The most critical aspect of any manager's job is in enabling and sustaining the performance of their subordinates. Managers have widely varying leadership styles and approaches to motivating subordinates to accomplish critical tasks, yet all managers share one common responsibility, and that is to create relationships with subordinates that enable them to bring their greatest strengths to the tasks that need to be accomplished every day on the job.

             At the heart of this enabling of subordinates' top performance is the creation of trust. Trust is in fact the most precious commodity between a manager and subordinate, because without it, no communication can occur. The nurturing and creating of trust only happens with frequent and honest communications between managers and subordinates. Given the quickening pace of change in many companies both large and small, the need for managers to stay informed to do their jobs always hinges on their ability to build trust and eventually loyalty with their subordinates.

             Look at the world's best managers and you can see case studies of the correlation between their commitment to communicate honestly, fairly and with candor engender trust because of their transparency. The converse of this is managers who continually contradict their words with their actions, a common mistake many first-time managers make. If this goes on too long however the managers' credibility and trust diminish and subordinates either leave or become irritated and even more difficult to manage. .

             From the subordinates' perspective the frequency and sincerity of communications, even if the messages from the manager are not always positive, leads to a greater sense of perceived control on the part of subordinates (Spector, Paul 1986). When managers address performance of subordinates honestly and with the intent of coaching them to better performance, even complimenting them for behaviors and performance that is above average, subordinates report a jump in their sense of control over their jobs.