How employees perceive what leaders have said creates or diminishes trust. 

Throughout our lives and careers, most of us have had the unpleasant experience of either not being trusted the way we would have wanted, or of us not trusting someone else, either at work or in our personal lives. 

As often happens in any group of individuals who work together over the long term (be it a large corporation, a small not-for-profit organization, or even a family), over time distrust is likely to build up as people grow disenchanted with the group or with their roles in the group. Causes may seem trivial -- a meeting requested with the executive never happens; that suggestion made time and again to improve customer care never gains attention or traction –- but the consequences of even emerging distrust are hardly trivial. Employees may find their work roles have become more complicated or less focused than they were described when they were hired and they lose interest or motivation, becoming less engaged. What they expected to do is not happening and they feel pulled in too many directions by too many people. They may begin to feel that they are spending too little time focusing on where they want to be to make the differences they care about.   

Listening and Hearing

Communicating with employees is a two-edged sword: done well and clearly with the listeners’ possible reactions in mind nurtures trust; done without understanding that how a message is received is just as important as the message undermines trust. 

To be clear, listening and hearing are two different phenomena. Many people use these two terms interchangeably, confusing the different nature of these two activities. They are certainly connected, but they both point to two different phenomena that happen within the human body.

Hearing refers to the physical capacity to perceive sounds and incorporate them into the nervous system through the auditory nerve, where they get decoded and made into something that we can recognize - a passing car, a romantic song, a bird, a crying baby, or a friend’s voice. Hearing is a passive activity.

Listening is much more than a biological process. Listening involves a cognitive and behavioral process that goes well beyond our physical ability to hear. It is not just that our ears are sensitive to the noise others make. 

When we listen, we hear what others say, try to understand what they mean within the context of the conversations, and seek to respond accordingly, which involves a lot of interpreting. Listening, therefore, is an active, social activity.  

Distrust manifests itself in behavior that can be seen but must be looked for.

Distrust Reveals Itself in Behavior

Communicating with colleagues, team members, or even family members creates both opportunities and risks, and the risk of creating distrust is among the most challenging, in part because it is not often obvious when it is emerging. We have found that distrust manifests itself in behavior that can be seen but must be looked for. We have identified a few of what we call organizational pathologies, distrust-driven behaviors that can be observed:

• Bureaucratitis: Employees’ excessive focus on formal processes, procedures, and job descriptions 
• Regulosis: Employees’ overwhelming focus on compliance and adherence to procedures 
• Politicking: Leaders and employees wasting time and effort covering their bases, aligning and positioning themselves with apparent sources of power within the organization 
• Deafness: Leaders growing complacent and self-centered, forgetting, or deciding not, to listen to employees 
• Cordialitis: Employees choosing peace and quiet rather than confronting issues head on 
• Blamopathy: Growing distrust leads to the blame game, where employees play it safe by avoiding taking responsibility for fixing problems and innovating or taking risks diminishes