on everyone’s strengths and weaknesses.
- Asking for a preview of their work (e.g. a rough draft) so you can help make corrections early on.
Remember, if you want to have confidence in your team, you need to do everything you can to set them up to succeed.
4. Resolve Conflicts
Interpersonal conflicts can easily break down confidence and trust in a team if they aren’t handled correctly. Conflicts are going to happen. It’s part of our human nature. Maybe the conflict is due to a clash in personalities or a disagreement over how a task should be performed.
When building a confident team, we need to address conflicts in a timely and fair manner to prevent resentment and distrust from building up.
Resolve conflicts: actions for team members
When you find yourself in a conflict with a teammate, try to work through the conflicts on your own first (unless, of course, there’s a safety concern or other serious issue that needs immediate action). The goal here is to build trust with your teammate, so, if possible, try to work it out one-on-one before pulling in your leader or other teammates.
Shoot for the middle ground. Don’t immediately start accusing your teammate of wrongdoing. But, you also don’t need to pretend everything is fine. One technique to start a difficult conversation is simply to ask questions and practice your active listening skills. Try to really understand where that person is coming from. Stay calm, listen and repeat back what they are saying. You may end up trusting and respecting your teammate more when you take the time to understand and connect with them.
Once you really understand your teammate’s point of view, then you can talk about your concerns or give recommendations. Focus on your feelings (for personal conflicts) or the facts (for technical disagreements). Continue to avoid accusatory language. When making recommendations, back it up with rationale.
At this point, hopefully, you’ve worked to clear up any misunderstandings. You may still have a difference in opinion (and that’s okay!), but ideally, you now have enough background to respect where the other is coming from. If a decision is still needed to proceed with a task, you can now pull in your leader to make an executive decision.
Alternatively, if resolving the conflict one-on-one is getting you nowhere or the situation has escalated, ask for help. This is when you’ll want your leader or another third party to help mediate the conflict.
Resolve conflicts: actions for leaders
Address conflicts as soon as you notice them!
How?
When there are disagreements between two (or more) people on your team, work on your mediation skills. Here are a few quick tips:
- Remember not to take sides immediately. Ask questions and try to understand all sides of the situation.
- Dig deeper. Are there any underlying issues present? Is there something you can do to help alleviate the underlying issue?
- Is there a way to compromise and make all parties happy? If there isn’t, you may need to make an executive decision. Make sure you communicate your decision and your rationale.
- Set clear expectations going forward
- Schedule a check-in to see if the conflict has improved.
As a leader, your team needs to know you’re available to listen to their concerns and that you’ll actually take their opinions into account. Make sure to continue to build relationships within your team. Understanding what each person on your team values in life and what experiences they have can also help you make more informed decisions that can benefit the entire team.
Go Forth And Be Confident!
What actions are you going to take this week to help to increase confidence within your team?