Trust Is a Leadership Accelerator — or Is It a Brake

Trust doesn’t show up when things go wrong.
It shows up in how fast—or slow—everything moves.

At senior levels, trust is strategic capital. It determines how quickly decisions land, how openly people speak, and how much energy is wasted managing tension instead of execution.

Many leaders assume trust is present because no one is complaining. Silence, however, is not trust—it’s often caution.

I’ve seen high-performing teams stall not because of strategy gaps, but because trust was thin. Leaders were respected, but not fully trusted. And that difference matters.

Trust is built long before you need it—through consistency, follow-through, and how you respond when mistakes happen. Leaders who become unpredictable under pressure unintentionally teach their teams to play it safe.

The strategies that brought you success—being decisive and in control—may not be effective for future challenges if they erode trust over time.