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Two Types Of Trust On Teams
Trust makes a massive difference on the performance of teams. And that fact has been found in research on teamwork over and over. For example, a 2011 study of nearly 200 teams from the United States and Hong Kong, found that when trust went up, so did performance.
In a way, trust on teams acts as a social lubricant. When teams trust each other, the social frictions are reduced, which makes it easier to collaborate and easier to share one’s true perspective on any challenges the team faces.
Without trust, people hold back their brilliance. They don’t share their unique perspectives and insights. With trust, those hesitations disappear and ideas and information flow freely. Teams with trust explore more possibilities than teams without trust. And teams with trust willingly put forward their ideas and aid to others on the team. Trust even makes working on a team more enjoyable.
But building trust on a team can be mysterious for many leaders. One overlooked reason is that there isn’t just one form of trust that matters on a team: there’s two. In the 2011 study mentioned above, researchers John Schaubroeck, Simon Lam, and Ann Chunyan Peng distinguished two types of trust: cognition-based trust and affect-based trust. And it’s worth examining each in turn before considering how to build trust on a team.
