Table 1. VT leadership practices that...

Table 1.

VT leadership practices that build trust and manage conflict to drive team performance

Expect a relationship of trust

“My assumption is you are going to do your job and you are going to do it great and I’m not going to lord over you, but I’m here to help if you need it. Obviously, there are certain things I’m going to check on from time to time either because my management needs to know or because it’s simply a way for me to stay attuned. But unless you tell me otherwise, my assumption is that everything’s great”

Be transparent in information sharing

“When there’s an issue that’s affecting the team’s ability to accomplish their goals, being transparent, saying what you can, saying it quickly and saying it in one-to-one if you can do that or with smaller groups so that you … address questions in a safe environment… and really get to what and how it is impacting them; how are they interpreting each other…”
“…the first technique is being very explicit in communicating …it is something that is or can or should build over time based on experience and based on evidence”
“we have very frank discussions that everyone is encouraged respectfully, of course, to disagree, to put any issues that they have on the table. And we do that sometimes in a group setting and sometimes it’s done in a one-to-one or a few of us together in a smaller group to address conflict or to address disagreements”

Communicate excessively for clarity

“I actually interact with the team constantly… I have one-on-ones with every employee every week. I have a staff meeting every week and then we have a bunch of meetings. But I also employ all those other communication mediums to talk to them; text message, Slack, IM…You want it to be as if you were in the office. Now that’s obviously a lot easier for me to do with the employees that are in the same time zone with me, but that’s kind of the intent of over communication. The other intent of over communication is making sure everybody understands what it is that we need to do. And in my experience, if you don’t over communicate and because you are not there what happens is, what you in your mind wanted the team to go do, in their mind was very different. Because you weren’t there drawing on a whiteboard. You weren’t there talking to them until you felt like they got it in terms of body language. A lot of people’s reactions with their bosses nod their head to say yes. But they really don’t understand it and then they go off and do what they thought was the right thing but really it wasn’t and then you just wasted x amount of hours. So to me those are the primary reasons and why I think it’s so important to over communicate”

Be consistent in communication

“the most important way one can engender trust is by being reliably consistent with their commitments and promises…. So I think it’s communicating the same information to everybody at the same time… making time to have subsequent conversations because those changes might impact one person more than another”

Address conflict immediately

“I’ve unfortunately learned this the hard way and the only way – only way to quickly resolve it is through communication, is having that… ‘open door’ even though you’re not co-located. You have to nip it immediately. If you don’t, then the trust goes out the door…”

Coach and guide employee’s development

“If I’m asking someone to take a difficult project that might be a stretch task for them, that they don’t have the knowledge, they’re not comfortable, I’ll step in, I’ll work with them, let them lead it but I’ll be there to support him through it. I will also show them best practices of cases where I or other leaders in the organization have had success, whether it’s presenting a dashboard or reports or how to generate data or analyze it. I try to show these best practices to my team to build the trust”
“I try and work with each person on the team on honing in on things that people love to do and do best and giving them an opportunity to do as much of that as they feel comfortable with, while at the same time giving them challenges outside of their comfort zone, but trying to target in on the bull’s eye of what they are best at accomplishing”

Set up team member buddy and/or shadow system

“I’ll set up shadowing sessions where there’ll be a one-on-one or a small group, where this individual can sit with, shadow, view the day-to-day, ask questions, and start to build those relationships”

Support autonomy

“…someone that has more tenure or a higher skill set is going to need a different level of support … I don’t need to handhold someone who knows what they’re doing. I think the more hand-holding I do, the less trust they’re going to have in me. They want me to step back, know that they know what they’re doing, that they can manage the project or manage the task or procedure, and let them see it through to the end”

Recognize high performance

“Three out of the four quarters someone on my team was given an award being recognized in a larger team for the work that they’ve done. So, I think that’s another way to really build trust that people are being recognized for the work that they’re doing. And then finally, whenever there are executives that come to events and my people are working at those events, I always make sure to introduce them to the executive and say, this is how this person is helping better your product or your product area become more successful”

Advocate for one another

“I would 100% trust that I can lean on each and every one of my direct reports because I know them. I would trust them to be my representative…”

Create personal connections with and among team members

“And then there are individual one-to-one that the team has with each of the other team members to ensure that they are connecting on a regular basis to connect the dots to make sure where we’re not missing anything and that we are continuing to or continuously sort of refreshing and energizing the relationship”

