Trust In Turmoil
We’ve got a big problem with the glue that holds society together—and a formula to fix it
SUMMARY: Most leaders know trust is important for their companies and their leadership, but they don’t truly understand what trust is and how to cultivate it. When you understand the components of trust—what works for it and against it—and you’re willing to become self-aware enough to understand how you measure up, you can not only catalyze healthy relationships, but healthy cultures filled with psychological safety.
Trust is in trouble. From the intensification of political polarization marked by disdain of anyone on the other side, to global brands being demonized for questionable ethics, or leaders in all sectors revealing fractures of character, it is evident that the construction of trust is a protracted process, yet it is susceptible to rapid disintegration.
Measurements Unveil Startling Trust Trends
An alarming number of recent surveys indicate trust is broken across our culture and particularly within organizations.
The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer says people believe most leaders are “purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations”:
63% believe this of government leaders
61% of business leaders
64% of journalists or reporters
All of these numbers have increased since 2023.
DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast says there is also a crisis of trust between us and the leaders we know more personally, revealing less than half (46%) of people trust their direct manager to do what’s right and even less (32%) trust the company’s senior leaders to do the right thing.
And yet executives over-index how much they’re trusted by their employees and by customers in the marketplace at large, according to a recent PWC survey. While 67% of employees have general trust in their employer, 86% of executives believe their employees have high trust in them. Starker is the difference between customers and executives: 30% of customers place trust in a company’s leadership while 90% of executives believe they are trusted by customers. Both gaps have increased significantly from the past.
Relational Distance and Dynamics
Within these stats is a theme: the further removed people are from leaders relationally, the less they trust them.
Leaders are also more willing to trust their employees than employees are of them: 86% of executives indicate they have high trust in their employees, while only 60% of employees believe their leaders trust them. Disparities of power are clearly at play. As is delusion.
And yet, top leaders don’t have an overly casual perspective on the value of trust. 93% say building and keeping trust is critical to their business’s bottom line. But very few know how to define or achieve it.
The Fundamentals of Trust: Beyond the Binary
When we work with our clients at Arable, it’s clear many people have a fundamental misunderstanding of what trust is.
Very often we hear trust spoken of in the black-and-white binary: I either trust you or I don’t.
Or we hear clients bemoan the complexity, as though trust is too mysterious to understand or influence in any methodical way.
And yet, trust is definable. It is quantifiable, although not static, as it operates on a sliding scale and is contextually driven.
The strongest guidepost for how to both benchmark and grow trust is through this equation:
(Derived from an equation in “The Trusted Advisor," by David H. Maister, Charles H. Green, and Robert M. Galford, with our Arable spin on it.)
In Karl Martin’s book ‘The Cave, The Road, The Table, and The Fire,’ he describes each component like this:
Credible: Can I trust your competence? Do you have the abilities, experiences, and tools to do what we need? Of course, not all credibility is equal. The ability of the surgeon to cut into my knee is a different credible to the talent of my barber to cut into my hair. Equally, I don’t want either doing the other’s job!
Dependable: Will you deliver on your promise? Do you do what you say you will do when you say you will do it? Will you have my back when I need you to?
Relatable: Are you knowable, open, and vulnerable to the point that it is clear to others that they are dealing with a ‘straight shooter’? And, are you seeking to build relational bridges by a deep knowing of others in the team?
Selfish: Are you, at heart, only in it for yourself, concerned to protect, promote and prioritize your ends? It all rises or comes crashing down right here.
The glaring question remains: how do you quantify each of these areas? Credibility and Dependability are relatively straightforward, through owning facts, becoming aware, and perhaps asking boldly for candid feedback. Relatability and Selfishness are more complex and enigmatic, more prone to live in other people’s subconscious than plainly articulated.
But even the latter two can be excavated through careful self-reflection, tracking behaviors and motives, and cultivating relationships within which you can be, and quite regularly are, told the truth.
The greater your denominator (level of selfishness) the harder this process will be for you, as you are the least likely to be able to hear the real truth and others will be less likely to tell you.
[Would you be interested in using a Trust Survey for your leadership, comprised of self-reflection questions and surveying others you work with? Let us know here, as we consider developing this tool.]
Broad Corporate Trust vs. Relational Trust
There is both broad trust and interpersonal trust to consider.
For consumers outside a company, they pass judgments based on a company’s broad reputation for behaving ethically, without deception (or in exceptional cases with famous CEOs, the behavior and ethics of an individual).
For team members within a company, they choose whether or not to trust individual leaders they have some sort of relationship with.
By and large, when companies focus on the interpersonal trust of the latter, the former broad trust takes care of itself. But when companies focus on the PR massaging of their broad persona, without also endeavoring to become a leadership team sincerely trusted by those in their stead, a public kabuki drop is imminent.
What makes trust within a company’s culture murky is the variable levels of trust among a leadership team. Several highly trusted leaders alongside one who shows up self-interested or unreliable, and the whole ship can begin to sink.
Trust is Integral to Psychological Safety
The goal is not for the “good eggs” to outweigh the “bad eggs” (as if such a crass binary exists). The goal is to foster an environment of psychological safety, of which trust is an essential component. Google’s Project Aristotle, which sought to figure out why certain teams outproduced others, concluded that the strongest teams had the highest level of psychological safety.
In Amy Edmondson’s definition, psychological safety is “the belief that one can speak up without risk of punishment or humiliation.” This is the golden key that unlocks the free flow of great ideas and collaboration, a level of comfort only comes through an absence of interpersonal fear.
Going back to our equation, while Credibility and Dependability absolutely grease the wheels of psychological safety, Relatability and a lack of Selfishness are what make those wheels turn. When socially wired people can relate to one another, guards go down. When people feel others in the room are invested in their flourishing and growth, they feel safe and energized to contribute their ideas.
Trustworthiness Begets Trustworthiness
Both trust and psychological safety are team sports that all members of a team must fortify together, but the example of the leader will always set the expectation for everyone else.
As trust cascades from personal interactions to the broader dynamics between corporations and the public, by increasing how much you are trusted, it’s within your capacity to help turn the tide.
Trust is at the center of any healthy society. Is trust at the center of your leadership?
How credible are you in the areas core to your leadership? Any gaps you need to fill?
How dependable are you day in and day out? Do you consistently do what you say you will?
How relatable are you? Do you seek to connect on a real level, including sharing vulnerably?
Lastly, and importantly, are your motives selfish? We’re not talking optics, we’re talking reality.
As you increase the trust those in your organization have in you, you’ll not only set a replicable example for those in your stead, you’ll contribute to turning the tide of one of society’s great problems.
