by Dr. Larry Kuhn, Organizational Psychologist & Executive Coach, The Human Resource Consortium, LLC

Summary

Trust is not merely a cultural add-on — it is a measurable business asset and the foundation of human interactions and development. Across society, trust in people and institutions has eroded to historic lows, and employees now carry that skepticism into the workplace. Confidence in leaders, HR, and systems is fragile. The costs of mistrust are real: stalled decisions, reduced ability to resolve conflict, disengagement, turnover, and lost innovation.

Research confirms that high-trust organizations consistently outperform their peers, reporting lower stress, higher productivity, and stronger shareholder returns. Stephen M. R. Covey describes this difference as the “trust tax” paid by low-trust organizations versus the “trust dividend” earned by high-trust ones.

Drawing on psychology, trust rests on authentic experiences that meet fundamental human needs. Maslow and Erikson both demonstrate that safety, belonging, and credibility are prerequisites for growth. At work, these principles come alive in the 7 Dimensions of Credible Authenticity: reliability, relatability, reputation, readiness, realness, receptivity, and rationality.

The thesis is clear: when employee psychological needs are met within credible and authentic relationships, organizations reap measurable value — with trust as the shared foundation.

The High Stakes of Trust

Trust — and the authenticity that sustains it — is not merely a soft skill; it is a hard business driver. When trust is high, work moves faster, costs are lower, and collaboration thrives. When trust is low, friction multiplies: decisions stall, innovation slows, and employee turnover drains value.

The problem is not abstract. Across society, trust has been steadily eroding for decades, and organizations now face the consequences inside their own walls. Employees bring skepticism to the workplace, questioning whether leaders mean what they say, whether HR will act fairly, and whether their contributions will be recognized.

For organizations, the stakes could not be higher. Trust is the foundation of engagement, retention, innovation, and long-term performance. Leaders who ignore it pay a hidden “trust tax” in bureaucracy, missed opportunities, and disengagement. Leaders who cultivate it unlock a “trust dividend” of loyalty, speed, and resilience.   or risk watching performance erode with it.

The Current Landscape: Declining Trust in Society

The erosion of trust is not only a workplace issue; it is a societal crisis with decades of momentum. In 1972, nearly 50% of Americans said that “most people can be trusted.” By 2018, that number had fallen to 34%, and in the most recent surveys it remains stalled at roughly one in three.” (General Social Survey, as cited in Pew Research Center, 2023)

Institutional trust has fared no better. “Confidence in government has dropped from more than 70% in the 1960s to less than 25% today.” (Pew Research Center, 2023) Trust in religious institutions and law enforcement has declined steadily since the early 2000s, while trust in media sits at historic lows — only 32% of Americans say they trust the mass media “a great deal” or “a fair amount.” (Gallup, 2023)  AAMC’s Center for Health Justice reported its four-year (2021-2024) trend of trust decline in 9 U.S. sector institutions (AAMC, 2025):

US Sector Institutions	2021 to 2024 Trust Level (%)	% Decline
Fire Departments	94  to  90	4
Libraries	90  to  87	3
Pharmacies	90  to  82	8
Hospitals	87  to  82	5
Public Health Agencies	82  to  79	3
Local Schools	77  to  77	0
Police Departments	77  to  74	3
Universities	76  to  72	4
Social Service Agencies	74  to  69	5

 

Globally, the Edelman Trust Barometer (2025) reports that distrust has become the default response in much of the world, with less than half of respondents saying they trust their governments or business leaders to do what is right.  Social fragmentation, polarization, and digital disinformation amplify this downward spiral.

These societal fractures inevitably spill into organizations. Employees don’t shed mistrust at the office door. Skepticism toward institutions seeps into the way workers view leadership, HR, and corporate communication. In short: a culture of mistrust outside the workplace primes employees to question credibility and authenticity inside it.

Trust at Work: What Employees Really Believe

Workplace trust is fragile — and declining. In Gallup’s (2023) global research, only 21% of employees strongly agree they trust the leadership of their organization.  The Edelman Trust at Work survey (2025) found that, “…Just 43% trust their manager to act with integrity, and only 25% trust their CEO.” When trust erodes, disengagement is not far behind. According to Gallup (2025), US Employee Engagement fell from 33% to 31% in 2024. 

The ’trust gap’ among employees is evident when it comes to adopting innovation. Currently, while 70% of workers are eager to leverage AI (KPMG, 2025), only 41% are willing to trust AI systems, reflecting tensions between adoption and trust. 

According to Envoy (2023), employees place far greater trust in coworkers — “Nearly 80% say they trust their peers — but even that confidence collapses in remote settings, where only 24% of employees report trusting colleagues to get work done from home.”  Human Resources fares little better: one study found that just “25% of employees trust HR to address toxic behavior effectively”, while another reported that although 71% say they trust HR, nearly 40% still feel uncomfortable giving HR honest feedback.” (iHire, 2025)

The implications are profound. Trust and authenticity drive engagement, retention, performance, innovation, and organizational value, (Kong, Gillespie & Dirks, 2025). Without authentic leadership, trust erodes; without trust, authenticity is dismissed as performative. Research consistently shows that trust and psychological safety (Google/Project Aristotle, 2016) are the strongest predictors of employee engagement and innovation (Perceptyx, 2024).

