Try asking a group of leaders about the best leader they’ve ever had, and they’ll tell you about the mentor who supported them, reached out to them during tough times, and trusted them wholeheartedly. Nobody’s going to tell you that it was the leader who gave the greatest speeches or spun awful news, or kept everyone in the dark. The root of the relationship with their best leader was solid trust; it is something that favored them to believe in agility and reliability.   

Nobody likes a person who is big talk and no action, and so we mustn’t be like one either. And when it comes to leadership, nobody wants a rhetoric person who does not practice what they preach. It’s important to have the hot air dismissed and replaced with genuine trust and reliance. So how do we get to the nirvana of a trusted leader? Here are a few aspects that we can explore.

Reliability – doing what you promised. A good leader must always be reliable. He/she must never give his team room to have second thoughts about the person they’re under. For instance, say a team leader has always been showing up late for meetings. This makes the rest of the team thinking “Does he even value our time?” or “Why can’t he just show up on time?” This leads to undermining the leaders remaining great attributes. That is why reliability is vital to keep up the positive and proactive approach in a workplace. 

Credibility – The best leaders are those who are the last ones to take any credits. In real-time, leaders know what they talk about, understand what they don’t know about, and treat others with respect, irrespective of their position in a company or elsewhere. When a leader speaks with an air of authority than superiority, you’ll know that this leader is one you can look up to.  

Self-orientation – This is the ultimate secret sauce. In most cases, high self-orientation is looked at as an approach to feeling great about yourself. But what happens is quite the opposite–it becomes stressful. So try low self-orientation as an aim–where you are okay with yourself, and you use your energy to grow and support your team and make sure they achieve their goals.

Deep down, when a team member nails a pitch or gets a promotion, you will always have that sense of satisfaction from within, and that is when you deserve a quiet moment of reflection for being a trusted leader.

Finally, a few tips for you around trust:

• Make sure you practice what you preach. Aim to promise what your abilities can deliver. 
• Keep learning. Be curious, learn from others and teach others what you know.
• Share knowledge and build up healthy relationships with your team.