5 Proven Ways to Build Trust on Your Cross-Cultural Team
Do you trust me?
Obviously not with your life...
But if you didn’t trust me at all, would you be reading this article?
Probably not...
Because without trust — relationships fall apart.
In marriage, that might look like:
Constant arguing
Controlling behavior
Crossing boundaries
In a business, that might look like:
High-turnover
Poor collaboration
Little accountability
And ultimately — poor results.
Building trust is flat out hard. Especially with cross-cultural teams for a variety of reasons. So, how can you build trust in your cross-cultural team?
Here are 5 proven ways:
1. Become more self-aware
The number one way to build trust is by being an authentic leader. And in order to be an authentic leader — you need to be very self-aware.
It’s critical that you’re aware of your strengths and weaknesses. So you’re able to adapt them accordingly to the situation.
For example:
Pretend there’s a leader who’s very blunt and direct. That’s their style — and to them, it’s a strength. But when you’re dealing with multicultural people, not everyone sees the same way you do.
Some people might perceive it as being cold and transactional. Making them feel like you don’t really care.
On the other hand, some people might prefer that approach. Viewing it as just getting down to business instead of beating around the bush.
My point is this:
If you’re not self-aware. If you don’t know your strengths and weaknesses. How could you adapt your behavior to better connect with people? Especially people who don’t all think the same and have the same values.
You can’t. That’s why being self-aware is so important.
How can you become more self-aware?
Raising your self-awareness takes time and effort. It’s a hard thing to do. And most people don’t even know where to start.
That’s why at the beginning of my leadership coaching program(Leadership DNA) — I always have my clients complete two assessments.
An authentic leadership assessment
If you want to start becoming a more self-aware leader — I highly suggest you start by taking my diversity and inclusion assessment.
2. Understand your team’s cultural differences
Different cultures:
Communicate differently
View authority differently
Make decisions differently
Prefer to work differently
etc...
This can create conflicts between team members and make it difficult to function as a productive team.
This is why it’s VITAL that you’re able to answer the following questions for every person on your team:
How do they communicate?
Are they direct, simple, and clear with their messages? Or do they value more details and context?
How do they view authority?
Are they comfortable giving feedback to a leader?
Are they comfortable challenging a leader’s ideas?
How do they view risk and make decisions?
Do they have a low or high tolerance for risk?
Do they need a lot of information to make a decision?
How do they prefer to work?
Do they prefer working individually? Or would they rather blend into a team?
Do they value the freedom to make decisions? Or would they rather be told exactly what to do?
3. Create and follow clear team norms
It’s important you work with your team to establish clear ground rules. These rules must be respected no matter your background or personality. This way everyone’s on the same page and conflicts can be resolved much easier.
Your team norms should cover these three key areas:
Assumptions
This deals with how people think about one another.
A good starting place is these 3 key assumptions:
Assume good intent - You should assume people have good intentions. For example, instead of thinking someone is ignoring your emails because they don’t care — assume they’re extra busy today or that they didn’t see the email.
Assume confidentiality - You should assume anything said in a private conversation — will be kept private. Unless explicitly given permission.
Assume trust - You should assume everyone is competent and capable at their job. And that they’re looking out for the team’s best interest.
Dialogue
This deals with how people communicate with one another.
When communicating everyone should do the following:
Be engaging - You’re actively participating in the conversation.
Be open and candid - You’re open and honest about your thought process.
Show humility - You acknowledge mistakes, ask for forgiveness, and reach out for help when you need it.
Commitment
This deals with people’s actions.
Everyone on the team should do the following:
Be accountable for their actions - You follow through on your commitments in a timely manner. If you’re unable to do it in a timely manner you communicate that transparently.
Support final decisions - Once a decision is made, you support the decision whether you agree or disagree.
Resolve conflicts constructively - You’re seeking to resolve conflicts constructively instead of holding everything in and eventually exploding.
4. Foster personal connections
This is the number one way to reduce conflict.
But you need a deep understanding of all of your team members. You need to not only know how they communicate, work, view authority, etc… but also what their interests and hobbies are.
Once you know these types of things — you can start strategically pairing people together as well as starting conversations between people with similar interests.
For example:
If you know two team members like to play Guitar — you could start a conversation between them about playing the Guitar. Another example is pairing a quieter person with a more outspoken person.
This way you’re actively working to build bonds between team members that might’ve not connected beforehand.
5. Become a more transparent leader
You need to keep all of your team members in the loop. That means sharing both the good — and the bad. As well as encouraging open and honest feedback.
Here are some ways to be a more transparent leader:
Be honest and upfront
It’s easy to be honest when there’s good news. But it’s hard to be honest when there’s bad news.
If you want to truly be an authentic leader — you need to be honest whether it’s good OR bad news.
Show genuine interest
Really take the time to get to know your team members on a personal level.
This HAS to be genuine. If you’re just asking surface levels questions just to say you did — people are going to see right through it, and it might even hurt you in the long run.
Involve team members in decision-making
It’s been proven that people involved in the decision-making process are more committed and engaged.
You need to involve more people than just yourself in the decision-making process. And more importantly, need to be fair and transparent in how you choose which people to involve.
Encourage open and honest feedback
The best leaders know — they don’t know everything. This is why you need to create an environment where people feel comfortable giving you their honest feedback.
Next steps
If you only take away one thing from this article — it should be that self-awareness is KEY to being a great leader.
If you don’t know where to start, I recommend taking my DEI assessment to figure out what areas of leadership you need to work on.
Boost your team's performance in 2 months
Leading a cross-cultural team is HARD. You and I both know that.
If you want to:
Build stronger trust
Improve communication
Increase retention
Promote collaboration
and finally get the results you KNOW you’re capable of…
Check out LeadershipDNA.org
You won’t regret it!
