If you lead a team, or are trying to build an effective team, you should immediately order Patrick Lencioni’s book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable.

There are a number of issues to consider when building a high-performance team and Lencioni’s book will give you some powerful insights into creating a good team. Although he discusses five “dysfunctions,” I believe the first is easily the most important: the absence of trust.

In the absence of trust teams and organizations fail–or fail to reach their potential. Many times those teams or companies come completely apart as the lack of trust leads to unresolved conflict, which, in turn, can spiral completely out of control.

This is a very common problem, one that is often traced directly to the manager, team-leader, business owner, or CEO. Remember this: leadership defines an organization, and if you want your team to trust you, you must be trustworthy. With this in mind, there are certain mistakes you simply cannot make and engender trust in the people that work for you.

1. You cannot be secretive. “Transparency” is an absolute necessity to create organizational trust. Decisions made in secret, or without adequate communication, lead to speculation and and employee’s assuming the worst. If you favor certain individuals and attempt to keep it hidden, it will come back to bite you. If you manipulate things behind the scenes to get what you want, be warned that your trustworthiness will suffer.

2. You cannot be guilty of poor communication. You must communicate early, often, and consistently. Too many managers fail miserably when it comes to communicating effectively. Worse, they establish an environment that will not allow differing opinions or bad news. To create a high-performance team, open up the lines of communication and create dialogue with your team members.
3. You cannot fail to do the things you say you will do. I frequently see managers make promises on the way out the door, passing someone in the hall, or at a lunch meeting and then fail to follow through on the promise. When you tell someone you will do something, write it down, follow-up and deliver, and then confirm with them once you have done as promised.

Here is the bottom line when it comes to organizational dynamics: no trust, no influence. If your people do not trust you – which, by the way, doesn’t necessarily mean you are dishonest or unethical – you cannot influence them to perform at the highest level.

A team without trust is simply a dysfunctional team.

I finished reading an article recently entitled “Why Managers Fail.” Using data from a survey by the Center for Creative Leadership, the article cited five primary causes for managerial failure. As it turns out, all five failures are self-inflicted; i.e, in the vast majority of cases, the manager is at fault for his or her own failure.

What was the single biggest cause of managerial failure? Well, it wasn’t the inability to plan or organize. Nor was it the inability to multi-task or solve problems. It wasn’t even the inability to write reports or manage budgets. Actually, the biggest reason for management failure turns out to be the inability to get along with employees! According to the article:

Poor interpersonal skills are the single biggest reason for failure, particularly in the early and middle stages of a manager’s career. For some, the problem is getting along with subordinates. In most cases, when managers cannot inspire and win loyalty of subordinates, it is because they are not good listeners, don’t give and take criticism well, and view conflict as something bad, instead of something inevitable that has to be handled.

If you are a manager – or about to become a manager – this would be good information to have, don’t you think? Rarely are individuals promoted to managerial positions because of their people skills; instead, management promotions are usually based on performance, knowledge, or skill. If you’re the top performer, the person who knows more than anyone else, or can do something better than your co-workers, the chances are good that you will be considered for the open management position when it comes.

Unfortunately, if your people skills are lacking, you may be in big trouble. Wouldn’t it make sense to get some assessment of – and maybe even some training for – your listening skills, conflict resolution skills , and your ability to deal with criticism?

Another primary cause of management failure is labeled as the “Me Only” Syndrome – an overriding concern for how much credit YOU get, how much money YOU make, and how fast YOU are moving up the ladder. In some cases, I think these these two reasons might be related, don’t you? If you’re completely self-centered, chances are not great that employees will like you.

Here’s the bottom line. As a manager, you will find it very difficult to succeed if you only care about yourself, or, you don’t have the people skills to connect with your employees. However, some managers consider themselves to be good at what they do even if they experience high employee turnover or have employees that don’t like them. They will often claim that, “I’m not here to be popular” or “You just can’t find good people these days.”

If you hire them, train them, and manage them, who is responsible if they fail?

I was talking to a friend recently and we discussed a meeting in which there was some obvious friction between the leader of the meeting and some of the participants. Some tough questions were asked; standard non-responsive answers were not accepted. I’m sure we have all been in those meetings.

The individual I was talking with said, “I came out of that meeting thinking ‘what a great meeting, we really pushed the organization forward.’” On the other hand, the person leading the meeting was not quite as thrilled – he felt criticized and attacked.

Managers should keep in mind that people deal with conflict in a number of ways, but – as a leader of a department or company – the manager should create an environment where employees feel comfortable voicing dissent or differing opinions. Jim Collins (Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t) says this:

“Yes, leadership is about vision, but leadership is equally about creating a climate where the truth is heard and the brutal facts confronted.”

All of the great managers I have known say nearly the same thing about conflict or disagreements. Like most people, they don’t like or relish conflict. They don’t particularly enjoy criticism any more than you or I. They do, however, see “conflict” as a necessary part of moving an organization forward.