Leader and managerial behaviors are the decisive factor. Transparency, accountability, and consistent communication build trust; inconsistency, favoritism, and silence erode it. The lack of highly effective leadership development is largely to blame. Supervisors are often promoted for technical expertise rather than relational capability, and without intentional development, they default to habits that weaken trust.

C-suite leaders must see, grasp, and act quickly to rebuild trust.  The costs of inaction — employee turnover, disengagement, and lost innovation — are far too great.

The Business Case for Trust

Stephen M. R. Covey, in The Speed of Trust (2006), argues that trust is the single greatest accelerant of organizational performance. He observed:

• “Low trust causes friction … Low trust slows everything — every decision, every communication, every relationship.”
• “High trust won’t necessarily rescue a poor strategy, but low trust will almost always derail a good one.”

Trust and authenticity are not only moral virtues; together they are economic multipliers. High-trust organizations move faster, collaborate more effectively, and innovate with less resistance. According to the Great Place to Work Institute (2025), trust is a leading indicator of what helps companies to become great places to work.  Low-trust organizations incur what Covey calls a “trust tax” — higher costs, slower execution, and disengagement that erodes productivity. High-trust organizations, by contrast, earn a “trust dividend” that compounds into resilience, adaptability, and growth.

The data bear this out. GPTWI reported in 2025 that over a 27 year period their certified, high trust organizations outperformed the stock market average by 3.5X and generated 8.5X more revenue per employee than the U.S. average.  A Watson Wyatt study found that high-trust companies outperformed low-trust companies by 286% in total return to shareholders over a ten-year period (Watson Wyatt Worldwide, 2005). Research published in Harvard Business Review shows that employees in high-trust organizations report 74% less stress, 50% higher productivity, and 76% greater engagement (Zak, 2017). Additionally, a PwC survey (2016) revealed that 55% of CEOs believe a lack of trust is a threat to their organization’s growth.

The logic is simple but profound: where trust and authenticity are strong, leaders can focus on execution rather than defending credibility; employees share ideas freely rather than holding back; and customers extend loyalty more readily. Where they are weak, every initiative takes longer, costs more, and delivers less.

Trust, then, is not a “soft” cultural factor. It is a measurable business asset. Organizations that ignore it are leaving enormous value untapped — or worse, incurring daily costs that compound into long-term decline.

Building Trust: Where Business and Psychology Intersect

Trust is not only a business advantage — it is a psychological necessity. Erik Erikson (1950/1993), one of the most influential developmental psychologists of the 20th century, placed trust versus mistrust as the first and most fundamental challenge of human growth. From infancy, our ability to explore, learn, and relate to others depends on whether our earliest caregivers proved trustworthy. When those needs were met, hope and confidence took root; when unmet, suspicion and vigilance followed. Erikson’s model reminds us that trust is not a one-time achievement but a recurring dynamic across life stages — surfacing in new forms as we take on roles, relationships, and responsibilities.

In the workplace, this means that building trust is not about programs or persuasion; it is about creating credible and authentic experiences that meet people’s relational needs and lower their defenses. The Twin Pyramids model illustrates how employee developmental needs align directly with business outcomes, with trust as the shared foundation. Flowing from this insight, the 7 Dimensions of Credible Authenticity provide a common-sense guide for leaders to cultivate trust through relational experiences — reducing vigilance, fostering authenticity, and enabling both people and organizations to flourish. 

Trust is the foundation where human needs and business outcomes meet.

The 7 Dimensions of Credible Authenticity

The 7 Dimensions of Credible Authenticity are not a checklist of techniques to persuade people to trust us. They are relational experiences that reflect care. Care involves the willingness to extend our oneself for another’s growth and, when consistently offered, foster a felt sense of genuineness and authenticity. Over time, these experiences reduce social vigilance — the natural self-protective response that arises when trust has been or may be broken. When people have been hurt, mistrust is a rational response. The task of leaders is not to “sell” or manipulate people to generate trust, but to invest in relationships that make credibility and authenticity real.

Across all seven critical dimensions, creating experiences of credible authenticity reduces the risk of harm and provides the foundation for relational trust.

Reliability

Trust is built through consistency, demonstrated over time — especially when there’s no secondary gain. Reliability relates to practical congruence and integrity.  It means doing what we say, following through, and aligning expectations realistically. In practice, this means resisting the temptation to over-promise for a quick win and instead under-promising and over-delivering. Trust is experiential. Like a forest, it takes years to grow and only moments to burn down. Experiences of reliability are the slow, steady cultivation of trust that make authenticity credible.

Relatability

People tend to trust those who feel similar to them — not different. While diversity is a necessary organizational value for effective

collaboration, decision-making and innovation, the path to trust lies in emphasizing common ground: shared goals, experiences, and values. Leaders who highlight commonality provide a bridge for relational trust. Authenticity in this dimension means shifting from trying to convince people to accept differences to cultivating inclusive belonging through shared meaning. Relatability invites people to connect rather than compelling them to conform or align with a prescribed perspective.

