Are You Trusted?

June 2025

Are you trusted?
It’s probably the most important question in business.
It’s the foundation stone for building a successful team and culture, building customer relationships, establishing financial partnerships.

I got to thinking about trust this week listening to Radio Four business commentators dissecting the hashtag#SpendingReview, or the latest (dire) job figures from Neil Carberry’s team at REC.
If people don’t trust Rachel Reeves’ numbers or her commitments to growth, if the actions don’t marry up to the words, then trust dies. And companies will understandably start to sit on their hands rather than take risks (doing nothing is not a business strategy by the way).

And the same goes for company leaders too - I’ve coached and mentored many over the years and one of the fundamentals I return to is living the values you tell people you have. People aren’t daft and if you say something and do nothing, or do the opposite, then trust dies and growth or change is stymied.
I’ve real world examples - which I won’t reveal now to protect blushes - of this is in action, and how we worked to fix it. But it’s crucial to do so.

James Osborne uses the phrase ‘trust index’ a lot and it’s a great term as it encapsulates what leaders need to be thinking about.
'How do I build trust with my marketplace?’, James asks, which is a good question. I’d add that trust needs to be built internally too by leaders so their staff are ready to listen, to adopt, to lead themselves.
Trust starts within, and needs to be consciously worked on, not taken for granted.
It was a key theme of my keynote session with Michael Taylor for Kuits inaugural hashtag#TheBoldandTheBrave evening recently, and one of the things I emphasise through my work as a trusted advisor to APSCo.

And technology is making it even more important - AI has huge potential, social media can break down many barriers and bring people closer to together - but both are also layers of tech coming between people. That’s why I advise people to be ‘second stage early adopters’, so you can take advantage of tech quickly but learn too on how best to implement things, before diving in.

Running and growing a business are different things - like the difference between managing and leading. To grow a business you have to lean into it, to think about sectors, to go narrow and deep to build relationships and trust, to know how to use tech and when the human dimension is essential.

Fundamentally, to borrow a phrase, people won’t remember what you tell them, but they’ll remember how you made them feel. And that’s why trust counts.