EP240: The Human Skills (6): Trust
Listen Here:
(The notes below are only a brief bullet point summary of what is discussed in the podcast. Be sure to listen to get all of the goodness! If you would like a full transcription of the episode, please send an email to angie@angie-robinson.com.)
This is episode 6 of 8 the series called The Human Skills. We’re talking about what I believe are the top human skills for every leader to possess, to have, to master.
So far we've covered self-awareness, mind management, curiosity, compassion and empathy, and last episode was vulnerability and courage. They all work together — they're not separate skills so much as skills that intermingle and mix with each other constantly. I was going to say this week's skill, trust, is the underbelly of all of it, but I don't think that's true. They're all underbellies of each other. Still, everything we've talked about so far contributes to the level of trust you're going to have or receive — from the people you lead, from your communities, and from yourself.
What Trust Actually Is
Trust is something organizations talk about all the time. It might be a core value. It might be a leadership competency. It might show up on performance evaluations or engagement surveys — questions like "I have a high level of trust in the senior leadership team" or "I trust my direct manager to keep their commitments." Or it shows up indirectly, in questions like "I feel comfortable approaching my manager with problems or mistakes." When the answers to those questions are no, that points to a lack of trust. And trust is something that can be built — but it can also be broken easily.
The definition of trust is to believe that someone is good and honest and will not harm you, or that something is safe and reliable. Good, honest, safe, reliable — those are the keywords. It's building reliability, building safety, and creating clarity in your relationships. And it includes something we don't talk about enough as leaders: boundaries.
One thing that erodes trust the fastest is vagueness — not knowing where you stand, getting vague answers from your leader. One of my favorite Brené Brown quotes, and I use it constantly: "Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind." Clarity itself builds trust. When we're unclear, when we're hiding things, when we're not transparent, when we're not being vulnerable — that is unkind, in Brené's words. It's also just not helpful, and it stands between you and trust.
Trust is not a personality trait, and it isn't a feeling that shows up or doesn't. It's a skill made up of character, competence, and consistency. Character is showing honesty, integrity, and genuine care. Competence is proving you're reliable and can actually deliver. Consistency is making sure your daily actions match what you say you value. When all three are present, trust follows over time. When any of them are missing, people feel it — even if they can't name exactly what's off. Humans are smart that way.
Brené Brown's BRAVING Framework
Brené Brown breaks trust down even further into a framework she calls BRAVING — seven components of what trust actually looks like in practice. I talked about this a bit when I did a series on her book Dare to Lead, back in episodes 35–42. Here's the quick rundown:
Boundaries — You hold your own boundaries and respect other people's.
Reliability — You do what you say you'll do, consistently, not just when it's convenient.
Accountability — You own your mistakes, apologize, and make things right.
Vault — You don't share what isn't yours to share.
Integrity — You choose courage over comfort and practice your values, not just profess them.
Non-judgment — People can ask for what they need without being judged for needing it.
Generosity — You extend the most generous interpretation possible to other people's intentions and actions.
Trust isn't just one thing — it's these seven things. And most trust breaks happen in just one or two of them, not all seven at once. That's actually good news, because it means you don't have to fix everything. You just have to find the one that's broken.
The Part That Comes First: Self-Trust
Before going further, I want to name something important: everything above is about trust between you and other people. But there's a version of this that comes first — trust in yourself. If you don't trust your own judgment, it's nearly impossible to hold a boundary with someone else, because part of you is always wondering if you're the problem. Self-trust is what lets you set a boundary and actually stay in it.
I did a whole episode on this, episode 211, called Confidence: Leading With Self-Trust, published in January of this year. For today, just notice: if creating trust with others feels hard, it's worth asking whether the harder work is actually trusting yourself first. With many of my one-on-one coaching clients, self-trust is often the thing we need to dig into — and that's not a bad thing to discover. It's just key. Having self-trust first is what catapults you into creating trust with your teams, and for your teams to trust you back.
