This list exists to be recognised, not to be scored. Read it as a set of patterns and ask which ones you would recognise in a week of your own work.

What are the twenty behaviours that erode trust?

They are the twenty opposites of the behaviours that strengthen trust, one for one, grouped under the same five Trust Questions.

Do they believe what I say? Clarity & Honesty

The pattern The behaviour that replaces it
Using vague, unclear or misleading language Say what is true without using vague or confusing language
Holding back, omitting or selectively sharing relevant information Share relevant information openly, not selectively
Saying different things to different people, creating mixed messages Communicate consistently with different people on the same issue

Do they believe I’ll do what I said? Delivery & Consistency

The pattern The behaviour that replaces it
Starting work without setting or confirming clear expectations Set and confirm clear expectations before work begins
Leaving people unaware of progress, risks or delays Give updates on progress and raise issues early
Reacting quickly or emotionally under pressure Pause before responding when under pressure
Applying different standards in tone, decisions or communication across people Apply the same standards across people and situations

Do they believe I can handle what’s needed? Capability & Realism

The pattern The behaviour that replaces it
Agreeing to things you cannot realistically deliver or control Only agree to what you can realistically deliver and control
Arriving unprepared for key interactions or decisions Prepare before key interactions and decisions
Avoiding asking for support when it is needed Ask for support when needed
Failing to say when something cannot be delivered Say clearly when something cannot be delivered

Do they feel I really understand them? Understanding & Connection

The pattern The behaviour that replaces it
Interrupting, or not fully listening before responding Listen and let others finish before responding
Responding without asking questions or checking understanding Ask questions and check your understanding before replying
Ignoring, dismissing or downplaying how others feel Acknowledge how others feel before responding to the task
Dismissing, shutting down or criticising others’ ideas Show openness to others’ ideas, even when you disagree

Do they believe I act with their interests in mind? Fairness & Consideration

The pattern The behaviour that replaces it
Talking about issues with others instead of the person involved Address issues directly with the person involved
Excluding people from decisions that affect them Involve people in decisions that affect them
Making decisions that affect others without explaining the reasoning Explain the reasoning behind decisions that impact others
Taking credit while ignoring or minimising others’ contributions Give credit to others for their contribution
Acting without considering how others may be affected Consider how your actions may affect others before acting

Why does each of these erode trust?

Because each one leaves the other person with less to go on than they had before.

You don’t need to do anything wrong to erode trust. You only need to leave someone guessing.

The first eleven patterns all widen the same gap: the distance between what someone expected of you and what they actually got. Agreeing to something you can’t control creates the gap at the start. Going quiet on a delay lets it widen unseen. Saying different things to different people opens the same gap in what people know rather than in what they receive.

The last nine work differently. They don’t create a gap in delivery. They tell the other person something about where they stand with you: that their view wasn’t wanted, that a decision about them happened without them, that their contribution went unnoticed. Those are answers to a question nobody asks out loud.

And almost none of it is deliberate. That is covered properly in almost nobody erodes trust on purpose, which is about why the pattern stays invisible to the person creating it. This page is the list. That page is the reason you probably can’t see your own.

Which of these does research actually support?

The strongest finding is about the difference between two of them, and it is worth knowing before you decide which to work on.

Maurice Schweitzer and colleagues compared trust damaged by unreliability with trust damaged by deception. Trust harmed by unreliable behaviour recovered as behaviour improved. Trust harmed by deception did not recover at all, even when the person’s later behaviour was good. Those were laboratory trust games with money at stake rather than workplace relationships, so treat the size of the effect carefully. But the direction is clear enough to act on: the patterns in the first group, which involve concealing or misrepresenting, cost more than the ones that are simply unreliable.

That has a practical consequence. Leaving people unaware of a delay looks like the smaller sin, and it becomes the larger one the moment the delay was known about and not mentioned.

There is also a documented reason that particular pattern is so common. Sidney Rosen and Abraham Tesser named the MUM effect in 1970: people are reluctant to pass on bad news even when they had no part in causing it. Going quiet on a problem isn’t a character flaw. It’s the default, and it takes deliberate effort to override.

Applying different standards to different people has support too. Tony Simons described behavioural integrity as the alignment someone perceives between your words and your deeds. It’s their judgement about your pattern, not your view of your own intentions, which is why the version of this that gets noticed is usually the one you’d defend as reasonable.

Is losing trust easier than building it?

The evidence points that way, and it is more careful than the version people usually quote.

Myron Rothbart and Bennett Park found that favourable traits took many confirming instances to establish and relatively few contradictions to lose, while unfavourable traits behaved the opposite way — quick to establish, slow to shift. Those were ratings of hypothetical behaviours rather than observations of real working relationships, so it describes how judgements form rather than measuring workplace trust.

We won’t give you a ratio. You’ll see numbers quoted for this, and we haven’t found one that traces back to a study that measured it. The honest version is a direction: harder to build than to lose, with no reliable figure attached.

Where does the evidence stop?

At most of the individual patterns.

We have good evidence for the mechanisms — concealment costing more than unreliability, the reluctance to pass on bad news, word and deed alignment being judged by the other person. We do not have studies showing that interrupting, or taking credit, or leaving someone out of a decision, each cause a measurable drop in trust.

Those come from our own thinking and from watching the same things go wrong for years. That’s a weaker claim than a research finding and a stronger one than a guess, and you should hold it to the same test: does it match what you’ve actually seen?

What should you do if you recognise one?

Take the replacement behaviour on the right, with one person, for one thing that matters.

Recognising a pattern is not the work. The list is only useful if it ends in something different happening in a specific relationship, which is why every pattern here is paired with an action rather than left as a diagnosis.

What this list is not

It is not a way of describing other people. The patterns are written neutrally so you can hold them against yourself without flinching, and that is the only use we would defend. Turned outward they become labels, and labels close the conversation that would have fixed the thing.

It is also not a feature of the Trust Leader platform. The app works on the behaviours that strengthen trust — choosing one, practising it and reflecting on what changed. This list sits alongside that as a way of noticing where to start.