Trust is clearly an ingredient of leadership you cant do without. 

Your scope of influence depends on how much trust your team has in you, but it's not as though you can just decide to develop a leadership behaviour that will show you can be trusted and it will work overnight.

Trust is never instant. It is built up over time and is a fragile thing.

Leaders build trust by being consistent. There is an awful lot said about trust and influence; about how you must build up trust before you can do certain things. Trust, however, is often born from doing those things and being true to your word throughout. 

Does trust need to come first?

It is often cited that change management depends on trust first, yet how often is trust created by leaders who make changes, and show themselves to be approachable, authentic, reflective and evaluative throughout? 

You might face challenges, and you might get tied in knots along the way. 

All the while, your team will be absorbing how you respond, and will be watching  your behaviours. Humans are animals deep down, and it is the patterns and consistencies of behaviours that we rely upon.

Creating opportunities and experiences to demonstrate leadership behaviours and being consistent throughout is what builds up trust.  All too often leaders feel they have to hide their challenges, and make it look as though the path is straight and seemless. Such a lack of transparency creates suspicion and undermines trust at its very core.

Trust isn't an entity in its own right. 

It is fostered from the consistency of all of your leadership behaviours displayed and revealed, so that you can be examined over time for consistency and reliability. 

Be open. Be transparent. 

Your team will see you face those challenges, they will see the knots and they will see you deal with them in a way they can trust. But do not over share or burden your team with those challenges. Your team do need confidence in you, and they need to know you have insight and courage to guide them and lead.

Leader 'ship' is not plain sailing.

Your team must know that you can sail the ship and stay on course. 

Like sailors, they see the storm, but they want to see that their captain has the skills to adjust the sails and keep on course. Throughout which, they will watch and learn from those dependable leadership behaviours, how trustworthy you can be. 

You many need to ask for trust to start with

If you are a new leader, and you have not had the opportunity to show consistently that you can be depended on to lead with integrity, then you may need to ask for that trust to begin with. 

Openness is key here. It's okay to say "I know I haven't earned your trust yet" and request a little in advance, but you must be true to your promise. It's okay to begin with vulnerability. In fact, it is crucial not to shy away from this. Humility in leadership goes far in demonstrating to teams that you are not concealing challenges, and you are authentic, yet it tells that you have a vision for shaping the journey with your team.  How you stay true to those expectations, and the consistency you show on that journey is what will set you apart as a leader who can be trusted. 

Once you have trust it is a precious and valuable thing. 

Trust is precious, not least because once you have trust,  you have the scope to bring people with you on a journey they haven't yet envisioned. They might not know the destination, but will trust you to take them there. Trust is a powerful thing. We learn its power from incredible stories, such as Matthew Stevenson's and Derek Black's. 

To move people forward, they must first trust you.  

In education, we see it all the time. 

Children who respond to you have trusted you first. They put their trust in you willingly, for the most part, and then your behaviours as an educator let them know if they can rely on you, and depend on you. Without those strong relationships, we know that children will not respond the way we would hope. 

As we have already alluded to, however, trust is an easily damaged commodity. 

Paul Dix describes how some teachers use their trusted relationships wrongly, and this damages them. 

Leaders do this too. 

But if you aren't consistent, then those that watched you for dependency will think you are unreliable. This is a much harder starting point than the one you began with. It is not worth it. Focus on being consistent so that your team can depend on you and find you reliable. This will foster a trust that can be further nurtured over time. 

Your key consistency ingredients:

Openness - Inspire an approachable ethos, and connect people. Bring together divergent thinking and creativity and demonstrate you are receptive to new ideas and problem solving. Evidence the challenges you face together and invoke participation in decision making.

Humility - it's not a weakness to recognise when others have strengths where you are vulnerable. Empower others to feel strong, and show that the team is the sum of its parts. Be human first, and connect on a human level. Strength comes from sharing your limitations and inviting support.

Authenticity - Be transparent, and be true to yourself. Others will be suspicious if there is any sense that they are not experiencing the real you. Show that you have no hidden agenda; instead, share your thinking behind your ideas, and reveal wrong turns as freely as your reveal your right turns. Be honest with yourself and those around you

Courage - Be true to your principles. Whilst being receptive to divergent thinking may make  you consider things differently, don't be swayed from your destination. Like the ship's captain,  you may take a different course, but if you are true to yourself, then have the courage of your convictions and others will trust that you deliver what you promise.