Trust is an invaluable commodity that’s critical for organizational success. Yet it can be elusive. The challenges of the moment—rapid policy changes, continued economic uncertainty, and more—only increase the pressure on leadership. Facing headwinds like this, a solid foundation of employee trust can give companies an important edge. Without it, though, they can find themselves less prepared to weather these storms.

As it stands, many leaders are on shakier ground than they might think. Last year, Gartner surveyed more than 3,500 employees about trust at their organization and found that less than half (48%) trust their senior leaders. Because the overall environment isn’t likely to get less volatile anytime soon, we believe leaders will be facing this critical challenge for the foreseeable future: How can they make tough strategic decisions while also maintaining an engaged and trusting workforce?

In our research, we’ve found four important actions leaders can take to build employee trust—and others they should be sure to avoid.

Trust in Leaders Affects Employee Engagement

The 2024 Gartner Organization Structure and Leadership Trust Survey showed that employees who trust senior leaders at their organization are significantly more engaged compared to employees who don’t, highlighting how the presence (or absence) of trust can significantly affect talent and business outcomes. Employee engagement measures an employee’s positivity or negativity regarding their organization and role. It’s measured here on a 0–100 scale where 0 indicates strong disengagement and 100 represents strong engagement.

Consider cost-cutting as an example. Leaders bear the responsibility of implementing workforce reductions to reduce costs and executing organizational restructurings to improve efficiency. While these decisions are often driven by laudable strategic goals, they also degrade trust and engagement. Gartner research found that employees are significantly less likely to trust senior leaders at their organization if, in the past 18 months, leaders let employees go via workforce reduction or restructured in ways that affected employees’ roles or teams.

But it’s not just the changes themselves that reduce trust; it also matters how leaders model and communicate change.

Leader Behaviors Drive the Success of Changes

Most employees base trust on consistency, credibility, and observed past behaviors. When leaders fail to demonstrate trustworthy behavior, distrust can quickly ignite and spread throughout the organization.

The survey revealed that employees are less likely to trust senior leaders at their organization when they engage in three trust-breaking behaviors:

• Withholding information: Employees are 20% less likely to trust senior leaders when they believe they’re concealing important information or not telling the whole story.

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