Expect a relationship of trust	“My assumption is you are going to do your job and you are going to do it great and I’m not going to lord over you, but I’m here to help if you need it. Obviously, there are certain things I’m going to check on from time to time either because my management needs to know or because it’s simply a way for me to stay attuned. But unless you tell me otherwise, my assumption is that everything’s great”
Be transparent in information sharing	“When there’s an issue that’s affecting the team’s ability to accomplish their goals, being transparent, saying what you can, saying it quickly and saying it in one-to-one if you can do that or with smaller groups so that you … address questions in a safe environment… and really get to what and how it is impacting them; how are they interpreting each other…”“…the first technique is being very explicit in communicating …it is something that is or can or should build over time based on experience and based on evidence”“we have very frank discussions that everyone is encouraged respectfully, of course, to disagree, to put any issues that they have on the table. And we do that sometimes in a group setting and sometimes it’s done in a one-to-one or a few of us together in a smaller group to address conflict or to address disagreements”
Communicate excessively for clarity	“I actually interact with the team constantly… I have one-on-ones with every employee every week. I have a staff meeting every week and then we have a bunch of meetings. But I also employ all those other communication mediums to talk to them; text message, Slack, IM…You want it to be as if you were in the office. Now that’s obviously a lot easier for me to do with the employees that are in the same time zone with me, but that’s kind of the intent of over communication. The other intent of over communication is making sure everybody understands what it is that we need to do. And in my experience, if you don’t over communicate and because you are not there what happens is, what you in your mind wanted the team to go do, in their mind was very different. Because you weren’t there drawing on a whiteboard. You weren’t there talking to them until you felt like they got it in terms of body language. A lot of people’s reactions with their bosses nod their head to say yes. But they really don’t understand it and then they go off and do what they thought was the right thing but really it wasn’t and then you just wasted x amount of hours. So to me those are the primary reasons and why I think it’s so important to over communicate”
Be consistent in communication	“the most important way one can engender trust is by being reliably consistent with their commitments and promises…. So I think it’s communicating the same information to everybody at the same time… making time to have subsequent conversations because those changes might impact one person more than another”
Address conflict immediately	“I’ve unfortunately learned this the hard way and the only way – only way to quickly resolve it is through communication, is having that… ‘open door’ even though you’re not co-located. You have to nip it immediately. If you don’t, then the trust goes out the door…”
Coach and guide employee’s development	“If I’m asking someone to take a difficult project that might be a stretch task for them, that they don’t have the knowledge, they’re not comfortable, I’ll step in, I’ll work with them, let them lead it but I’ll be there to support him through it. I will also show them best practices of cases where I or other leaders in the organization have had success, whether it’s presenting a dashboard or reports or how to generate data or analyze it. I try to show these best practices to my team to build the trust”“I try and work with each person on the team on honing in on things that people love to do and do best and giving them an opportunity to do as much of that as they feel comfortable with, while at the same time giving them challenges outside of their comfort zone, but trying to target in on the bull’s eye of what they are best at accomplishing”
Set up team member buddy and/or shadow system	“I’ll set up shadowing sessions where there’ll be a one-on-one or a small group, where this individual can sit with, shadow, view the day-to-day, ask questions, and start to build those relationships”
Support autonomy	“…someone that has more tenure or a higher skill set is going to need a different level of support … I don’t need to handhold someone who knows what they’re doing. I think the more hand-holding I do, the less trust they’re going to have in me. They want me to step back, know that they know what they’re doing, that they can manage the project or manage the task or procedure, and let them see it through to the end”
Recognize high performance	“Three out of the four quarters someone on my team was given an award being recognized in a larger team for the work that they’ve done. So, I think that’s another way to really build trust that people are being recognized for the work that they’re doing. And then finally, whenever there are executives that come to events and my people are working at those events, I always make sure to introduce them to the executive and say, this is how this person is helping better your product or your product area become more successful”
Advocate for one another	“I would 100% trust that I can lean on each and every one of my direct reports because I know them. I would trust them to be my representative…”
Create personal connections with and among team members	“And then there are individual one-to-one that the team has with each of the other team members to ensure that they are connecting on a regular basis to connect the dots to make sure where we’re not missing anything and that we are continuing to or continuously sort of refreshing and energizing the relationship”

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