The Vertical Dimension of Trust

We've trained many leaders in three dimensions of trust – reliability, competence, and benevolence.Think of those dimensions as horizontal because they speak to the breadth of the  trust landscape. That said, there's also a vertical dimension related to the scope of what the trust is being applied to.

Recently, a misalignment caused the perception of a lack of trust. One team we work with had a situation where they needed to build more alignment around the timing that one team member (we’ll call him Jamie) was choosing to loop in another team member (we’ll call her Valerie) in certain communications with another department. 

When Valerie communicated the desire to be looped in, Jamie felt like Valerie didn't trust him to handle the task.

This surprised Valerie because she felt the opposite—“if I didn't trust you, I wouldn't be working directly with you to build more alignment in this communication pattern.”

• Valerie was referring to trust at the relationship level. 

• Jamie was referring to trust at the task level.

If Valerie has high ownership over the relationship with the department with which they were communicating and isn't quite aligned with the way the task was being completed by Jamie, does that mean Valerie doesn't trust Jamie?

No. Be careful not to confuse lack of alignment with lack of trust.

Alignment is a feeling that we have shared understanding. In this example, there was a lack of alignment between Jamie and Valerie on whether Valerie should be looped in, when, and why. They simply saw it differently due to unavoidable differences in the subtle balance of various values. 

Valerie was also not seeing the full information set that Jamie was operating with, and that is the key to why this felt like a lack of trust to Jamie. Jamie thought: "Just trust me in those areas where you don't know all the steps I took to get to this communication decision." 

Meanwhile, Valerie thought, "From what I can see from where I sit, due to my high ownership over our relationship with this department, I would want this communication tweaked or to be looped in so I have a voice in it going out as is."

The good news is they had enough relationship trust to work through the misalignment by sharing how they each saw the situation and coming to a place that made sense to both of them.

• Relationship-level trust says: "I believe we can and will work through our differences and difficulties, and I'm willing to be vulnerable in order to do so."

• Task-level trust is much simpler. It says: "I believe you can handle this task in a way that meets the established standard."

In Jamie and Valerie's case, trust was actually met in both of these vertical dimensions. It just felt like it wasn't because the issue raised was one of alignment -- seeing differently how that delicate balance of various give-and-take values should play out in the communications with the other department. 

The next time you find yourself seeing something differently than a colleague, remember that is a misalignment and does not necessarily indicate a lack of trust.