The Anatomy of Broken Trust: How Trust Violations Create a Vicious Cycle, and What To Do About It
Trust is more complex than we imagine—which makes rebuilding trust complicated. These four fundamental questions can help you examine trust on your teams.
“I’m not going to tell them.”
That was the decision made by Charlie, an engineer working on an advanced project team to develop new technologies for his company.
“I know the solution, but I’m not going to give it to them.”
The team had been struggling with technical challenges for months. They’d resolved one problem after the other smoothly until the work ground to a halt a week ago, with an intractable problem that stumped the senior engineers. Every idea had failed, and no one on the team had any suggestions for the future.
The whole project was on the verge of collapse.
Charlie sat silently in the meeting while knowing he had the solution—he’d tested it and was certain it would work. Yet he said nothing.
Charlie wasn’t a bad person—sabotaging team projects wasn’t something he’d normally do. But in this group, he’d been pushed to his limits.
Senior team members repeatedly ignored the suggestions of newer engineers, then claimed the ideas as their own when the ideas worked. This had happened three times, by Charlie’s count.
The team leader asked for feedback on the process, then scoffed when Charlie made a suggestion.
Another group had missed their deadline by four days, with no warning or apology.
Charlie and another colleague were blamed for a delay in the timeline, when (because of the group’s missed deadlines), they couldn’t meet their timelines.
And then, after working three weekends in a row, Charlie was called in for a fourth Saturday—he let his boss know it was daughter’s third birthday. The boss expected him in the office any way.
Each incident chipped away at Charlie’s sense of trust.
Breakdowns in Trust
I don’t condone Charlie’s decision (which was adapted from real circumstances), but I do understand it. When trust is broken, it creates a negative spiral that repeats itself as one failure leads to the next.
Charlie’s story is extreme, but we experience breakdowns in trust all the time because trust isn’t a simple yes-or-no proposition. Trust is built on four distinct components, each operating independently yet working together to create the foundation of our professional and personal trust in one another.
Use these questions to understand the four components of trust and diagnose where teams and relationships are going wrong.
Competence Trust: Are You Capable of the Work?
Competence trust involves believing others have the skills and judgment necessary to do their jobs well. It’s strengthened when people share decision-making appropriately, involve others in problem-solving, and demonstrate their capabilities through results.
Charlie lost competence trust in his senior team members when they repeatedly ignored suggestions from newer engineers, only to claim those same ideas as their own when they proved successful.
The team leader further eroded competence trust by asking for feedback on the process, then scoffing at Charlie’s suggestions. This showed poor judgment about how to improve team performance and revealed an inability to create an environment where good ideas could surface.
Contractual Trust: Will You Do What You Say You’ll Do?
Contractual trust is about reliability and consistency. It’s built when people meet their obligations, manage expectations clearly, establish appropriate boundaries, and follow through on commitments.
Charlie experienced multiple violations of contractual trust. When the other group missed their deadline without negotiating a new deadline, they broke the basic contract of project coordination. Even more damaging, Charlie and his colleague were blamed for delays caused by others—a violation of fair accountability.
The most personal violation came when Charlie’s boss expected him to work on his daughter’s birthday, despite Charlie’s clear communication about the conflict. This showed a complete disregard for the boundaries Charlie tried to establish between his work and family commitments.
Relational Trust: Will You Care for Me as a Person?
Relational trust is perhaps the most personal component. It’s built through honesty, good intentions, maintaining confidentiality, giving and receiving feedback well, and treating others as whole human beings rather than just work resources.
Charlie’s experience was marked by repeated violations of relational trust, but the birthday incident was the most egregious violation. By expecting Charlie to prioritize work over his daughter’s milestone birthday, his boss demonstrated he saw Charlie as a resource first and a person second. This kind of treatment erodes the sense that we’re cared for as individuals.
Visionary Trust: Do We Share a Vision of the Future?
Visionary trust is often overlooked, but it’s crucial for long-term working relationships. It’s built when people share a compelling vision for the future, proactively share insights, explain the reasoning behind decisions, bring solutions rather than just problems, and work together to develop new capabilities.
Charlie’s loss of visionary trust was perhaps the most devastating because he came to believe he had no future at the company. Without a shared vision of where they were all headed together, Charlie had no motivation to solve the team’s problem.
The Downward Spiral
This is the insidious nature of visionary trust violations—they often result from the breakdown of the other three types of trust. When we can’t rely on people (contractual), don’t respect their judgment (competence), or don’t feel cared for (relational), it becomes impossible to imagine a positive shared future.
Charlie’s story illustrates how trust violations create a negative spiral. Ultimately, the accumulation of these violations made it impossible for Charlie to see his future there—with one foot already out the door, Charlie ensured the team project couldn’t succeed either.
Rebuilding Trust
Trust can be rebuilt, but it requires conscious attention to all four components. Leaders need to consistently meet their commitments (contractual), demonstrate sound judgment and involve others appropriately (competence), show genuine care for people as individuals (relational), and create compelling visions that everyone can invest in (visionary).
We’ve all experienced trust violations in our professional lives:
A colleague who consistently misses deadlines.
A boss who takes credit for our ideas.
A team member who shares confidential information.
A leader who changes direction without explanation.
Understanding the four components of trust helps us diagnose what is broken and what needs to be repaired. It also helps us be more intentional about building trust with others.
Trust is the foundation of all effective collaboration. When it’s strong, teams can accomplish remarkable things. When it’s broken, even the most talented individuals may choose to withhold their best contributions. The choice is ours: we can be trust builders or trust breakers. That choice has never mattered more.
A version of this article appeared first in my column with SmartBrief Leadership.
Bonus Question
What is the best advice you’ve received in year?
The New York Time’s morning newsletter asked readers to share their best advice of the year. This one caught my eye:
Good conversations have lots of doorknobs. — Samantha Good, Portland, Ore.
Perhaps that idea sounds familiar, because I’ve shared a similar concept: that good answers to questions should include “handles” that let your conversation partner decide what to grab onto to carry the conversation forward.
The wisdom that most stuck with me this year came in the form of a question: What’s another meaning you could make of this? (I wrote about that question, and related ideas, in this post from last summer.)
So that was Samantha Good’s favorite piece of advice, and mine. What was yours?
Photo by ThisIsEngineering.