The Trust Trap: How Leaders and Teams Can Rebuild Trust

9 January 2025

In many organisations, a frustrating stalemate exists: teams aren’t trusted to deliver, yet they’re not given the conditions to succeed. This is what I like to call a Trust Trap, a precarious dynamic that ensnares both leaders who create the conditions and the teams expected to deliver within them.

Unfortunately, the issue has only intensified in recent years. As workplaces evolve, tensions between leaders and teams have grown more complex, with mistrust often taking root in altered working rhythms and daily interactions. When trust breaks down, it creates a toxic feedback loop that's hard to escape — a loop that stifles innovation, lowers morale and inhibits progress.

In today’s workplace, leaders must develop new skills and strategies to foster trust and create environments where teams can thrive. Trust isn’t built through control or oversight, but through understanding, empathy and a commitment to creating the right conditions for success.

A man asking a question from the audience — Workplace engagement at PD

The Dynamics of the Trust Trap

Leaders have significant control over a team’s working conditions. They can empower or disempower their teams by providing or withholding funding, skills, knowledge or people. When distrust creeps in, however, leaders may begrudge offering full support, especially when other teams seem more reliable. Distrust can spread swiftly, affecting even large teams through just one negative relationship.

Teams, on the other hand, grow frustrated when they lack what they need but are still held accountable for delivery. This frustration breeds resentment, creating an “Us versus Them” mentality. Over time, a toxic culture emerges, pressuring junior staff, practitioners and suppliers, and eroding both morale and the ability to challenge unfair conditions. Gradually, teams lose both the ability and motivation to challenge their conditions. In many institutions, this pattern becomes normalised. In the worst case scenario, systemic distrust becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, further entrenching the trap.

How to escape the trust trap

1. Leaders: Give trust, don’t ask teams to earn it

Leaders need to give teams the space to work autonomously — with the freedom to apply their skills and experience. This is best achieved by embracing the ‘servant leader’ role, as coined by Robert Greenleaf in The Servant as Leader (1970). In this approach, you’re providing a service to your team to help them succeed. Focus on outcomes over outputs. Show that you care about what you’ve asked the team to achieve. Go and see the team’s work for yourself. It’s not about control but about trust and support — helping teams do their best by giving them the freedom, clarity and tools to thrive.

Two women attendees catch up during a break at a conference — PD Sessions for building workplace engagement

2. Leaders: treat distrust as your problem to solve

Leaders must see distrust as their problem to solve, not the team's responsibility. They must find their own route to trust by understanding more about why failure is happening; and then address any systemic problems or individual performance issues that are affecting the whole team.

3. Teams: highlight your working conditions, even if you’re not asked

Teams benefit greatly from highlighting any conditions that inhibit their ability to deliver. For example, teams may adopt a 'de facto strategy' — the only workable approach under current conditions — which highlights the gap between reality and the desired strategy.

Teams also need to answer questions they’re not being asked by providing data, insight and narratives that reveal the conditions, even if these are not part of more formal reporting or performance tracking processes.

4. Get trust issues out in the open

Deep distrust will often focus on less than a handful of one-to-one relationships, which affects a broader team-leader working culture. Where two people don’t trust each other, they need to talk – and others need to encourage them to talk.

This is hard work. Egos, reputations and anxieties often get in the way, but it's unfair for a strained relationship to impact the entire team. However, when distrust stems from toxic behaviours such as misogyny or racism, the issue is far more complex. Toxic distrust demands deeper, more systemic action, such as restructuring roles or improving accountability processes.

5. Leaders: invite third-party perspectives

When both leaders and teams lack the skills and experience needed to achieve outcomes, the trust trap entrenches itself — with neither side recognising the root cause of the problem. To address this, both leaders and teams should periodically seek third-party insights on ways of working – and adjust accordingly. Humble leadership is key, allowing leaders to recognise when they need external support and empowering them to ask for help without fear of losing authority.

6. Don’t tolerate the distrust

Building trust is hard, but the bigger challenge is refusing to tolerate distrust. A distrustful relationship between leaders and teams must never be normalised — it undermines the entire culture. That’s why, if you find yourself stuck in a trust trap with no clear path to resolution or intervention, the best option — if it’s available to you — may be to walk away.

Work better, trust more

Everyone should aspire to be part of a trusting work culture. Leading a trusted team is both rewarding and enjoyable, and being part of one is just as fulfilling. As an added bonus, the work that follows will be of significantly higher quality.

The trust trap is unpleasant for everyone involved. But by understanding its dynamics, taking intentional steps to address it, leaders and teams can break free and cultivate a culture where trust thrives. The result is a more productive, collaborative and fulfilling work environment — a goal well worth pursuing.