It goes a long way to have genuine concern, lead from the front, be open and frank and follow through on things IMO. The visible difference between someone doing that and not doing that is pretty stark I think.

I have a post in the queue already that touches on these topics. And I’m going to start another related one. But ultimately building trust as a manager is no different than in other relationships: 1) be open and honest, 2) have the other person’s best interest at heart, 3) do what you say you’re going to do, 4) don’t devalue the other person’s experience, 5) end things when it is clear it won’t end well, 6) take a stand on what you feel is important but always be open to changing your mind. So there’s a heavy emphasis on the “etc” and “yada yada” and “blah blah blah”.

As for indicators, I have to think about it, and it probably deserves its own post as well. The problem is, there are no real quantifiable indicators. Because the impact of a manager is itself difficult to quantify, any poor manager ratings/metrics can be rationalized away. I’ve seen it happen repeatedly. Likewise, a good manager seems to have the self-awareness to know these things without quantification.

Do you have any insights beyond “work hard, be nice, etc”, which helped you build trust in the past? How are you going to judge if people trust you – what would your indicators be, if you decide to treat it as a metric?