Why Trust Matters
Trust is the thing that makes every other leadership skill actually work — not just the human skills, all of the skills, tactical and operational included. You can be strategically brilliant, but if your team doesn't trust you, they won't tell you the whole truth about what's actually happening. They'll tell you what you want to hear, and you'll make decisions based on bad information. You could be endlessly compassionate, but if people don't trust that your compassion is consistent, they'll brace for the day it disappears instead of relying on it.
Teams with high trust move faster, because they're not spending energy double-checking each other or reading between the lines to figure out what you really want. High-trust leaders don't just have easier relationships — they build teams that are more collaborative and resilient under pressure, and more willing to take the kinds of risks that innovation requires. Low-trust teams play it safe, because safety is the only thing they can control.
Low trust doesn't usually announce itself with a big sign. It shows up as people over-communicating in writing to build a paper trail. It shows up as meetings where the real conversation happens in the hallway afterward. It looks like information being withheld, or CYA behavior, or polished updates instead of honest ones. Sometimes it looks like a team that seems fine on the surface but is quietly disengaged, doing the minimum to get through the day. And it often looks like exhaustion — because low-trust environments are expensive. Everyone is spending energy managing perception instead of doing the work.
The opposite of trust isn't necessarily distrust — it can look like control or people-pleasing. Control shows up as over-managing others because you don't trust them enough to let go. People-pleasing shows up as avoiding boundaries entirely because you want to be liked. They look like opposites, but they come from the same place: low trust, either in the other person or in your own ability to be trusted while still saying no.
Barriers to Trust
Confusing likability with trust. Some leaders think trust is built through being liked — it isn't. It's built through consistency and clarity. Clarity sometimes means disappointing someone in the short term to be trustworthy in the long term. You can be well-liked and barely trusted. You can also be someone people would follow into a burning building, precisely because you've never told them what they wanted to hear instead of what was true.
Ego. This one's harder to admit. Ego gets in the way of trust in two directions at once. It shows up as needing to be right, needing to look competent, needing to be the smartest person in the room — which makes admitting mistakes feel like a threat instead of a normal part of leading. And on the flip side, ego shows up as taking things personally, reading a boundary or honest feedback as a challenge to your authority instead of information you need. Either way, ego makes it about you — and trust cannot be built by someone who's making everything about themselves.
The leaders people trust most are usually the ones secure enough to say, "I don't know," or, "You're right, I missed that," without it costing them anything internally.
How to Build Trust
Start with Brené Brown's BRAVING framework. Read the seven components again, decide which one you're weakest in, and just work on that one.
Create clarity. State one clear boundary. If there's something you've been vague about, practice saying it clearly. Instead of "I'll try to see what I can do," try "I just can't take this on right now." That's honest, and it's clear — the other person might not love the answer, but they'll respect that you were straight with them.
FranklinCovey's Speed of Trust work offers a framework called the 13 Behaviors of High Trust. Here are five of them:
Talk straight — Communicate honestly and directly, without the spin.
Confront reality — Address issues directly instead of avoiding conflict or softening the truth into nothing.
Clarify expectations — Make sure everyone shares the same understanding of roles and success instead of assuming.
Keep commitments — Do what you say, consistently, especially when it's inconvenient.
Extend trust — Give people real responsibility and autonomy, which signals you believe in their capability.
Notice how much of this ties back to clarity and honesty. That's not a coincidence — trust and clarity are almost the same thing.
Your Challenge
Ask one person you lead a direct question: Is there anywhere you've felt unclear on where I stand, or unsure you could count on me?
Then do the harder part. Just listen. Don't defend. Don't explain. Let that be information — not an attack, but data about where trust actually stands.
I'll leave you with the quote I keep coming back to, from Brené Brown: "Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind." Trust isn't built by being agreeable. It's built by being honest, reliable, and consistent enough that people know exactly where they stand with you, even when what you're saying is hard to hear.
What Do You Think?
In what areas is trust strong for you?
Links
Discover Your Personality Style Quiz [download]
Please leave a review in Apple Podcasts + share with a friend
It will help others find the podcast - the more leaders we can impact - the better our workplaces and lives will be!
Schedule a FREE Discovery Call
Click here to schedule some time - let’s talk about how we can work together through one-on-one coaching, Insights Discovery workshops or other leadership development work!