Business leaders over the last five years have had a very tough time. Most would have been involved in establishing strategies and plans to battle recession concluding major re-structuring, closures and hundreds of thousands of redundancies. In addition corporate scandals, NHS leadership crises, pay issues and the Jimmy Saville scandal at the BBC and the banking crisis have shaken the faith put in business leaders by both their own staff and the public at large. This is even more so today as many millions of employees have found their standard of living declining as pay increases, if any, have not kept pace with inflation and there is a perceived view that the ‘big bosses’ have astronomically high salaries.
According to Employee Outlook: Focus on Trust in Leaders report, more than one in three employees (34%) report their levels of trust in senior managers is “weak”. Further the results cannot be put down to a general decline, as trust in colleagues at 92% and line managers 80% remains robust. If this report is to be believed and there is no reason why it should not be, the question is – how can trust be restored because if followers don’t trust the leader performance will suffer?
In my opinion trust breaks down when the top person becomes out of touch and forgets that he is the team leader. Just like any other team leader he will need to work on inter-team relationships. The leader will need to involve his immediate team in developing clear objectives and agreed goals and in doing so be open and prepared to experience opposition, proper debate and compromise in reaching decisions. He will need to support team members as he would expect them to support him. He should also ensure that his team members are properly developed. If he can get the team working well and trusting relationships established, this environment should be cascaded throughout the organisation and that should help to rebuild trust in the top leadership.
Is there anything else that could help? Well yes, leaders should, where appropriate, be re-trained in essential management skills and that is where HR practitioners can help through assessing training needs including the top team and providing the relevant training to meet all the gaps.
Dr Hugh Billot, Deputy Chairman
HR GO Group of Recruitment Companies
HR GO Recruitment offers solutions to all your staffing needs, temporary and permanent, please call 0845 130 7000
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