New to the Team? Here’s How to Build Trust (Remotely)

Author: Ruchi Sinha

Trust isn’t easy to build. It develops slowly, typically after you and another person have been able to interact and assess each other’s characters. If all goes well, you start to feel psychologically safe and that you can rely on one another. But remote work has made this process difficult.

Many of us now interact on-screen and work on hybrid teams with people located around the world. We lack the luxury of regularly observing our peers in person, making it harder to gauge their intentions, values, and characters (and vice versa).

This is a problem. In any kind of work environment, you need trust for all kinds of reasons. Without it, you may not feel comfortable bringing your full self to work. You and your teammates may struggle to support one another or openly share ideas and opinions, leading to damaging miscommunications, decreased productivity, and a fear of taking risks that could help you learn and grow in your career.

As an academic, I have explored trust in many different contexts, including how it is rebuilt in the aftermath of conflict and how the emotions we express during negotiations impact trust. Through my own work, as well as extensive reading, I’ve learned that how we judge trustworthiness of others is fundamentally the same, no matter what the type of relationship. There are ways to build and sustain trust if you know how to send and receive the right signals.

Competence, integrity, and benevolence are three of the most readable indicators of trust. The good news is you can display them whether you are in person or remote, and you can encourage them on your team.

Competence

Competence is your ability to do something efficiently and successfully. When others perceive you as competent, they believe that you have the skills and knowledge to do what you say you will. This allows them to perceive you as dependable, reliable, and predictable—all of which are essential drivers of trust. Some things you can do to signal your competence include:

• Be organized and planful. Before team meetings, do your homework and study the agenda. Show up with a list of questions, research, or solutions that may be of interest to the stakeholders involved in the project. Your peers will see that you are a prepared, motivated, and organized team player.

• Show reliability and consistency. Be consistent in the messages you give out. If you’ve said no to meeting a deadline to one team member, don’t switch to a yes when another member asks. If you have critical feedback on a project, don’t tell one coworker and hide your concerns from another. People inherently associate consistency and commitment with dependability. Treat everyone fairly and make sure your behaviors match your values.

• Be thoughtful about what you promise. Don’t promise things that you don’t have the time or motivation to deliver on. Avoid overpromising and underdelivering (like agreeing to a deadline that is two days away when realistically it will take you a week to get things done). When talking to teammates, avoid making generic statements of support (“Yeah, good idea. We should do something about that.”). Instead, offer actionable ways in which you can support them when you like their ideas (“Hey, I love that idea. I’m happy to help you write out an action plan next week.”). Likewise, if you don’t agree with an idea, be honest and don’t give inauthentic support just for the sake of avoiding a difficult conversation.

• Be predictable and dependable. Create transparency around your actions by explaining your motives, values, and criteria. For example, when you suggest ideas to your colleagues, you can say, “Here’s what I think we should do. Let’s focus on doing X. The reason I’m suggesting this is because I’ve considered factors A, B and C. Here are my assumptions and rationale for picking X over other options. I’m open to feedback and would love you to weigh in on the best path forward.”

Benevolence

Benevolence is the quality of being well-meaning and having others’ interests at heart. Other will grow to trust you based on the extent to which they believe you care about their interests and are willing to go beyond your own needs to make sure that the needs of your team are being met. Some things you can do to signal your benevolence include:

• Identify similarities. People will be more open to your ideas if they feel your values overlap with theirs. Try to identify the ideas and goals you and your teammates share by engaging them in genuine conversations. For example, when someone shares a detail about their life at the start of a meeting, try to relate to them by sharing something of your own. When someone asks how you’re doing, take it as an opportunity to engage authentically. Be honest about the challenges and struggles you are facing—and ask questions back. Finally, when talking about your ideas, link them to your values. This will give others a chance to make deeper connections with you. The more your peers understand where you are coming from, the more likely they will be to support you.

• Show kindness and compassion. Small gestures make a big difference. During informal catch-ups or conversations on Slack or IM, take the time to ask your teammates how they are feeling—and be genuinely interested. People will likely see you as someone who cares about others. For example, you could pitch in to help a colleague who is struggling with a family emergency or give a shout-out to your colleague’s work at the next team meeting. When others see you as someone who shows kindness and compassion, they are more likely to interpret what you say in a positive light and believe you are more trustworthy.

• Show restraint. Be careful about the words you choose. During meetings, make sure your comments are not dismissive. Avoid scoffing and eyerolls, no matter how uninterested you may be. Don’t dominate the conversation; instead, make sure everyone gets a chance to speak. And avoid gossiping: If a teammate has shared personal information with you, it’s not your place to share it with others. You need to care about privacy at work. Be mindful of managing personal and professional boundaries so that you can be trusted with sensitive information.

Integrity

Integrity is how strongly you adhere to moral principles and how honest you are. Integrity is hard to judge, but it’s critical for trust building. A lot of behaviors at work are seen as instrumental and strategic, so people can be unsure about whether your actions are based on sincere values or merely a facade. The more opportunities you have to articulate your values explicitly and to allow team members to see them in action, the more likely they will be to invest their trust in you.

• Show loyalty. Find ways to show your support and allegiance to your team members. As a new member, you can show loyalty by endorsing the reputation of your team to external parties, defending its vision and mission, and acting in the interest of the team goals rather than your personal goals. If your manager praises you for a presentation you developed with three other team members, give credit where it’s due. Instead of saying, “Thank you, I worked hard on it,” you can say, “Thank you. I’d like to acknowledge all the help I received from X, Y, and Z.”

• Listen. By listening to and considering your teammates’ perspectives before you make decisions, you show that you are reflective and deliberate, as opposed to impulsive and indifferent. For example, if you find yourself in a disagreement, instead of posing a counterargument, first take the time to listen to your colleague. Try and understand their side of the discussion. Ask clarifying questions and then make your point. You could say, “The way I see it, you mean X.” This shows that you listened to their points and that you want to understand them before you react—and not just win the argument for the sake of winning.

• Show “citizenship.” Try to go beyond your duties to personally do better than what is expected of you, and to help others achieve excellence. For example, you could take the initiative to act in prosocial ways by offering to teach skills that can improve your colleagues’ performance at work. Are you a pro at Excel? Lead a mini master class for your peers.

Successful teams are made of successful teamwork, and for that, trust is key. Show your coworkers that you’re worthy of their trust by displaying competence, integrity, and benevolence. Be consistent, and look for consistency in the actions of your peers. That’s how they’ll develop stable beliefs about your character and how you can measure whether or not it’s worth investing your time and trust in them.