I gave one of my engineers tough feedback last week. It didn’t land well. We barely spoke after. Trust cracked.
Today, he pinged me about a “bug” and wanted an immediate fix. I checked the code. Not a bug—an intentional choice from months ago. Instead of pushing the fix onto the team, I explained the full context to the requester. I stood up for the engineer’s decision and the team’s history.
Later, that engineer messaged me: “thanks for having my back.” That one line mattered more than any 1-on-1. It reminded me—trust doesn’t grow behind closed doors. You build trust out in the open, when you speak up for your people.
If you manage engineers, you know 1-on-1s aren’t enough. Trust comes from what you do between the meetings. Here’s what works for me:
- Defend your team’s choices in public channels. Explain context, don’t just forward blame.
- Bring engineers into customer calls so they see the impact of their work—not just Jira tickets.
- Celebrate problem-solving as a team, not hero stories. During retros, highlight team ownership over individual firefighting.
- Share books or articles you actually read and discuss them openly. Show you value learning, not just outputs.
- Push for process changes when your engineers flag recurring pain points. Even if it means “fighting” with leadership.
Right now, we have a hero culture problem. Too many engineers see every bug as personal failure. That’s my next battle—moving us from heroics to shared ownership of outcomes. It’s why I seed “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” across the squads.
You don't build high-performance teams alone. You need allies at every level. Build trust in the messy, everyday moments—outside the 1-on-1s. That's where it sticks.