Kathy Shanley, the Founder of Statice, served 30 years in the C-suite. She helps leaders and businesses level up their leadership skills.
As organizations adapt to shifting structures, new leaders and post-pandemic expectations, one thing is clear: Trust is the glue that holds everything together. That was true for two organizations I recently worked with. In both cases, changes like workforce reductions, leadership transitions, restructuring and new values created environments where team members hesitated to admit mistakes, speak up or fully trust each other.
Using the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team model as our guide—trust, conflict, commitment, accountability and results—we worked with their teams to understand what was getting in the way of trust and what actions could build it back. Here are four patterns we saw and how the organizations are working to address each one.
1. Replace Vagueness With Transparency
For one client, team members shared that while they knew the organization’s goals, they didn’t know their team’s priorities or how their work connected across departments. They valued having a plan. In their words: “It feels like we’re not being told everything we need to know,” and that uncertainty eroded trust in their leaders and direct supervisors.
They described being brought into projects too late, sometimes after design decisions had been made. The result was missed opportunities, added frustration and last-minute scrambling. To address this, the team shifted to:
• Hosting cross-functional discussions earlier in the process;
• Clarifying the “why” behind decisions, so teams could better understand how their work fits in with the bigger picture; and
• Adding team check-ins and feedback loops to discuss what’s working and what isn’t.
Transparency can build trust. It also creates the conditions for open, timely communication and a clear path forward.
2. Create Clarity And Connection Around The Vision
Even when team members understand their organization’s goals, they may struggle to see how their day-to-day work contributes to the bigger picture. For another client, some employees described feeling “out of the loop” because communication wasn’t flowing from the top down. Others said they wanted more opportunities to give input and ask, “What if?”
This is where alignment comes in. It’s not enough to share the vision. Both clients discussed the importance of:
• Sharing why the vision matters,
• Outlining what’s next and what success looks like,
• Translating the organization’s vision into department- and individual-level goals and
• Inviting team perspectives and making room for discussion, rather than just giving direction or orders.
When organizational leaders consistently ask their teams, “How does this task move us closer to our goal?” it helps their employees connect to the purpose of their work and opens the door to new ideas.
3. Reframe Mistakes As Learning Opportunities
In both organizations, especially among highly skilled subject matter experts, there was a reluctance to admit mistakes or ask for help. Some feared losing credibility. One employee put it this way: “Once you walk through that door and admit a mistake, it shuts behind you and you can’t go back. You feel judged.”
Others chose silence, fearing their feedback would be dismissed or used against them. Many employees and leaders agreed that being more open about mistakes and more willing to learn from them could build trust across their organizations. To address this, both organizations shifted to:
• Create space after projects to reflect on successes, challenges and takeaways as a team and
• Establish team norms that assume positive intent, especially during tough conversations.
Creating a learning culture where employees feel safe asking for help and sharing challenges removes the stigma of failure and makes room for conversations and growth.
4. Create A Feedback Culture Grounded In Trust
When trust is low, teams may avoid conflict altogether or escalate it in unproductive ways. Some employees described a pattern of indirect communication: telling their manager instead of their peer, who then told another manager to pass the message along. One team avoided feedback because of a colleague’s perceived closeness to leadership. Another said they didn’t provide input during meetings because their teammates “had a fixed mindset.” To shift this dynamic, the team agreed to:
• Practice more direct and constructive feedback,
• Reinforce the assumption of positive intent,
• Listen with an intent to understand others’ concerns and
• Start meetings with brief personal updates to strengthen interpersonal connections.
Teach your teams to frame feedback by leading with the phrases: “Here’s what I heard you say …” and “Here’s what I heard is important to you …” The result isn’t only stronger communication; it’s deeper empathy and more productive collaboration.
Build Trust And Everything Else Gets Easier
Trust is built through what you say, how you show up and the space you create for others to do the same. These four shifts—enhancing transparency, creating alignment, reframing mistakes and creating a feedback culture—lay the foundation for a more connected and resilient team. If your team is struggling with trust, start with a conversation. Then choose one behavior to model more consistently. Because when trust grows, everything else gets easier.
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