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« Changing Climates | Main | Wrap your children in a rainbow »
Monday
Jun232014

Can I trust you?

Recently in a coaching conversation I asked an expat to describe the leaders he had worked with since his arrival in Australia. His between coaching assignment (some might say “homework”) was to observe and reflect on the similarities and differences between leaders at home and the leaders he was currently working with in Australia. 

My coachee’s observations of his current manager were very positive.  He described a number of leadership behaviours he perceived as constructive and supporting effective team performance.  He ended with the observation, “I feel like I can trust him, you know?”

I do know, and it was a great reminder to me of the critical role of trust in multi-cultural teams.  Mutual trust has been suggested as one of three critical coordinating mechanisms in team effectiveness.  (The other two, in case you’re wondering, are closed-loop communication and shared mental models, which we’ve discussed before.) (Salas 2006)

Trust in the team setting has been defined as “the shared perception . . . that individuals in the team will perform particular actions important to team members and . . . will recognize and protect the rights and interests of all the team members engaged in their joint endeavor” (Webber, 2002, p. 205).  It is important because each team member trusts the others to meet their deadlines, or to ask for help, or give assistance, or share information without using that information inappropriately.

Trust developed within a team, between managers and team members, builds confidence – that ‘shared perception’ that we will all perform and that each of our rights and interests will be protected.  Confidence and trust are critical to professional relationships and to professional growth and development.

What builds the trust?  In research in multi-cultural teams, cultural intelligence (CQ) has been found to be important for building affect based trust –the “I feel like I can trust him” type of trust.  (Chua et al 2011)  Those working with people from different cultures were more likely to feel like they could trust those who had higher CQ.

It’s the part of CQ that we refer to as CQ Strategy, (psychologists call it cultural metacognition).  It's our ability to think about what we know, and what we are learning about the cultures and people around us.  Our ability to operate mindfully, and to plan our communication and behaviour.  Our ability to check back in and to reflect on how we operated.  People operating with these skills will be relating more positively in situations of diversity.  The research shows others will feel they can trust them.

How would you rate your levels of CQ Strategy?  What about your leaders or your teams?   

Remember it’s a malleable skill -we can build it and develop it! Email me to find out how to arrange CQ assessments and development.

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