The Case for Trust

Amy Edmondson, Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School and author of The Fearless Organization, set out to answer a simple question: Do high performing teams make fewer mistakes?

She assumed it was a no-brainer.

In her extensive study of hospital error rates, she compared reported error rates for high and low performing teams identified using a team diagnostic assessment. What she found initially seemed to suggest the opposite of what she expected: the high performing teams characterized by high trust reported more mistakes than low performing ones where trust was low.

As she dug deeper, however, she realized that simply counting reported errors did not tell the whole story. It turned out the low performing teams really did make more mistakes, but they were much less likely to report errors out of fear. Because low performing teams were less likely to report mistakes, they were less likely to learn from them, so the same errors kept happening.

On the other hand, the high-performing teams in her study only appeared to have more errors. Unlike the poorly performing teams, these teams were characterized by high trust where members felt safe enough to speak up and report their own mistakes. This openness resulted in rapid learning where members were quick to learn from their errors and took steps to prevent them from happening again.

Fear is an extraordinary emotion. When triggered by a threat our sympathetic nervous system automatically induces a fight, flight or freeze response, and without even thinking, we can act in ways we never thought possible. Sadly, this is why so many leaders tend to overuse it. Fear gets results and creates the illusion of accountability—in the short term.

However, fear is a terrible motivator in the long term. In fact, when fear and suspicion are the norm, another response kicks in—self-protection. Instead of reacting heroically to meet challenges and learning from failure, we play it safe. We avoid making decisions. We hide our mistakes. We stick to what’s worked in the past. In other words, we disengage.

Simon Sinek summarizes the challenge this way, “In a culture of fear, people are afraid to take risks. In a culture of trust, people feel safe to take risks. The opposite of fear is trust.”

This is why fear-based cultures where anxiety, insecurity, and low trust are the norm almost always fail over the long term. A fear-based culture is fundamentally incompatible with the principle of 100% Responsibility, because people do not feel safe to speak up, take healthy risks, and own their mistakes.

When fear dominates the culture, confidence and curiosity die.

The Evidence Is Clear

Research consistently shows that trust drives engagement and performance. According to Paul J. Zak in his 2017 Harvard Business Review article titled "The Neuroscience of Trust", employees at high-trust companies report 76% higher engagement. According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace Report 2023 (derived from Gallup's dataset of over 20 million data points), employees who strongly agree they trust their organization's leadership are:

• 260% more motivated to work

• They experience 41% lower absenteeism

• They are 50% less likely to seek new employment

Gallup's Ben Wigert had this to say about the connection between engagement and trust, "Engagement is driven by how you treat people, not perks—trust is the core." Simply put, the more your team trusts you, the more engaged they will be." Engagement impacts every critical metric, from productivity and quality to safety and profitability.

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