Nate’s Notes 234: Professor Mike Baer | How to Gain Trust, and Its Blessing and Burden

As Mike described, trust is both a gift and a burden. Trusting others can increase their pride and opportunities but can also overload them with responsibilities and pressure. Leaders routinely overload their most trusted people without taking anything off their plates, while under-investing in newer employees who could grow with smaller tasks.

Trust also shapes how we interpret behavior: trusted employees get the benefit of the doubt; less-trusted ones receive harsh judgments for the same mistakes, which can make early impressions disproportionately powerful.

When people are forming those early impressions and deciding  whether to trust us, they are thinking about three things: Are we competent? Do we care about them? Do we have good values? So if we do our job well and help other people without being asked, we will tend to make a good impression.

Lastly, about 25% of employees don’t actually want more trust—they want stability, not responsibility.

In summary, trust is shaped by first impressions of our competence, caring, and values.  Trust also influences how actions are judged. And finally, we’re prone to overload trusted employees, so great leaders distribute responsibility with intention.

All simple ideas. Please take them seriously.

Mike Baer Bio:

Mike Baer is an award-winning business professor at Arizona State University, where he researches trust, justice, and impression management. Mike has published his research in top academic journals, including the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Personnel Psychology, and Mike is currently the Editor-in-Chief at one of the field’s top journals—Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 

Mike’s research has been covered by media outlets such as Harvard Business Review, Financial Times, PBS, NPR, Business Insider, Men’s Health, and New York Magazine.

Prior to joining academia, Mike worked in the construction industry, at Hewlett Packard’s Executive Leadership Development group, and in publishing and online education. He earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from BYU, and his PHD from the University of Georgia.

I hope you enjoy learning from Mike Baer today.