Course Highlights
This in-person trust-building training course for leaders and managers will:
- Define trust in practical workplace terms and explain why it affects candor, speed, follow-through, and recovery from mistakes.
- Explain the B² concept and how belief and believability shape the way teams experience leadership.
- Help managers identify behaviors that build trust and behaviors that quietly weaken it.
- Show how modeling, integrity, and consistency influence what teams expect and tolerate.
- Strengthen delegation choices that build ownership while maintaining appropriate oversight.
- Improve question and response habits that support accountability, initiative, and openness.
- Build practical approaches for shared values, feedback, and recognition that strengthen respect and trust.
Course Overview
Trust is built through repeated evidence. People watch what managers do with commitments, mistakes, disagreement, delegation, feedback, and pressure. Over time, those patterns teach a team what is safe, what is expected, and what will happen when work gets hard.
The B² (Belief × Believability) Advantage: Managing and Leading with Trust approaches trust from two sides. Belief is what a manager holds internally: confidence in the team, commitment to the work, and conviction about shared goals. Believability is what employees experience through daily behavior. A manager may believe in the team, but if the manager’s actions suggest doubt, avoidance, blame, or control, that belief will not be believable.
This one-day onsite course helps managers turn trust from an idea into observable behavior. Participants examine trust signals, integrity gaps, delegation choices, question habits, feedback patterns, and recognition practices. They also look at how values guide decisions under pressure and how manager behavior can either reinforce or weaken the culture the organization says it wants.
The program is practical, discussion-driven, and grounded in realistic workplace situations. Participants leave with a clearer view of how they are experienced by others and a small number of specific behaviors they can use to strengthen trust with their teams.
The following outline highlights some of the course’s key learning points. As part of your training program, we will modify content as needed to meet your business objectives. Upon request, we will provide you with a copy of the participant materials prior to the session(s).
Program Objectives
At this program’s conclusion, participants should be able to:
- Define trust and its value in the workplace.
- Describe the importance of modeling management and team behaviors.
- Explain how a lack of integrity erodes trust.
- Delegate effectively to engage and develop direct reports.
- Balance oversight with autonomy for team members.
- Use questions to encourage ownership and accountability.
- Act responsively to differing ideas and approaches.
- Encourage feedback from colleagues, direct reports, and stakeholders.
- Recognize and reward others to build respect and trust.
Workshop Modules
Trust and Teams: Building Strong Foundations
The day opens by defining trust in practical workplace terms. Participants examine how trust affects communication, decision-making, risk, accountability, and recovery when problems occur. The group identifies behaviors that build confidence and behaviors that cause employees to hold back, second-guess, or protect themselves.
The TORI Model: Self-Assessment for Trust, Openness, Realization, and Interdependence
Participants use a structured self-assessment to reflect on how their day-to-day behavior may affect trust. The exercise focuses on observable management habits: follow-through, listening, delegation, response to feedback, recognition, and the ability to create space for ownership.
Walking the Talk: Building Believability through Actions
This module focuses on the gap between what managers say and what employees experience. Participants examine how follow-through, consistency, transparency, steadiness under pressure, and ownership of impact influence believability. The discussion also addresses why timing, pressure, and relationship history can change how behavior is interpreted.
Shared Values: Getting the Team on the Same Page
Trust is harder to maintain when people are making decisions from different assumptions about what matters most. This module explores how shared values guide trade-offs, reduce second-guessing, and support clearer decisions when speed, quality, fairness, transparency, and accountability may be in tension.
Delegation Done Right: Creating Ownership through Letting Go
Delegation is one of the clearest signals of trust. Participants examine how to hand off work with enough clarity, authority, support, and oversight. The module addresses common delegation mistakes, including vague expectations, unnecessary control, stepping back too far, changing direction without explanation, and failing to share credit or responsibility.
Coaching for Trust: Balancing Guidance with Autonomy
Coaching builds trust when employees feel supported without being smothered and challenged without being shamed. Participants practice question habits and response patterns that keep ownership with the employee while allowing the manager to stay appropriately involved.
Recognition and Reward: Speaking the Language of Appreciation
The course closes with recognition as a trust-building behavior. Participants examine how specific, sincere recognition reinforces performance, values, effort, judgment, and contribution. The focus is on appreciation that feels accurate, not automatic.
Target Audience
This program is designed for groups that want to:
- Build trust within teams to improve collaboration and performance.
- Strengthen ownership and accountability through daily management behaviors.
- Improve delegation, coaching, feedback, and recognition practices that shape team culture.
- Reduce silence, second-guessing, and guarded communication.
- Help managers align what they say with what employees experience.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does B² mean?
B² stands for belief multiplied by believability. Belief is what a manager holds internally about the team, the work, and shared goals. Believability is what employees experience through the manager’s actions.
Why is belief not enough?
A manager may sincerely believe in the team, but employees judge trust through behavior. If the manager says one thing and does another, the message loses credibility.
Is this course about being liked?
No. Trust is not the same as popularity. This course focuses on reliability, integrity, follow-through, openness, judgment, and fair treatment.
What kinds of trust problems does this course address?
The course addresses mixed messages, inconsistent follow-through, weak delegation, guarded communication, poor response to feedback, lack of recognition, and the silence that develops when people do not trust how a manager will respond.
Does the course include delegation skills?
Yes. Delegation is a major part of the course because it sends a strong trust signal. Participants examine how to balance clarity, support, autonomy, and oversight.
How does this course address micromanagement?
Participants look at when oversight is useful and when it becomes control. The course helps managers stay connected to the work without taking ownership away from employees.
Does this course help teams with low trust?
Yes. The course helps managers identify where trust has weakened and choose visible behaviors that can begin rebuilding it.
Why are shared values included?
Shared values help teams make decisions when trade-offs are present. When people understand what should guide decisions, they are more likely to trust one another’s judgment.
Does the course include feedback?
Yes. Participants examine how to invite feedback, respond to it, and use feedback habits that strengthen trust rather than make employees more guarded.
What should participants be ready to do after the workshop?
Participants should be ready to identify trust-building and trust-eroding behaviors, delegate with better judgment, ask stronger questions, respond more openly, and recognize contributions in ways that build respect.