Building Trust

The article 'Building Trust' [readable here] talks about the importance of trust in trade, business and scientific communities in order for them to really succeed and thrive.

They talk about how easily trust is lost, and how hard trust is to regain once you've lost the trust you had. In mentoring, I could see how easy it would be to lose your students trust - or never even really gain it at all - if you handled things incorrectly or were just inconsiderate to their needs or your weekly meetings with them.

Like it was pointed out in lecture once, if you fail to show up at meetings your meantégé (Protee?) is going to lose any bit of trust they may have built in you. You become a flake, and flakes aren't really trustable. It's hard to take someone seriously when they claim over and over that they'll be there, but then don't show up.

Trust is probably the most important factor in being a mentor. It doesn't matter how good of a listener you are, how much fun you are to be around, or how cheaply you do their homework for them if you're not trustworthy. How can you build a relationship with someone if they can't trust you, and what kind of role model does that make you? Certainly not a good one.