Trust this

5 ways to tell if co-workers are unreliable

It’s been said that the only way to definitively tell if you can trust someone is to trust that person. While that may well be true, there are certainly telltale signals that untrustworthy people almost always exhibit, which can help you mitigate the damage they may cause. If you’re building a fast-growth organization or if you are breaking new ground with a new innovation, trust is the glue that will hold your team together. I’ve seen it repeatedly. Nothing propels a great team further or undermines a team faster than trust or its absence; the same can be said about virtually any relationship.

What I’ve realized over the years in working with many people is that there is nothing as vital to a relationship and yet as fragile as trust. The plain truth is that if you are doing business and establishing relationships with trustworthy people, you will be able to weather almost any storm. By the same token, if you’ve been unfortunate enough to get into bed with someone who is not trustworthy, even a mild breeze will capsize the relationship.

Of course, we all tell occasional white lies, stretch the truth and conveniently forget facts that create hairline fractures in trust. But that’s rarely of concern. The danger zone is entering into relationships with people who see trust as something they can use to manipulate the truth to serve their own purposes, without regard for the impact it has on others.

So, how do you spot those people who shouldn’t be trusted? There are five common telltale signs that I’ve observed in untrustworthy people. Usually these come in combinations of two or three consistent behaviors. Spot these in people and you can be pretty well assured that your trust belongs elsewhere. 1. They lie to themselves

One of the most striking behaviors of untrustworthy people is that they see themselves in ways that are simply inconsistent with reality. When you encounter someone who seems disconnected from the actual impact that his actions and behaviors are having, it’s a sure sign that he is trying to create a perception that conforms to his desires rather than to reality.

For example, if someone constantly describes himself as a quiet person who seeks harmony, while his behavior is disruptive, arrogant and confrontational, you’ve got a disconnect that should immediately start to raise red flags of trustworthiness. 2. They project behaviors on you that are clearly not ones you are exhibiting

People who are untrustworthy also have an amazingly consistent habit of accusing others of behaviors that they themselves are exhibiting or are contemplating. This one is a classic seen regularly by relationship counselors. It goes something like this: Mary is constantly accusing Jack of contemplating new employment. Jack knows that he is not only perfectly happy where he is and not seeking employment elsewhere, but he has also never made any indications that he might be. Jack is befuddled by Mary’s ongoing accusations.

Guess who is looking for new employment? That’s right, Mary. If someone is constantly accusing you of something which you know to patently false, chances are very good that what that person is doing is projecting his or her own untrustworthy behavior and insecurities onto you. 3. They breach confidentiality

We all remember as kids swearing someone to secrecy only to have her break the promise and then rationalize it by saying, “But I only told one other person.” And that same behavior plays out among adults. Confidentiality, when agreed to (and in the absence of any illicit or illegal activity), is a sacred bond.

This one to me is a nonnegotiable. Once someone has broken a pledge of confidentiality, there is no second chance because that person has already demonstrated a desire to gain favor with others. That desire is greater than his respect for the person who confided in him. By the way, it’s incredibly easy to spot this one because inevitably these people will share things with you that you can tell were said to them in confidence by others. You can be assured that if they did it to somebody else, they will do it to you. 4. They show a lack of empathy

This is perhaps the one shared behavior of nearly every untrustworthy person. They are able to rationalize being untrustworthy by diminishing the impact, pain, damage or inconvenience they cause others. This is also the most dangerous of the five behaviors, because once you lose empathy for those whom your actions affect, you have started down a slippery slope. Even worse is that people who truly lack empathy have no awareness that they do, or they’re selectively empathetic when it serves their agenda. It’s simply all about them.

Look for clues to this in how people generally treat others. This is the classic example of observing how someone treats those who are not in a position to give them anything of value, such as a waiter or janitor. When I was hiring senior and mid-level executives, this was the single-most important ability I needed to see them demonstrate before I hired them. 5. They have a pattern of inconsistency and fickleness in their decisions

Trust is formed in our earliest relationships. If trust is missing in our formative years, it creates uncertainty, doubt and inconsistency that can linger over a person’s lifetime of interactions. Someone whose emotional state fluctuates wildly is likely to be untrustworthy. The reason is that she will make promises she quickly regrets and retracts.

These people are never certain why they are making the decisions they are making. We all change our minds now and then, but if someone has a pattern of consistently flip-flopping, look out. Nothing is anchoring that person to an emotional state you can trust. Tom Koulopoulos is an author and the founder of the Delphi Group, a Boston-based think tank.