Trust requires repetition

Almost every manager I meet wants to be trusted, yet few fancy doing the small, repetitive things over time that earn it.

Trust is a running total, topped up or drained by the tiny things that happen between people all day: the message that’s answered without suspicion, the decision left alone, the credit passed to someone else, the mistake met with a question rather than a hunt for blame.

The latest Edelman Trust Barometer makes the point better than I can. ‘My employer’ is still the most trusted institution anywhere - ahead of government, media and business at large - and yet in 2025 it fell three points, the steepest decline of any of them. 

Even the thing people say they trust most is losing ground. Trust, it turns out, doesn't keep. You can't earn it once and live off the interest.

I made much the same point in The Project Book: to win a team's trust ‘you have to behave consistently well, and do things when you say you will’. Consistently. Not once, at a team meeting, then never again.

So rather than saying that people should trust you more, focus on doing one small trustworthy thing instead. Then do another tomorrow and then repeat to maintain what you’ve earned.