Teamwork without trust is just taskwork

Many workplaces rely on systems, processes and well-defined tasks to keep things moving however, systems don’t build cohesion, people do.

When leaders focus solely on workflow efficiency without nurturing trust and considering emotional labour, teams become technically functional but relationally fragile.

Efficiency is not true sustainable efficiency without cohesion of people.

Trust is an underpinning value of all relational interactions and pivotal when shown by a leader to their team. When teams feel trusted their psychological safety allows the prefrontal cortex to plan, create, gain insight, show empathy and flourish rather than dropping into survival mode where the basic transactions/tasks occur, teams become silos and people begin to lack a sense of belonging and united purpose.

Trust is a biological requirement for high functioning teams.

As a team, lack of trust shifts curiosity, creativity, collaboration and shared problem-solving into transactional interactions that get the job done, teams stay in their lanes with the avoidance of any innovation or risk taking. This turns teamwork into taskwork becoming productivity without partnership, motion without meaning and work without purpose. We become mere shadows of ourselves in a team that operates cohesively in name only.

As a leader building trust through consistency, transparency, power balance and follow-through, forms a connection between intentions, behaviour and shared outcomes, resulting in interactions and co-creation that is transformational. Without people-centred trust, even the strongest systems produce compliance, not collaboration.

🍃 Cohesion and attunement in a team builds trust resulting in higher efficiency and job satisfaction

🍃 Trust fuels collaboration, creativity, and shared purpose

🍃 Trust strengthens communication and provides a safe space to respectfully challenge when required

🍃 Leaders who model trust, role model vulnerability and adaptability making a safe platform for their teams to also trust

Reflective questions to ponder:

⭕Do I trust my team and how do I show them?

⭕When trust is not showing up HOW do I lead the team?

⭕When the team is not showing trust with each other, how do WE navigate this together?

⭕What is one specific action I can take this week to deepen trust with myself and with my team?