Trust Is Earned: How Leaders Build It, Keep It and Win It Back

Trust has always mattered in leadership. But right now, it matters in a different way.

Leaders are asking people to navigate constant change, work across distributed teams, adopt artificial intelligence, speak up about risks, challenge established thinking and make decisions with increasing uncertainty.

Every one of those expectations depends on trust.

Yet the evidence suggests you can’t assume trust. DDI’s 2025 Global Leadership Forecast found that trust in immediate managers had fallen to just 29%. PwC found that while 86% of executives say they highly trust their employees, only 60% of employees believe that trust exists.

This gap should raise considerable concern.

Without trust, employees protect themselves. They withhold ideas, hesitate to challenge, escalate decisions, question motives and resist change. They may also increasingly resist the technologies leaders ask them to adopt.

Trust is no longer merely a desirable leadership quality. It is a prerequisite for performance, change and effective leadership.

Trust is earned

Trust is not something you can ask for. It must be earned.

If trust has been lost, you must earn it again, and rebuilding it is much harder.

Trust can take a long time to build and very little time to damage. Once it's lost, people become more cautious. They watch more closely, question more readily, and look for evidence that things really are different.

Restoring trust therefore takes more than an apology or a promise to change. It requires consistent behaviour over time.

Leaders must repeatedly demonstrate that they can be relied upon.

Leaders earn trust through their values, behaviours, integrity, transparency and honesty.

For some leaders, the task is to establish trust where it is still forming. For others, it is to restore trust after inconsistency, poor decisions, broken promises or behaviour that has damaged confidence.

Either way, the starting point is the same. It is about what leaders do every day that builds trust, maintains it, or erodes it. It is how leaders show up when no one is watching.

In 2022, I wrote a LinkedIn newsletter about trust and used TRUST as an acronym for what leaders must do every day. I am using it again, with some considered updates.

Trust stands for transparency, relationships, understanding, safety and touchpoints.

Transparency

No one trusts a leader who hides behind platitudes and untruths. Transparent leaders are open and honest with their people. They involve their team in decision-making and share information widely, ensuring everyone, regardless of location, is informed and engaged.

Transparent leaders do not treat their employees like children or assume they cannot handle the information shared. Your employees are adults and are just as mature and capable of handling information as you are. Of course, there may be circumstances when it would not be appropriate to share information with your team, but that should be the exception.

Transparent leaders not only give employees feedback but also actively seek it. They are open about wanting to improve and ask for honest feedback. Their employees know there will be no judgement or reprisal if the feedback highlights a weakness in the leader. Employees are asked to provide examples in their feedback, and the leader’s response is ‘thank you.’ These leaders do not get defensive or angry – they embrace the feedback as an opportunity for growth. Most of all, they act on it.

Transparent leaders are also authentic. They are ethical and true to themselves. They do not hide behind a mask. What you see is what you get. The authentic leader is self-aware – they know who they are and how they impact others. They bring their whole self to the leadership role – intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.

When authentic leaders make a mistake, they are prepared to acknowledge it. They know they are not infallible and do not pretend to have all the answers. This is a trusted leader. These leaders are prepared to be vulnerable, sharing their feelings and concerns. They will ask for help when they need it. When leaders are honest with themselves and their team, they build trust.

The authentic leader holds themselves accountable for their actions. They do what they say they will do. They follow through. Their words carry weight. If, for any reason, they cannot deliver, they explain why.

Transparent leaders communicate with clarity. They ensure employees hear what they mean. There is no room for ambiguity.

Transparency is becoming even more important as organisations introduce AI into the workplace. Employees need to understand where AI is being used, why it is being used, how decisions involving AI are made, and what safeguards are in place. If people believe AI is being introduced behind closed doors or used to monitor, assess or replace them without honest conversation, trust can quickly deteriorate.

Relationships

The right relationship you build with your team, and the one you foster within it, establishes trust. Leaders must build a personal, positive, and consistent relationship with each team member.

Leaders who build trust show they genuinely care for their employees. They show interest in their well-being, interests, aspirations, and development. They invest in their employees’ growth and are driven to help them be the best they can be. 

Employees feel valued and know their leader has their back. These leaders lead with empathy and compassion.

Demonstrating leadership trust means empowering employees and giving them the autonomy to deliver outcomes and value in the way they see best. When a leader micromanages, they are saying, “I do not trust you to do the job.” Good leaders trust their team to do the right thing, but are always there to support, guide and advise as needed. These leaders do not direct – they provide direction. They trust their employees to get the job done and measure performance by outcomes and value delivered, not by hours spent at the keyboard.

Leaders also demonstrate trust by giving employees appropriate flexibility over where, when and how work is done. Clear parameters remain in place to ensure team and organisational outcomes are achieved, but the emphasis is on agreed principles and outcomes rather than unnecessary control.

