Throughout our lifetime, we have encountered many different relationships at various stages. For example, when we were children, we enjoyed the relationship with our parents/ siblings, when we were teenagers, we cherished our relationships with our friends, when we were adults, we loved to be around our special person, and the list goes on. If you look back and dive deep into those relationships, we cannot ignore the very factor that glued two different thinking patterns together.
The unmissable factor which played a pivotal part in our relationships was the “trust” we formed with the other person. The more you trust the other person, the more comfortable you become around them; hence, you feel happy/ satisfied about your relationship. Similarly, think of someone you don’t trust that much. Would you feel safe around them? Do you want to be around them more than others whom you trust more? The simple, yet obvious answer is No.
When it comes to your work life, there is no difference to this phenomenon. As an employee, the trust you develop with your manager is the key to every achievement you gain in that role. Simply put, if your manager doesn’t trust you, the chances of you succeeding in that role are far slimmer than you ever thought.
Without trust, we don’t truly collaborate; we merely coordinate or, at best, cooperate. It is trust that transforms a group of people into a team.
– Stephen R.Covey, American educator and author
As part of the Remote Winners Share Your Success Story program, I had the privilege to interview Flavia Vecchiocattivi, who is a Senior Data Engineer at Ucercentrics. In our chat, we discussed various topics, which were extremely useful and enlightening from the remote employee perspective (The full episode can be found here, if you are interested in listening). Out of the many useful things we discussed, the conversation about winning your manager’s trust stood out to me a lot. The following is a trimmed clip where she explains how she won her manager’s trust. I believe the readers of this article will find this video useful.
If you think you are lacking the trust of your manager, you are not alone. According to PwC’s 2024 Trust Survey1, 86% of the executives reported a high level of trust toward employees. However, the survey revealed that only 60% of workers feel that their employers trust them. That suggests about 40% of remote employees do not feel fully trusted by their managers, which I find alarmingly high. Unlike working in the office, it is challenging to read and sense what your colleagues and manager are thinking about you. This could even be due to a lack of visual clues when working remotely.
Now, let’s take a look at a few strategies we can follow to gain your manager’s trust while working remotely.
Communicate Proactively
Instead of waiting for your manager to reach out to you for an update, you can give your manager an update about the progress (whether you are acing or not) of the task you are currently working on. This doesn’t mean you have to update your manager every hour. At least once a day should be reasonably sufficient. Communicating proactively keeps managers informed and confident.
Be Consistently Reliable
Being consistently reliable over time helps you build a good rapport with your manager. Eventually, you will come across as a person whom your manager can count on. You can start building reliability in simple steps. For example, when you schedule a meeting with your manager, as a practice, arrive at least a few minutes before the actual meeting start time. This will not just make you reliable, but also help you project yourself as a punctual person.
Be Visible
Being visible does not mean you have to stay online 24/7. It’s about actively taking part in discussions in a collaborative manner, that matters to the success of the project/ task you or your team is currently working on. Practising active listing is one way to improve this. As a contributor, your aim should be to reduce ambiguity and build profound credibility.
Demonstrate Initiative and Ownership
You don’t (yet) have to be a leader to demonstrate ownership. Showcasing a leadership mindset from the beginning not only helps you win your manager’s trust, it also helps you grow as a leader one day. Owning what you are currently working on, admitting when you are wrong, and reaching various people to ask for help when you are stuck- are all part of ownership. Within your current role, there are so many ways to initiate things if you sit and think for a moment. For example, if you are an API developer, if the team/ organisation you work on do not employ proper API design best practices, you can be the one to initiate API design best practices within your team.
Ask For Feedback
Good managers tend to like team members, who are ambitious and willing to learn. The easy way a team member can show their ambition is by asking for feedback. Once you ask for feedback, do not stop there. Act upon the feedback you received and give an update of the progress of your action, to your manager in upcoming meetings. Asking for feedback gives a strong signal of a growth mindset.
Use the Right Tools Effectively
Using the right tool effectively is the medicine for many remote working-related illnesses. Don’t wait for your manager to come to you to move the ticket that you are currently working on from “to do” to “doing”, in your Agile Kanban board. If you are stuck on a ticket, write a comment to the ticket you are currently working on and change the assignee to whom you think can help, then immediately move to the next ticket. Always ensure the tools that you actively use reflect reality.
When you have a question to ask or are unsure about something, drop a message in your chat rather than booking a meeting if possible. Async communication is just as powerful as a meeting (sometimes more). Also, don’t be shy to schedule a meeting with relevant stakeholders for a brainstorming session. If you are on holiday, mark those days in your calendar, so no one can book you in for a meeting when you are off. Using the right tool effectively boosts collaboration and productivity.
In a Nutshell
Winning your manager’s trust is key if you want to progress in your role, make an impactful change to your team/organisation and grow in your career. Winning your manager’s trust can be extremely challenging especially when working from home, where your manager cannot actively see what you are currently engaged in. Taking real-world examples, throughout this article we discussed what strategies we can use to bridge the trust gap between the manager and the employee.
🎯 Need Expert Help?
If you’re facing challenges with remote work, I offer 1:1 coaching and tailored support to help you succeed at remote setup. Whether you’re just starting out, growing as a remote contributor, leading a team, or launching a remote-first start-up, Remote Winners offers targeted 1:1 coaching to help you thrive in a distributed world. We also provide tech consultancy services—from idea-to-product guidance to cloud deployment and cybersecurity reviews—to help organisations strengthen their technology and processes.
If you are unsure where to begin, drop us a message and we’ll be in touch.
- https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/trust-in-business-survey.html ↩︎
