March 21, 2025

The State of Trust at Work Report—What Every Leader Needs to Know

21 minutes

At WiLD Leaders, we’ve spent years developing whole leaders—leaders who are both courageous and sacrificial—because we knew that leadership development couldn’t be a one-off event. It had to be a system. A rhythm. Something embedded into the very fabric of an organization. What we found along the way? Trust was the game changer. It wasn’t just a byproduct of good leadership; it was the leading indicator of whether teams and organizations would succeed.

The State of Trust at Work Report—What Every Leader Needs to Know:

Trust isn’t a given—it’s a process. Nearly half of all employees (48%) exist in what we call the jungle of trust—where trust in their teams, leaders, and organizations is low. And even in high-trust organizations, 41% of people still struggle with trust daily. The assumption that trust is “just there” if leadership is strong enough? It’s false. Trust is always being built or eroded.

Conflict is not the problem. How we handle it is. One of the lowest-rated areas in teams across the board was navigating high-conflict moments. Yet, that same ability to compose ourselves under pressure is one of the top drivers of trust. In other words, teams that embrace conflict—handle it with honesty and courage—build trust faster and stronger than those that avoid it.

Trust isn’t binary. It’s dynamic. Our data shows that 73% of employees are struggling with trust at either the team or organizational level—or both. But that doesn’t mean trust is broken forever. Trust isn’t something we either have or don’t have; it’s something we question, rebuild, and strengthen over time.

Performance and truth-telling matter. High-trust teams don’t just “get along” with each other. They tell the truth. They own their wins and their failures. Vulnerability isn’t about weakness—it’s about the courage to be real. If you’re leading a team, ask yourself: Are we creating an environment where truth is spoken, mistakes are owned, and performance is a shared responsibility?

Emotional maturity is the difference-maker. Leaders in the C-suite all have experience, but the ones who truly transform organizations have something more—the ability to be both clear and compassionate, strong and humble. Trust is built when leaders develop the self-awareness to understand their competence, motivations, and impact on others.

What This Means for Leaders Like You:

See leadership development as trust-building. It’s not about isolated training events. Developing people is a long-term strategy for building trust across an organization.

Invest in a whole and intentional leadership development system. Stop viewing leadership growth as a one-off solution. Embed it into the fabric of how your team operates.

Start with yourself. If you’re a senior leader, your self-awareness, clarity, and emotional maturity will set the tone for your organization’s culture of trust.

Create a learning culture. Organizations that normalize growth, learning, and truth-telling—not perfection—are the ones where trust thrives.

Imagine an organization where every person could say, I trust you—not because you’re perfect, but because you’re working it out. That kind of trust begins within us, grows in the patterns between us, and is sustained by the conditions we create around us.

Let’s do this. And let’s do this together.

Download the State of Trust at Work report here.

Learn more about the WiLD Trust Index.

Schedule a time to meet with a WiLD Team member today.

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By WiLD Leaders

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