Without trust, a church staff or ministry team simply won’t function at its best. In a recent Harvard Business Review blog the author quoted some dismal statistics about the workplace which probably hold true in the ministry realm as well. In this post I suggest 5 ways to build trust with your team.

Photo by Civilian Scrabble

According to the 2013 Edleman Trust Barometer, fewer than 20% of respondents believe leaders are actually telling the truth when confronted with a difficult issue in their organizations. Furthermore, a study conducted by the Human Capital Institute and Interaction Associates in 2013 found only 34% of organizations had high levels of trust in the places they work. And, a paltry 38% reported that their organizations had effective leadership running the show.

To cap off a small sliver of dismal data points, research firm Gallup found that over a twelve-year period between 2000 and 2012, the percentage of engaged employees in the workforce has shifted between 26% and 30%. That is, roughly 70% of employees in today’s organizations have spent more than a decade essentially collecting a paycheck, an almost Shakespearean spectacle of tragic ambivalence.

Wow, if only 1/3 of our church staff teams experience a high level of trust, then we have a lot of work to do. Here are five simple ways to build trust with your team.

1. Intensity personal relationships. John Maxwell was right when he said that, “People don’t care how much you know unless they know how much you care.” Although depending on the size of your staff you many not have time to build strong relationships with everybody, at least do so with your key players.
2. Share when you’ve failed. When others hear from us when we fail and what we learned from our failures, we endear ourselves to them. When you mess up, admit it.
3. Don’t abuse your authority. If you’re in a place of leadership over others, don’t lead from position. Lead from character. Lead in such a way that others would want to follow you.
4. Invite input from your team. We seldom know all the answers. When we invite input from our team, we give them ownership of the ministries and the changes we want to implement. And ownership builds trust.
5. Never, never, never condescend. When people feel patronized and condescended to, they deeply resist. A friend once shared with me that during a session with his supervisor he felt so patronized that he had to stifle his laughter by the incredulous comments she made. She made herself out to be a know-it-all and made the employee feel like a dummy.

What has helped you build trust in your teams?

“I just learned 5 ways to build trust in my teams.” (tweet this quote by clicking here).

Related posts:

• The Leadership Paradox: trusting God or trusting others
• Hierarchy Among Church Staff: good or bad?