Going beyond what we commonly think of as trust, at the heart of cohesive and effective teams must be vulnerability based trust.

This means people are comfortable saying ‘I screwed up’, ‘I need help with that’, ‘what could I do more of to be a better manager for you’, ‘what could I do less of to be a better member of this team’.

Vulnerability based trust means that people are comfortable being vulnerable with each other.

And the result of this kind of team is cohesion, effectiveness, healthy debate, increased commitment, accountability and a focus and attention on results. And for leaders of an organization, this is what counts.