Trust as a key collaboration currency

Trust is elementary attribute in a colaboration success. If you feel safe with your colleagues, you know that team has one shared goal and don’t have to compete between each other, you can easily speak up and express your opinion. If all people can freely express their opinion, multiple contexts are then assembled and strong narrative can be build. Trust is also key factor in having thoughtful disagreement when disagreement appears. If we trust each other and we agree on how we should resolve this disagreement we can build this narrative much faster. That is why every leader should focus first on building the trust first within the team. 

How? People operate on couple key principles, lets call it personal context. At core there is their kernel (prehistoricOS) and around that core are their 1)beliefs (past), 2)dreams (future), 3)motives (why) and 4)personality features (strengths, weaknesses, personality types, skills and abilities). By understanding these key principles how people operate, you can as a leader show vulnerability yourself and open what your weaknesses are (personality). What are your limiting beliefs (new beliefs) you are working on right now and what were your beliefs (old beliefs) your were able to overcome? By becoming vulnerable as a leader you can slowly let others express their personal context freely and more openly. If all people understand how your truly are, that means level of transparency increases, trust can be build. You simply can stop pretending and get rid of the mask that just blocks progress. Add to that acknowledgement that we all know very little and there are no right or wrong answers. There are just answers that might be more favorable under certain circumstances and points of view. 

As a leader you have the opportunity to grow the trust by leading by example and encouraging others to share their personal context. After that agree on shared goals and principles everyone is happy to follow in order to reach those goals.