The Loss of Trust in Tech and Leadership

There is much debate on the management of people, it seems that whatever media source to turn too you will see debate on whether it’s leading a group of people in an office setting, managing teams remotely, or more likely, leading a hybrid workforce, it’s critical for leaders to build and maintain trust with their people.

Leadership trust creates the stable foundation for employees and their organizations to flex, adapt, and thrive in times of continuous change.

The behaviors that build trust are the very behaviors that manage change. Trust building helps teams step into ambiguity, stay committed to managing the unknown with confidence, and embrace change as an opportunity to learn, grow, and do great work together.

Leadership is a competency and a skill set rather than an inherited set of traits that high-performing organisations recognise and prepare their organisation accordingly. Organisations that have high levels of employee engagement enjoy high performance on every key performance indicator from employee turnover to return on investment and shareholder return. Creating an engaged environment is a culture, not a program and must be approached systemically not tactically.

In organisations that means building a common language of leadership at all levels to have an immediate and lasting impact on business results, not just knowledge, wisdom or behaviours.

A bad example of trusted leadership is the chaos that continued to erupt as hoards of employees exited from Twitter/X after Elon Musk’s iron-fisted demands.

So far Musk’s leadership style is headed in the wrong direction. Trust in a leader allows organizations and communities to flourish, while the absence of trust can cause fragmentation, conflict, and even war. That’s why we need to trust our leaders, our family members, our friends and our co-workers, albeit in different ways.

Trust is the new disruptor, one that businesses must master to realize the full power of data and new intelligent technologies.

As businesses and governments transform to meet new challenges, it’s essential to embed Trust Intelligence into the core of their operations.

In the workplace, team psychological safety must be a top priority if businesses want to create a successful enterprise. And, more importantly, psychological safety contributes to an inclusive, diverse, and accepting workplace. A workplace where team members feel safe to express themselves.

It’s crucial to prioritize high psychological safety to create a high-performing team.

As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. Team cultures reflect the actions and reactions of their leaders. Leaders who fail to establish and support psychologically safe team environments can cause irreparable negative consequences and damage to the organization.

Enterprises powered by trust will be able to deliver on all three transformation drivers: people, technology and innovation. They’ll be able to leapfrog their competitors. To shape new markets.

Leaders must manage with stability and certainty during economic uncertainty, not add more confusion and disruption.
Trust is at the foundation of healthy relationships. At its core, trust is the willingness of one party to be vulnerable to the actions of another.

It is an expectation that two parties will act in a way that is mutually beneficial. For these reasons, trust is a key element of effective communication, teamwork, employee commitment and productivity. It leads to stronger working relationships and a healthier organizational culture.

Placing people at the centre of your corporate culture effort will enable positive shift and unlock long-term value for the organization. Culture work typically follows a major company event commonly a shift in strategy, a new CEO, a merger or acquisition, digital or functional transformation, regulatory changes, increasing calls for inclusivity, or unethical behaviour events.

On the flip side companies sometimes are forced to deal with narcissistic leaders whose behaviour can be relentless and ruthless. So is their legacy: it creates lasting organizational damage.

People embrace low integrity and individualism when both leaders and the company culture support those behaviours. Aligning culture across every level of the organization so that it enables your strategy is essential to moving with agility in a time of unprecedented change.

As external pressure mounts, leaders should take action to create a blueprint for purpose and culture that delivers short- and long-term value for employees, customers and investors. Culture isn’t the soft stuff, it’s the real, human stuff. And it’s time we got that right for each other.

As Brian Chesky, Co-founder and CEO, Airbnb once said:

“Why is culture so important to a business? Here is a simple way to frame it. The stronger the culture, the less corporate process a company needs. When the culture is strong, you can trust everyone to do the right thing.”