Strategies Experts Say Top Leaders Use

You’re leading a meeting. You’ve prepared. You’ve presented your strategy clearly. Heads are nodding. No one pushes back. You assume everyone’s on board. Two weeks later, your team misses the deadline, half the plan wasn’t executed, and no one mentioned the red flags you didn’t see coming. What happened? They didn’t trust you enough to speak up. Not because you’re a bad leader or they’re disengaged, but because trust at work isn’t built by titles or clear communication alone. It is built and often broken in subtle ways leaders rarely notice. After interviewing experts ranging from behavioral scientists to senior executives, one thing stands out: trust is never just about being honest. It is about how people feel when they are around you, what they expect you will do when they are not, and whether the conditions around them make it safe to tell you the truth.

Why Do Leaders Assume There’s Trust When There Isn’t?

It is easy to mistake silence for alignment. When leaders don’t hear objections or see resistance, they often assume their team agrees. But trust only shows up in what people are willing to say when it might be uncomfortable. Frances Frei, a Harvard professor who worked on cultural transformation at Uber, told me that trust rests on three elements: authenticity, logic, and empathy. If any one of those is missing, trust becomes unstable. You may be seen as competent and well-meaning, but if your team does not believe you genuinely care about their perspective, or if your reasoning doesn’t hold up under pressure, they may quietly withhold the truth.

This breakdown isn’t always malicious. In many cases, employees have had experiences in the past where speaking up was ignored or punished. That shapes how they perceive new leadership, even if the leader’s intentions are positive. Authenticity alone doesn’t guarantee psychological safety. Leaders must demonstrate not just who they are, but that they are actively invested in understanding others. When empathy is absent, trust becomes shallow. When logic falters under scrutiny, trust crumbles. And when people sense they must perform instead of participate, they stay quiet.

Robin Dreeke, a former FBI special agent focused on behavioral analysis, told me that one of the fastest ways to lose trust is to judge others before validating them. People open up when they feel seen. His work emphasized the importance of consistency. To build trust, people need to know what to expect from you, especially in moments of stress. Inconsistency, even from someone with good intentions, creates uncertainty. And uncertainty weakens trust.

This insight aligns closely with what we see in team dynamics. Predictability allows employees to feel secure, especially in high-pressure environments. A leader who reacts calmly under stress builds more trust than one who only appears engaged when things are going well. Consistency of response tells employees that it’s safe to share concerns and ideas. It helps form the invisible contract of understanding that builds a foundation for stronger relationships.

Many leaders believe that trust comes from having the right answers or projecting confidence. But that assumption can itself create a barrier. Trust grows through connection, and connection requires more than competence. It requires intentionality—asking, listening, and checking in—even when things seem to be running smoothly. Often, trust is most vulnerable when everyone assumes it is already there.

What Happens When Trust Is Treated As A Value But Not A Practice

Companies often declare trust as a core value, but what that means day to day is rarely defined. Joan Burke, the Chief People Officer at DocuSign, told me that trust was intentionally embedded into their culture—not just in what leaders say, but in how they hire, promote, and communicate. Trust, in that context, becomes measurable. It is reflected in the behaviors that are modeled and rewarded.

This deliberate approach matters because many organizations struggle with performative values. When leadership says one thing but does another—or when trust is treated like a brand statement rather than an operating principle—it erodes credibility. Employees notice when trust is talked about more than it is experienced. This gap between stated values and actual behavior can lead to cynicism, disengagement, and silent withdrawal.

Trouble starts when organizations use the language of trust without making space for disagreement or vulnerability. Employees may be told to “assume positive intent” or “default to trust,” but when those ideas are used to dismiss valid concerns or shut down difficult conversations, the message is clear: surface-level harmony matters more than truth. When trust becomes performative, people learn to stay quiet. That kind of environment may appear calm, but it is often brittle underneath.

How Curiosity Supports The Conditions That Create Trust

Curiosity plays a more significant role in trust than many leaders realize. In my research, I found that trust and curiosity are both affected by the same set of barriers: fear, assumptions, the misuse or neglect of technology, and the influence of relationships or environmental context. When people are afraid to be wrong, assume their voices won’t matter, or have been conditioned by their surroundings to keep their heads down, they stop asking questions. And when people stop asking questions, trust breaks down. Leaders who want to rebuild trust need to recognize what has been preventing it. Encouraging curiosity means showing that it is safe to speak, explore, and challenge respectfully.

Curiosity acts as a signal. When leaders ask thoughtful questions and invite different viewpoints, it creates a culture where input is expected. It tells people that the leader values discovery, not just efficiency. That mindset encourages people to take ownership, solve problems creatively, and speak up before issues escalate. Curiosity builds the kind of shared ownership that deepens trust.

Margie Warrell, who has written extensively about leadership and courage, told me that self-trust is the foundation for speaking up. Without it, people second-guess whether they are qualified to share their ideas at all. Leaders can strengthen team trust by helping individuals develop confidence in their own judgment. That happens through supportive feedback, real listening, and invitations to contribute before problems escalate.

Too often, organizations focus only on systems-level trust without cultivating personal trust among individuals. But it is personal trust that determines whether people lean in or opt out. Leaders who foster self-trust give employees permission to take initiative. That kind of empowerment ripples outward and raises the trust level across teams.

What Trusted Leaders Do Differently

Robert Cialdini, one of the world’s leading experts in influence, told me that people decide whether to trust someone before they even realize they are doing it. Small cues shape how others perceive our intent. Credibility, he explained, is not just a matter of having expertise. It is about how that expertise is communicated. If it feels self-serving or defensive, trust erodes. But when someone clearly acts in the interest of others, trust strengthens.

That sense of intent is deeply tied to emotional intelligence. Trusted leaders anticipate how their messages will land and create room for questions. They are consistent in how they react, generous in how they share credit, and curious about how others think. People trust leaders who treat every interaction as meaningful, not just strategic. These habits don’t require perfection. They require presence.

Trusted leaders do not rely on charisma. They are consistent. They follow through. They make it clear that speaking up will not be punished. They share their logic. They ask questions that invite input. They respect that people around them may see things differently. And they recognize that trust is something they earn, every day, through behavior.

The Real Work Of Trust

Trust is not something you build once and cross off a list. It is a daily choice to engage, to be present, and to take others seriously. It can’t be outsourced to culture statements or automated through policies. It shows up in how you respond when someone disagrees with you, in how you communicate under pressure, and in how well you understand the people you are trying to lead. The leaders who are most trusted aren’t necessarily the most charismatic or the most experienced. They are the ones who are the most consistently human.