Trustworthiness trumps competency on a team

You can be highly proficient in performing a task, but a colleague won’t want you on their team if you’re not trustworthy, and it comes down to how you communicate, according to new research.

A recent study, Voices as a Signal of Human and Social Capital in Team Assembly Decisions, published in the Journal of Management, analyzes voice behaviors or communication styles in team environments. To learn more about it, I chatted with Cynthia Maupin, assistant professor of organizational behavior and leadership in Binghamton University’s School of Management and a co-author of the study.

“We noticed a trend where in many organizations employees are encouraged to form teams and task forces on their own to solve important problems,” Maupin explains. “However, what was unclear was how people might go about forming those teams, and in particular, whether there were observable behaviors that could enable certain potential team members to stand out above the rest as desirable.” 

The researchers had the idea to investigate if different types of voice styles “signaled a desirable characteristic that others might want in a potential teammate,” she told me. At the beginning of a semester, researchers randomly assigned MBA students to teams to complete assignments. As the semester progressed, they were asked to form their own teams and provide the reasons why they chose each member. The study assessed whether human capital, defined as being highly skilled in tasks or social capital, defined as the demonstrated degree of friendliness and trustworthiness, were the determinants for choosing a teammate. The researchers wanted to examine whether a student having a challenging or supportive voice made an impact on the decision. 

“An employee would be exhibiting a challenging voice if they speak up with new ideas to encourage their fellow team members to think more critically about a plan of action, instead of simply following the status quo—more like a ‘devil’s advocate,'” Maupin explained. Meanwhile, an employee shows a supportive voice “if they are speaking up to reduce conflict and align everyone on their team toward common perspectives and interests—a ‘team player,'” she says.

The results? “We found that when comparing supportive to constructive voice behaviors, supportive voice and the trustworthiness it signals is preferred over simply demonstrating your competence through constructive voice,” Maupin says. “However, of course, those who are able to balance using both constructive and supportive forms of voice will still be highly sought after as future teammates because they are demonstrating that they are both competent and trustworthy.” 

Within remote or hybrid workforces, how can employees show they’re trustworthy and of value to the team? “Our research suggests that the initial step is that employees need to speak up in the first place,” she says. “Those who remain silent on virtual or hybrid meetings won’t have a chance to showcase their capabilities to their fellow co-workers, so they might miss out on important opportunities to team up with others. The next step after gaining confidence in speaking up is to do so in a way that is supportive by focusing on building social relationships and trust with others.”

I asked Maupin if the implications of the study can also apply to leaders in the workplace. “Leaders are tasked with even greater levels of responsibility than the MBA students in our study,” she explained. “I would expect them to be just as likely, if not more likely, to prioritize selecting people to work with based on who they trust and get along with well, as opposed to only selecting people who signal their skill competence,” she says. “Even the most skilled people can fail as team members if they are unable to successfully collaborate with others. I think many leaders recognize that challenge.”

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See you tomorrow.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

Big deal

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Courtesy of United Nations Global Compact and Accenture

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Leaderboard

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