Building Trust in Business: Overcoming Trauma and Mistrust for Growth and Success
As a life coach for business owners, I assist leaders in overcoming any obstacles that block them from success. If you are a leader who easily mistrusts others, that is a serious problem.
Building trust and being trustworthy is the foundation of strong relationships you will need with everyone you work with. This includes not just your team members, but also customers and investors. However, if someone has experienced tough times, such as stress or trauma, it can be hard for them to trust others.
In this article, we’ll look at how stress and trauma can make it tough to trust, the problems they cause for business growth, and practical ways to deal with them. Whether you’re just starting out in business or you’ve been doing it for a while, knowing how to deal with trust issues is really important for a successful business. Let’s start by discussing why trust is important in business.
When you've been mistreated in the past, it's hard to trust others in the future. And it doesn't even matter if those people have nothing to do with what happened to you in the past.
Why Building Trust Matters in Business:
#1 Trust Matters: It Saves You Time and Money
We have all been burned in the past. If we don’t learn from our lessons and heal from past pain, it can be very easy to let it wreck our current business deals. This can ruin how you use your time and money. Here is one example of a business owner who is letting past experiences ruin her current business deals.
Let’s imagine a small business owner named Sarah who runs a bakery. Sarah has had some bad experiences in the past where her suppliers didn’t deliver ingredients on time, causing her to miss important deadlines. To make things worse, she feels unconfident in her decisions.
Because of this, Sarah finds it hard to trust new suppliers, always worrying if they’ll let her down like before. As a result, she spends extra time and money double-checking orders and often runs out of key ingredients, which affects her bakery’s ability to meet customer demands.
#2 Trust Matters: Helps Us Keep Good Talent
Trust is also important inside the company. It helps create a good work atmosphere where employees feel valued and supported. But when trust is missing, it can lead to problems like lots of people quitting, feeling unhappy, and not getting much work done.
So, fixing trust issues isn’t just about doing the right thing—it’s crucial for making the business successful in the long run. Let’s talk about how someone who had a bad experience in one company can unconsciously sabotage their ambitions.
Tom owns a tech startup. In his prior position, Tom used to work with a co-founder who betrayed his trust by taking credit for their joint ideas and leaving the company without warning. Now, Tom finds it challenging to trust new partners or employees, always second-guessing their intentions. This lack of trust leads to micromanagement and a tense work environment, causing talented employees to leave for more supportive workplaces.
Unresolved pain will damage your present relationships
While these stories were fictional, they illustrate an important point: when you’ve been mistreated in the past, it’s hard to trust others in the future. And it doesn’t even matter if those people have nothing to do with what happened to you in the past.
Often, I find that clients have been carrying emotional baggage from events that occurred long before they started their business. Stress and trauma from early childhood experiences have a significant impact on how we trust others as adults. In the next section, we’ll delve into that in more detail.
Research has proven that people who had more bad experiences as kids were more likely to have health problems and struggle with feeling good as adults. They might have trouble trusting others or having good professional or personal relationships.
How Unresolved Childhood Trauma Hurts Our Ability to Trust as Adults
As I mentioned before, trust issues usually don’t start at work. They often begin with people who were close to you and hurt you emotionally, mentally, and sometimes even physically when you needed love and support the most. If those who claimed to care for you ended up hurting you, why would you trust strangers or anyone else?
Research backs this up. Studies in psychology reveal that people who’ve dealt with lots of stress and tough times in the past might find it tough to trust others. This could be because they’ve been let down, hurt, or ignored before. Let’s dive into one study that shows this.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study was a joint project between Kaiser Permanente and the Centers for Disease Control. The main researchers were Dr. Vincent J. Felitti and Dr. Robert F. Anda. They interviewed about 17,000 people and asked them questions about their early childhood.
For example, they might ask, “Before you turned 18, did anyone ever hit you or hurt you badly?” or “Did you live with anyone who was depressed, mentally ill, or suicidal?” The goal was to understand what kinds of challenges people faced when they were young and how those experiences might affect them later on in life.
The study found that people who had more bad experiences as kids were more likely to have health problems and struggle with feeling good as adults. They might have trouble trusting others or having good professional or personal relationships.
Now that you know that the past can and will impact your present, let’s now talk about how mistrust can harm your growth and expansion as a business owner in specific ways.
How Mistrust Damages Your Business
Hard to Partner: People who don’t trust easily might find it tough to make partnerships with other businesses or investors. They doubt others’ intentions. Example: Sarah, a business owner who’s been through tough times, struggles to trust possible partners or investors. This means she misses chances to work together and grow.
Trouble with Employees: When there’s a lot of mistrust in a company, employees might have a hard time trusting their bosses. This can lead to problems like low morale, more people leaving, and less work getting done. Example: John, who works at a company where trust is low, feels disconnected from his co-workers and his job. So, he decides to look for a new job elsewhere.
Problems Attracting Customers: If a company has a bad reputation for not being trustworthy, customers might go somewhere else. Example: Lisa thinks about buying something from a company known for being dishonest. But she decides not to because she worries about whether they’re trustworthy.
Less Working Together and New Ideas: When there’s not much trust in a company, people might not want to share their thoughts or work together. They worry about being let down or treated badly. Example: Michael, who leads a team in a company where trust is an issue, struggles to get everyone to work together. This slows down important projects.
When you've been mistreated in the past, it's hard to trust others in the future. And it doesn't even matter if those people have nothing to do with what happened to you in the past.
9 Practical Ways to Build Trust with Your Team Members
Looking to build trust but don’t know where to start? Here are nine easy ways to help people trust you more. These simple tips can make your workplace a better and happier environment.
Be Open: Share information honestly to build trust. This includes sharing your own fears. Example: Sarah, the boss of a new company, often tells her team what’s going on. This helps them trust each other more.
Support Your Team: Help employees deal with stress and tough times for a happier workplace. Example: John’s workplace offers counseling and other help for its employees. This makes him feel better about working there.
Lead Well: Show that you’re trustworthy in everything you do. Example: Lisa’s company has a boss who’s honest and fair. This makes customers and investors like them more.
Set Clear Rules: Make sure everyone knows what they’re supposed to do to avoid confusion. Example: Michael talks to his team often to make sure they’re all doing their jobs right.
Listen and Talk: Make it easy for people to share their thoughts and concerns. Example: Sarah asks her team for feedback and listens to what they have to say.
Talk about Stress: Help your team understand how to support each other through tough times. Example: John’s company teaches its employees how to help each other when things get hard.
Celebrate Success: Praise and reward your team to make them feel valued. Example: Michael’s company does special things to show they appreciate their team’s hard work.
Keep Things Safe: Protect your customers’ information to keep their trust. Example: Sarah’s company uses special technology to keep customers’ information safe.
Get Help: If you’re still having trust issues, ask experts like myself for advice. Example: Lisa’s company hires a consultant to help them build trust.
Building trust takes time, but it’s worth it. These tips can help you create a workplace where everyone feels valued and respected. The image below other useful tips to help you build trust and create authentic connection with your team members. Next, I will share my final thoughts.
Final Thoughts
Building trust is essential for business success. By understanding how stress and trauma affect trust and using practical strategies to overcome these challenges, entrepreneurs like yourself can create trusting workplaces that foster growth and innovation.
As a life coach for business owners, I’m here to help you tackle trust issues and achieve your goals. I want to help you learn how to trust yourself and make smarter decisions. Reach out to me for personalized support on your journey to success.
Don’t forget to listen to my entrepreneur podcast for more insights on business growth and leadership. Together, we can build trust and create thriving businesses.
