Is Trust Assumed When Working in Teams or Does Trust Have to be Earned Among the Team Members
Management
June 18, 2008
Is Trust Assumed When Working in Teams or Does Trust Have to be Earned Among the Team Members
Is Trust Assumed When Working in Teams or Does Trust Have to be Earned Among the Team Members
Research shows trust between team members is dynamic. “Trust grows as the relationship between you and your team develops through shared experiences. Creating this relationship is a crucial part of building trust.” (Team Dynamics) Trust is not a civil right or something assumed, trust is something that has to be earned. People trust those we perceive to be trustworthy; the trustee must be perceived as having similar beliefs as us and as being trustworthy. But what does it mean to be “trustworthy”? Caldwell states, “Trustworthiness continues to be confused with trust in the academic literature (Hosmer, 1996; Caldwell and Clapham, 2003), but scholars agree that each person trusts another when the second person is trustworthy (Meyer et al., 1995; Caldwell and Clapham, 2008). So trustworthiness is a personal view we have of another person based on our own personal experiences. “This process incorporates a complex conceptual calculus (Creed and Miles, 1996; Caldwell and Clapham, 2008) that makes intuitive and often unconscious decisions about the often unspoken social contracts that exist between people and organizations (Rousseau, 1995).”
As I stated in my “Team Collaboration” paper, Trust does not need to involve belief in the good
character, vices, or morals of the other party. “Trust is a prediction of reliance on an action,
based on what a party knows about th ...