Reputation

Reputation is the echo of authenticity across time and community. Socially intelligent people understand that what others hear about us often carries far more weight than what we say directly. This is why references, reviews, and platforms like Yelp or Gartner matter. In hiring new employees, strong references shape trust even before someone arrives. Companies rated by employees and GPTWI certified as a Great Place to Work are 15 times more likely to be chosen by candidates than non-certified companies. Leaders must recognize that reputation precedes them and powerfully mediates trust. A consistent pattern of fairness, humility, and recognition builds reputational capital that sustains authenticity.

Readiness

Availability signals care. Research shows that roughly 50–60% of U.S. adults are securely attached, while the remaining 40–50% experience insecure attachment styles such as anxious or avoidant (Bakermans-Kranenburg & van IJzendoorn, 2009; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2016). This means that nearly half of employees enter the workplace with a degree of relational mistrust, shaped by early experiences of caregiver responsiveness. Supervisors who are consistently visible, available, and responsive can therefore provide what psychologists call a corrective emotional experience, helping employees rebuild trust and engagement in the workplace. 

As a clinical psychologist, I often ask, “Can you remember a time in your life as a child, when you were in pain, when a parent or caregiver was available and responsive to your need and not their own?” How individuals answer this question seems to shape lifelong expectations of relationships. Supervisors, whether they realize it or not, step into a similar role for employees. When they are visible, present, and responsive, they offer what psychologists call a corrective emotional experience. These moments of authentic care — more than words or data — disarm defenses and build trust. Insecure attachment may predispose mistrust, but readiness can repair it.

Realness

Authenticity requires full disclosure. Leaders undermine trust fastest when they edit out the inconvenient truths. Failing to disclose challenges or conflicts of interest signals, “I don’t trust you enough to handle the whole story.” Ironically, what is meant to reassure instead creates suspicion. Real authenticity means courageously naming shortcomings alongside strengths. In business, this is particularly vital in sales, investments, and negotiations. Clients expect the whole truth. When leaders disclose risks as well as rewards, they deepen trust by demonstrating credibility.

Receptive

Trust requires openness, not defensiveness. Leaders who invite critique, ask questions, and demonstrate genuine interest in the welfare of others create psychological safety. Even the best product or service loses credibility if dialogue is shut down. Authentic receptivity doesn’t treat disagreement as disloyalty; it treats it as partnership. When employees feel heard, mistrust has no soil to grow in. Creating space for feedback above persuasion preserves influence and builds trust that lasts.

Rational

Trust engages both heart and head. Rationality means offering decisions and arguments that make sense, are understandable, and are supported by credible evidence — including evidence that challenges our own assumptions. Authentic rationality respects people’s intelligence to think for themselves. Telling people what to think may win compliance, but it often breeds inward resistance. By contrast, leaders who provide well-rounded evidence and transparent reasoning invite confidence. Trust grows when employees sense not only that leaders care, but that they are competent and fair in their judgments.

Closing Note
These seven dimensions — reliability, relatability, reputation, readiness, realness, receptivity, and rationality — are experiences of credible authenticity. They are not sales tactics or steps to manipulate trust but relational investments that create safety, reduce vigilance, and foster connection. When practiced authentically, they mediate the felt sense of trust that enables people and organizations to flourish.

Conclusion: Moving at the Speed of Trust

Organizations today face a stark choice. They can continue to absorb the visible costs of employee turnover, lack of ability to attain desired talent and resistance to change (including that of AI transformation) as well as hidden costs of mistrust — stalled decisions, disengaged employees, lost innovation — or they can invest in building trust and reap its dividends. The evidence is clear: 

Trust is not optional. It is the foundation 

upon which engagement, performance, innovation, and retention rest.

When trust is absent, employees withdraw. They hesitate to share ideas, guard their authentic selves, and disengage from their teams. Leaders spend energy managing perceptions instead of leading progress. Customers and stakeholders sense the inconsistency and respond with skepticism. The result is a drag on momentum that compounds over time.

When trust is present, everything changes. Teams collaborate more openly. Decisions move faster. Employees feel safe to bring their best ideas forward. Customers extend loyalty because they sense consistency and care. Leaders gain the credibility to mobilize others toward ambitious goals. High-trust organizations enjoy what Covey calls the “trust dividend”: speed, engagement, innovation, and resilience that compound into sustainable value.  The thesis is clear: 

When employee psychological needs are met within the context of 

credible and authentic relationships, organizations reap measurable value — 

with trust as the shared foundation.

 

The work ahead is not just about policies, processes, or technology; it is about people and the relational systems they co-create. Building trust requires leaders who demonstrate reliability, authenticity, and receptivity, who recognize that psychological safety and business outcomes are inseparably linked. Trust is both the first principle of human development and the greatest accelerator of organizational growth. The leaders who act decisively to cultivate it will unlock a competitive advantage no strategy alone can deliver.

© 2025 The Human Resource Consortium | (855) 493‑1500 | All rights reserved.

 

References

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