Trust is the other person’s decision.
You cannot declare yourself trustworthy. You can believe that you are, but the confidence belongs to the person being asked to rely on you.
When we decide whether to trust someone, we consider what we could gain and what we risk. To be trusted, we have to work from the other side of the table. What is this person relying on us with? What would it cost them if we let them down? What do they need to experience to feel confident?
People experience behaviour, not intention.
Nobody else can see what you meant. They see what you said, what you did, whether you followed through and how you responded under pressure.
Good intent with poor delivery can still erode confidence. Silence is not neutral either. When the reason for your behaviour is invisible, people do not leave the space empty. They infer a reason from the evidence they have.
Trust is contextual, not one score.
Someone may trust you completely to deliver a piece of work and not trust you with how they feel about it. A colleague may believe what you say and still doubt that you would act in their interest when it matters.
The useful question is not “do they trust me?” It is what they trust you with, what they do not trust you with yet, and which experience would make a useful difference.
The five Trust Questions
The five Trust Questions
- 01
Do they believe what I say?
- 02
Do they believe I will do what I said I would do?
- 03
Do they believe I can do what is needed?
- 04
Do they feel understood and responded to appropriately?
- 05
Do they believe I act with their interests in mind?
Behind these five questions sit twenty behaviours that strengthen trust, and twenty that erode it, one against each.
Behaviour can be practised.
If trust were a fixed personality trait, there would be little to work with. Trust is a judgement shaped by repeated experience, and behaviour can be noticed, practised and changed.
This is not performance. Technique with nothing real underneath it will not carry a relationship. The work is to understand what a particular person needs to experience, then make a genuine intention visible through consistent behaviour.
You do not control the other person’s verdict. You have more influence over the evidence than you may think.
Start your own 28-day Trust Journey when you want to put the thinking into practice.