Creating Cultures of Trust

If organisations want to build cultures of trust, they must first be trusted for something—for delivering excellent customer service, being transparent, providing innovative, high-quality products, or treating employees, customers and suppliers with integrity. Trust across all aspects of an organisation is difficult to earn. It is built only through consistent, observable behaviour that demonstrates competence, honesty, and care for others over time.

Trust as the Currency of Culture

Trust functions like a shared currency: every action, decision, or interaction adds to or withdraws from the organisational trust account. Over time, these transactions determine how customers, employees and communities perceive the business.

Apple, for instance, continues to be trusted for innovation and design excellence. Yet its reputation takes a hit whenever reports resurface about poor working conditions in parts of its supply chain. At every point of contact where people or communities are affected, an organisation either strengthens or weakens its account balance of trust.

The same dynamic applies internally. Employees decide daily whether they trust their leaders, colleagues, and the organisation’s promises. If that trust is broken—even once—it becomes exponentially harder to rebuild.

The State of Trust Today

I first wrote on the process of building trust in 2016, and it’s unfortunate that over the last 9 years, trust in organisations has declined. According to the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, global trust in business has declined, with only 75% of employees now saying they trust “their employer” — down three points from last year. The PwC Trust in Business Survey found that while 84% of executives believe trust is critical to success, only 24% say their organisation has clear ownership or metrics for it.

Similarly, the XM Institute’s 2025 Trust Index highlights three critical components that define trustworthiness today:

• Competence – the ability to deliver reliably on promises
• Integrity – alignment of actions and stated values
• Benevolence – acting in the best interests of others, not just profit

High performance across all three dimensions is rare, but necessary. It’s no longer enough to be competent if integrity or benevolence are missing.

Truth-Telling: The Foundation of Trust

Truth-telling—the courage to acknowledge what is real, and the willingness to speak it—is vital to forming and sustaining trust. When people cannot safely tell the truth, suspicion and resentment fill the vacuum.

When an organisation encourages honest dialogue—especially when things go wrong—it builds a climate of psychological safety, openness, and shared accountability. Over time, this consistency becomes the culture itself.

Cultures of truth-telling and transparency not only retain trust internally but also project authenticity externally. As research from Great Place to Work (2024) shows, employees in high-trust workplaces are 74% less stressed, 50% more productive, and 40% more likely to stay with their employer.

When Trust Becomes a Strategic Advantage

In an era of constant change, hybrid working, and digital complexity, trust has become a strategic differentiator. Companies that cultivate trust:

• Attract more loyal customers and partners
• Retain talented employees
• Inspire innovation and psychological safety
• Recover faster from crises

Trust is therefore not a “soft skill” — it’s a measurable driver of performance, engagement, and reputation.

The Challenge: Knowing Where You Stand

Many organisations confuse trust with satisfaction. Yet trust goes deeper—it’s about the belief that promises will be kept, that leadership is ethical, and that intentions are benevolent.

So, for those of us at work, the question remains: Do the behaviours in our organisation breed trust or distrust? And crucially: how will you find out which it is?

Auditing trust requires more than surveys—it demands listening, observing behaviour, and asking hard questions about consistency, fairness, and truth.

Building a Culture Worth Trusting

To build or rebuild trust, leaders must:

1. Model trustworthiness daily – walk the talk even when inconvenient.
2. Align words and actions – values only matter when lived, not laminated.
3. Be transparent – share information, admit mistakes, and involve people in decisions.
4. Recognise impact – understand how decisions affect all stakeholders.
5. Invite truth – create spaces where people can safely speak honestly.

Trust is earned one interaction at a time. It’s slow to build, easy to lose, and impossible to fake.

In a world where institutional scepticism is high, trust may be the most valuable capital your organisation owns—and the most fragile.