Trust is often built through small interactions. Remembering someone’s name, asking about something they mentioned previously, or recalling what matters to them shows that the leader was paying attention. These behaviours may seem minor, but they signal respect and help people feel seen as individuals.

When a leader asks you, “What do you see that I am missing?” and genuinely listens, it signals trust, invites feedback and demonstrates integrity.

Trust is a two-way street. When leaders demonstrate that they trust their employees, they create the conditions for that trust to be reciprocated. Trust is also contagious, and as employees observe and experience trusting behaviour from their leader, they are more likely to extend that trust to others.

Understanding

Leaders must lead with genuine empathy. They must not only be effective communicators but also active listeners. They listen deeply, and then ask thoughtful questions, signalling authentic care, curiosity, and respect for others.

Good listeners are patient and give the other person time to finish speaking before they respond. They avoid interrupting and jumping in with solutions.

They also know how to adapt their communication style to each person. They take the time to understand how each team member wants to receive and process information.

Leaders demonstrate empathy when they genuinely try to understand another person’s perspective, even when they don't agree with it. That means resisting the urge to judge too quickly, dismiss concerns, or interpret someone else’s experience through their own lens.

People are more likely to trust a leader when they feel understood.

That does not mean the leader must agree with every view or every request. It means the person can see that their perspective has been heard, considered and taken seriously.

Empathy also becomes particularly important during periods of pressure, uncertainty or change. Leaders may understand why a decision is necessary because they have been involved in the conversations leading up to it. Employees may only experience the impact of that decision. A leader who fails to recognise that difference can appear detached or uncaring.

A more empathetic leader asks themselves how this might look from another person’s perspective.

That question can change how a leader communicates, makes decisions, and responds to concerns.

Trust grows when people believe a leader sees them as a person, not merely as an employee expected to deliver an outcome.

Genuine empathy is difficult to fake. People quickly recognise the difference between a leader who is listening because they are supposed to and one who is genuinely trying to understand.

Safety

People are more likely to trust a leader when they feel safe speaking openly without fear of embarrassment, punishment, or retaliation.

Psychological safety enables employees to ask questions, challenge decisions, admit mistakes, raise concerns, and offer different perspectives. When leaders respond with curiosity rather than defensiveness, they send a powerful message: you can be honest with me and still be respected.

That matters because trust is built through experience.

If an employee raises a concern and is dismissed, interrupted, or made to feel foolish, trust is damaged. If they admit a mistake and are blamed rather than supported in learning from it, they will think twice before being open again.

Conversely, when leaders listen, invite challenge, acknowledge they do not have all the answers, and respond constructively to bad news, employees begin to see that openness is safe.

Over time, that consistency builds employee confidence in the leader.

There is also an important relationship in the other direction: trust helps psychological safety grow. When employees believe their leader will act fairly, keep confidences where appropriate, and respond predictably, they are more willing to speak up.

So, trust and psychological safety reinforce each other.

A leader who wants to build trust should therefore ask:

Do people feel safe telling me what I may not want to hear?

That question can reveal far more about trust than simply asking people whether they trust their leader.

Touchpoints

A leader builds trust through regular, meaningful contact with every member of their team,

There are many touchpoints.

Good leaders hold regular one-on-one sessions. They ensure every team member feels valued and prioritised. They look after team members' physical and mental wellbeing and show they care. They enquire about the challenges an employee may be facing.

They actively listen to employees and acknowledge that they have heard. They act more as coaches and mentors than as managers or bosses.

They do not reschedule or cancel a one-on-one session unless necessary. Leaders who do this send the message that the employee is not a priority.

They hold regular team meetings, both informal and formal.

The Monday morning huddle is a favourite informal 5–10-minute session of mine and keeps the team connected and builds relationships. We celebrate wins, review priorities, identify roadblocks, and do a two-word check-in for team members to describe their emotional state, mindset, or energy level.

Touchpoints are not only scheduled meetings. They are the small moments when employees experience their leader, such as responding to a question, acknowledging good work, having a conversation after a difficult meeting, or a quick check-in when someone seems unusually quiet. Trust is built through the cumulative effect of these interactions.

The key to touchpoints is to keep them regular and consistent.

Conclusion

Trust is not created by one grand gesture. It is created through hundreds of small leadership moments.

Every conversation, decision, promise, response to bad news, and reaction to challenge either strengthens trust or chips away at it.

When trust has already been damaged, those moments matter even more. People will watch for evidence that things have really changed.

Leaders therefore need to be deliberate about how they show up — transparently, relationally, empathetically, safely and consistently.

People do not decide whether to trust a leader based on what that leader says about themselves.

They decide based on what they repeatedly experience.