Hi {{first_name}}

The average leader, when asked whether their team trusts them, says yes.

They point to tenure, to relationships, to the absence of obvious conflict. They interpret compliance as confidence and availability as connection. The assessment feels reasonable from the inside.

The data tells a different story.

What the research shows

DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast 2025, the largest study of its kind, surveyed 10,796 leaders in over 50 countries. It was found that trust in immediate managers has fallen to just 29 per cent, a 37 per cent decline since 2022. *

That is not a marginal finding. Nearly three in four people do not trust the leader they report to. And most of those leaders do not know it.

This matters commercially because trust is not a soft outcome. It determines whether people raise problems early or manage them quietly. Whether they bring their best thinking or a version of it shaped around what they believe you want to hear. Whether they stay when conditions get difficult, or start looking elsewhere.

The trust gap is where performance leaks.

Why capable leaders lose trust without realising it

The gap between how a leader sees themselves and how their team experiences them is not usually the result of bad intentions. It results from a pattern running underneath the leader’s awareness.

In my work with senior leaders, the behaviours that erode trust most consistently are not the dramatic ones. They are the accumulated small signals: the decision taken back after it was delegated; the feedback delivered in a way that closes down rather than opens up; the hesitation that reads to the team as uncertainty about them rather than about the situation.

Each of these has a source. A leader who reclaims decisions is often managing an unconscious fear that something will go wrong on their watch. A leader whose feedback lands as criticism is often protecting themselves from the discomfort of a tough conversation. A leader whose hesitation signals doubt is often running a pattern of needing certainty before they commit.

The team reads the behaviour. They do not see the fear behind it. What they experience is a leader who does not quite trust them, and over time, they return the favour.

The reframe

People build trust in small moments, and they lose it in the same way. The leader who says one thing and does another in a minor decision teaches their team what to expect in a major one.

The most effective intervention is not a trust-building initiative or a team away-day. It is a leader who will examine the patterns they are running under pressure, and to ask honestly: what is the gap between how I intend to lead and how I am actually landing?

That question is harder than it sounds. It requires self-awareness, which many performance environments do not create the conditions for. But it is the question that separates leaders whose teams trust them from leaders whose teams comply with them.

Compliance and trust are not the same thing. Only one of them drives performance when it matters.

One thing to try this week

Think of one person on your team whose engagement has shifted in the past three months.

Before assuming it is about them, ask: what have I done, or not done, in that time that may have contributed to the shift?

The answer is often more instructive than any engagement survey will be.

Best wishes,

Gavin

*Source: DDI, Global Leadership Forecast 2025.