Being Vulnerable and Getting to Know Others Builds Trust

Before Psychological Safety, here’s what leadership authors were sharing

In Leaders Eat Last, Simon Sinek explains that building trust only requires being truthful. This includes:

• Acknowledging mistakes rather than ignoring or downplaying them.
• Crediting others for their contributions rather than taking credit unfairly.
• Admitting when things are going wrong such as knowing that a project is behind schedule and letting others know as well as explaining why.

Being truthful also involves personal disclosures. In The Leadership Challenge, Kouzes and Posner write about how building trust involves sharing about yourself.

To become fully trusted, you must be open to and with others. This means disclosing things about yourself in order to build the basis for a relationship. This means telling others the same things you’d like to know about them — talking about your hopes and dreams, your family and friends, your interests and your pursuits.