Counterintuitive as it may seem, hard times amplify trust. For many healthcare organizations, COVID-19 has been the crucible that revealed its presence, or lack thereof, in the fabric of our culture. If employees and leaders didn’t trust one another during the early days of the pandemic, things probably got worse as cases surged, patients and coworkers died, and the bleakness of the situation became apparent. If your trust quotient was already high, it probably got even higher.
It is hard to imagine a more unifying experience than the one we have navigated the past two years. The outbreak of the pandemic required us to work together in a different way. There was an unprecedented level of urgency and immediacy. We all understood the mission and were aligned in our goals. The actions we had to take were clear. We all showed up and did what we had to do, day after day.
Healthcare leaders were very present, working shoulder to shoulder with employees in an intense environment. Front-line workers saw leaders in ways they perhaps never had before. As leaders we had to say “I don’t know” more often, simply because we didn’t. We were forced to be vulnerable, which is itself a trust builder. We relied on each other to survive and experienced emotional bonding on a whole new level.
There was no time to talk about trust as some abstract idea. We didn’t ask people to trust us or roll out a trust-building initiative. We didn’t force it. Trust simply grew, naturally and organically, out of our alignment, our shared experience and our commitment to fight for patients and each other.
Interestingly, that trust was multidirectional. When we talk about trust in organizations, what we usually mean is persuading employees to trust leaders. During the pandemic, we as leaders learned to trust our employees more, too. There was no time for micromanagement. We saw people doing things we had no idea they knew how to do. We flattened the hierarchy a bit and became more like partners solving problems together.
It was a time of people helping people. Leaders helped leaders. Employees helped employees. Communities rallied in support. The trust that was created flowed in all directions—up, down and crossways.
As the pandemic shifts to a seemingly less deadly phase, many of us are finding that we have very different organizations than what we had at the start of 2020. We have lost so much and so many, and those wounds will never fully heal. But we must continue to build on the trust we gained during those difficult times.
As leaders, we can keep the momentum going in various ways. We can loosen up on the controls a little but keep doing things as we did them at the height of the pandemic. This means showing and telling employees how much we care, connecting with them more deeply and intentionally building the strong relationships that engender trust.
It also means giving people more autonomy, input and respect. We have seen what they can do under pressure, so we should let them continue doing it. We can look to them to innovate, solve problems and share their best ideas. This approach can help them develop, grow and contribute on an even higher level.
We can and must do these things. Employees hold more power today than they ever have before, and they expect and demand a fulfilling work experience, strong relationships and a genuine sense of belonging. By leveraging the trust that was born during some of our darkest days, we can set up our respective organizations to thrive in a brighter future.
Deborah J. Bowen, FACHE, CAE, is president/CEO of the American College of Healthcare Executives (dbowen@ache.org).