Over the years I have learned that different personality styles will deal with conflict – or change – much differently. In the eyes of certain personality styles, change and conflict are often synonymous! They believe that to attempt to change the way something is currently being done is to criticize the individual who is responsible. Certain personality styles (we frequently use the DiSC profile system in our training) not only dislike change but they will run as fast as possible from even the appearance of conflict.

At the same time, I’m sure you have seen other personality types that are constantly looking to make changes – they see the environment as something to be changed in a constant pursuit of improvement, and they will not hesitate to question the status quo. If this person is an employee and the person described above is the manager, there will likely be problems – unless the manager has come to understand and see change (and conflict) in a different light.

To be an effective manager, and get the most out of the people that you lead, you have to be willing to allow your ideas to be open to examination. Change your perspective on this aspect of your role and see those “conflicts” as a positive force that can move your organization or department forward.

Donald Trump has made this phrase synonymous with his show, The Apprentice. Ask just about any manager in the real world if they enjoy the difficult task of firing someone, and I would be surprised if you got a single positive response. One thing about firing someone on The Apprentice – it’s not like they don’t know that the possibility exists…every single week.

I have gradually gotten to the point where I really like to watch the show. I like to observe how the Project Managers approach leadership, and sometimes I just shake my head as I watch the dark side of human nature at work.

After last week’s episode, a phrase from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War came to mind:

“Everyone likes security and dislikes danger.”

If you had the opportunity to watch last week’s episode, you saw Surya get fired in what amounted to a mutiny by his own team members (not that mutinies are all that uncommon on this show). Most people – including Trump – viewed Surya as a very talented and capable individual. However, like many managers in the real world, Surya assumed the Project Manager’s role without establishing any relationships with the team members.

A few weeks ago, Surya volunteered to move from one team to another, and after joining the new team, he immediately zoomed in to tell his new teammates what they needed to change in order to win the next task. You know that went over really well…the complaints from the team started immediately. In effect, he tried to assume control of the team based on technical ability alone, which, frankly, is very common in the business world.

Good lesson. The savvy manager – regardless of his or her talent – gets to know the people on the team and asks a whole lot of questions instead of jumping in and issuing orders. Surya is obviously a good analyst, an excellent planner, and has a solid grasp of business fundamentals. Funny thing about teams, though – you have to earn their respect in order to lead them.

All that aside, I thought about Sun Tzu’s quote because of James, one of the remaining members on Surya’s (losing) team. The knock on James – and what nearly got him fired instead of Surya – is his tendency to identify a potential misstep on a project and repeatedly (and loudly) voice his “concern” about it during the task. Why? So that he can position himself in the boardroom and claim, in the event of a loss, that he never truly supported something the team did. This, seemingly, provides James with a level of “security” in case things go badly.

One serious problem with this tactic – people really despise it. A team that was completely and totally determined to get Surya fired following their loss were somewhat persuaded to show James the door instead. It will be interesting to see what happens to James and his team in the next couple of tasks. Not to worry, however. There is plenty of dysfunction in the other team as well.

(Prediction: Heidi will be in the final two, and is my current favorite to win.)

Most managers don’t have to wait very long before some manner of conflict arises in the workplace – conflict between employees, or, in many cases, conflict between the manager and an individual employee. How these conversations are managed go a long way toward establishing trust and credibility as a manager. There is an excellent book entitled Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High that every manager should add to their library. This book provides a number of effective techniques for dealing with those conversations that threaten to turn hostile.

I frequently allude to this book when I train managers, and I have used the ideas to improve the substance of my own conversations. Confrontation is usually driven by emotions, and those emotions can lead us to say and do things we normally wouldn’t do if we were objective observers of the conflict.

I recently had a conversation with an individual who is in a position of leadership at the church that I attend. During an informational meeting that included over 40 people, he fielded a number of questions and comments, including a question from me that he mistakenly interpreted as a personal criticism. I was unaware of his response at the time, but in a private meeting the next day, I discovered that he was angry – to the point that he said some very strong and inflammatory things to me. Because he is someone whose friendship I value, I really wanted to avoid becoming angry and reacting negatively.

My experience is that this type of conversation can get away from me in a hurry, but I remembered one of the key ideas in the book – to ask myself these questions: “What do I really want out of this relationship? What would I like to come out of this conversation? How would I behave if I really wanted these results?” Focusing on those questions helped in a couple of ways – first, it helped me to avoid focusing on defending myself or even fighting back, and secondly, it helped me to stop and really listen to the issues at hand.

Without fuel to add to the fire, the crisis soon passed. We were able to flesh out the underlying issues and deal with them appropriately. I apologized for some things I had said and done in the past that left bad impressions with him, and he was truly apologetic for lashing out.

A potential disaster turned into a conversation that strengthened our relationship. This is what every manager wants, because conflict is almost inevitable in the workplace. The question is this: will the conflict result in a positive impression of your leadership ability, or a negative one?