Evaluate your current level of trustworthiness.
Examine how open your followers are with you. Do they openly share even negative opinions with you? Do they let you know what’s going on in their areas of responsibility? If not, they may not trust your character. Also, examine how much responsibility your colleagues and leader entrust to you. If you regularly carry weighty responsibilities, that’s a good sign you’re trustworthy. If not, you need to determine whether they doubt your competence or character.
Develop your character.
Focus on your: integrity, authenticity, and discipline. To develop your integrity, make a commitment to yourself to be scrupulously honest. Be truthful even when it hurts. To develop authenticity, be yourself with everyone. Avoid playing politics or pretending to be anything you’re not. To strengthen your discipline, do the right things every day regardless of how you feel.
Make amends.
If you’ve broken the trust of others in the past, then your leadership will always suffer until you try to make things right. First, apologize to whomever you’ve hurt or betrayed, and commit to regaining their trust. The greater the violation, the longer it’ll take. The onus isn’t on them to trust. It’s on you to earn it. And if you’ve broken trust at home, start there before working to repair professional relationships.

Increase your trustworthiness as a leader

How to Apply This