In much of our work, helping individuals and teams to cultivate trust and engagement is integral. It’s rare to encounter someone who doesn’t aspire to great working relationships, and we routinely witness the performance boost, healthier culture, and improved wellbeing that comes with paying attention to trust.

Conversely, we’ve observed the consequences when leaders and organisations fall into a habit of neglecting trust. Those consequences include:

• Less effective meetings
• Increased perception of political agendas
• Decisions becoming stuck
• Blockages in communication and collaboration
• Higher stress for individuals

There’s a persuasive and well-established body of research indicating that organisations characterised by high trust – and therefore healthy engagement, psychological safety, talent retention and risk appetite – are the ones that succeed, endure and compete.

Examples of this include Gallup’s research highlighting the positive impact of high employee engagement, including lower turnover, improved productivity and profitability.

In 2023 MIT Sloan Management Review published an article on high-trust workplaces, including research calculating that: ‘Trusting employees are 260% more motivated to work, have 41% lower rates of absenteeism, and are 50% less likely to look for another job.’

However, the same article added a significant finding: ‘We also found that roughly one in four workers don’t trust their employer.’

Mercer’s 2024 ‘Global Talent Trends’ report found a declining picture of organisational trust. Their research reveals that the trust that employers will do the right thing for employees has declined from 80% in 2022 to 69% in 2024.

The assumption leaders may have made – that trust should reflect one’s own character, ability and authenticity – is no longer enough in environments where there is a growing inclination to question authority, directives and decisions.

Today’s hectic, lean-team environments can – and do – lead to tension and pressure to get tasks done as quickly and efficiently as possible. It’s easy in those circumstances to forget that teams are made up of individuals who may have widely differing needs, opinions or concerns.

Knowing what those differences are lays the groundwork for you to offer the support and the challenge that people need. You can reduce the risk of a team member feeling unhappy, unwilling or unmotivated to carry out the task, while increasing the likelihood that they stretch themselves or take on a new opportunity because they trust your intention and judgement and feel secure.

The power of paying attention to trust extends beyond immediate teams and collaborators to your boss, interconnected colleagues, stakeholders, customers, suppliers and wider networks.

But leaders should also stop neglecting trust for another, more personal reason. However conscientious, dedicated and energetic a leader you are, you need to pay attention to yourself. If you continue to attack tasks at an accelerated and unsustainable rate, your relationships with others won’t keep pace, and you will find yourself overworked, isolated and trapped in a limit cycle.

Unless we consciously create an atmosphere of trust, we neglect our own basic needs and, as a result, our leadership potential.

If open conversations don’t take place, leaders can only speculate about what others may be experiencing, often overlooking the challenges they’re facing in the workplace. To reduce stress, what’s needed are more profound connections, built on listening, and physical and mental engagement, that help us discover together and share insights. In the face of a volatile, emotionally complex and at times bewildering set of circumstances, the arguments for and rewards of building trust are persuasive and well worth striving for.

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