Over the years, I have been part of many teams. I have led teams, built teams, and trained teams. Some worked incredibly well. Others struggled. A few completely fell apart. When I look back at all of them, one thing stands out clearly.
It wasn’t the smartest team that performed best.
It wasn’t the most experienced.
It wasn’t even the best structured.
It was the team that trusted each other.
Not because trust is everything. But because without it, everything else simply works less well. When It’s not there, you feel It immediately. You don’t need a report or a KPI to see if trust is missing. You feel it the moment you walk into a team.
Conversations are careful, people hold back, things don’t get said.
Work slows down…not because people are incapable, but because they are unsure. Unsure if others will deliver. Unsure if speaking up is safe. Unsure if effort will be matched.
Since moving to Botswana, I have found myself reflecting on this more than before. One part of trust, reliability, seems to be under pressure more often than I expected.
Agreements are sometimes not kept.
Work needs to be redone.
People don’t show up.
Plans are made, but not always followed through.
And I have asked myself the honest question: is it me? Is it cultural? Is it context? The answer is probably: a bit of everything. Because what we often label as “unreliability” is not just about people. It is also about systems, expectations, and what is reinforced, or not reinforced, over time. Still, the effect remains the same. When reliability drops, trust drops. And when trust drops, everything becomes harder.
What do we when trust drops (and why it backfires)?
In many organisations, the response to low trust is almost automatic. When trust goes down, control goes up. We introduce more rules. More checks. More approvals. On paper, it makes sense. In reality, it creates something else. Processes slow down. People feel managed instead of trusted. Energy shifts from doing the work to explaining the work. And slowly, the system becomes heavy. It is important to understand this clearly:
Control is expensive. Trust is efficient.
Trust is not soft. But it’s also not enough
Stephen Covey describes trust in a very practical way. When trust is high, speed goes up and cost goes down. When trust is low, the opposite happens. But there is an important nuance here. Trust on its own does not guarantee results.
A team can trust each other and still underperform if there is a lack of skill, direction, or clarity. We have all seen teams that are great to be part of, but don’t deliver. At the same time, the reverse is also true. You can have highly skilled people and a clear strategy, but if trust is missing, performance becomes slow, political, and frustrating.
So rather than saying trust is everything, it is more accurate to say: “Trust is the foundation that allows everything else to work. Without it, even strong systems and capable people struggle to perform.”
It starts with safety…
This connects closely with the work of Simon Sinek and his idea of the “Circle of Safety.” In teams where trust is strong, people feel safe. Not comfortable all the time, but safe enough.
Safe to speak up.
Safe to admit mistakes.
Safe to rely on each other.
And that safety changes behavior.
People stop protecting themselves and start contributing. They take ownership. They support each other. They focus on results, not just their role. When that safety is missing, the opposite happens.
People become careful.
They avoid responsibility.
They keep information to themselves.
Not because they don’t care but because they are protecting themselves.
Why teams get stuck?
Bruce Tuckman described how teams evolve: forming, storming, norming, performing. Many teams never reach that final stage. And often, the missing link is not skill or structure but trust. Without trust, teams remain polite but distant, or stuck in conflict and frustration. They don’t move forward. Trust is what allows a team to move through the difficult phases and actually become effective.
What is a mistake we keep making?
There is one decision I see regularly, and it usually comes from good intentions. One team performs well. Another team struggles. So we move the strong manager from the good team to fix the weak one. It feels logical. It feels like action. But what is often overlooked is this:
That strong team was not only performing because of the manager. It was performing because of relationships, habits, and trust built over time. When you remove the leader, you disturb that balance. And the struggling team? It doesn’t improve overnight, because trust cannot be transferred with one person. So instead of solving one problem, you risk creating two.
Where it really starts
Trust can sound like a big concept. In reality, it is built in small, everyday actions. Being on time. Doing what you say you will do. Delivering work properly. Following through. These are simple things. But they are not small. They are the moments where trust is either built, or slowly lost. And over time, those small moments define the team.
My final thought
You can have structure, processes, and strategy. You can have capable people and clear goals. But without trust, all of it becomes slower, heavier, and more fragile. And with trust, even imperfect systems can still perform. So before adding more control, more rules, or more pressure, it is worth asking:
What is happening with trust in this team?
Not as a soft question but as a practical one. Because that is often where the real answer lies.
Peter Henssen
