Trust Arrives on Foot and Leaves on Horseback
64% of people say they trust CEOs in general. But 72% trust their own CEO.* This gap reveals how leadership trust is shaped less by corporate messaging and more by direct experience. It tells us that trust in a leader is based more on personal experience than corporate messaging. CEOs have never been more present online, but visibility alone does not build trust.
But when it comes to leadership communication, stakeholders don’t want more. They want better, says Sandra Schrögenauer, Managing Partner of Amrop in Austria, and a member of Amrop’s global Board Services Practice.
In this article, Amrop explores how CEOs and boards can build leadership trust through clearer communication, verifiable evidence, speak-up culture and consistent behaviour.
How CEOs and boards build leadership trust
Why trust is now a leadership priority
Leadership trust is a serious issue for the CEO and board agenda. It means delivering on promises, walking the talk and making trustworthy leadership visible through action. Concrete decisions and processes are the substance that style can never replace. Without that follow through, trust quietly dissolves.
Trust is built through evidence, not messaging
Geopolitics and AI-fuelled misinformation are a timely wake‑up call: we are fast rediscovering the value of verifiable evidence. To find it, organisations routinely run internal and external trust surveys. But does the data deliver signals, or noise, and does it help leaders understand how to build trust with stakeholders? A 30-minute PowerPoint doesn’t help overloaded boards to differentiate between the two. It is easy to wave through a process to ‘restore trust’, without understanding why it has declined. Conversely, if 84% of your employees say that they trust the CEO, to what indicators are they referring? Too many surveys lack sufficient intention or forethought. The questions are imprecise. Too few lead to a deep dive into the dataset. Fewer still lead to the question: “based on these insights, what will we do differently to rebuild or strengthen trust?”
How speak-up culture strengthens corporate trust
Indeed, trust isn’t just based in what results the organisation achieved, but how. The ‘how’ is expressed by culture: ‘the way we do things around here’. One vital sign of a trust-building culture is safety in speaking out. Yet many organisations still fail to provide that secure space. Across industries – finance, manufacturing, investment funds – whistleblowers continue to face exclusion, threats of demotion or salary reduction, legal pressure, termination, or other career-limiting actions. Suppressing, or even punishing, frontline input not only leads to missing information and opportunities, but it also exposes firms to financial and reputational harm.
Leadership trust needs healthy scepticism
Fostering a safe, trusting environment demands a special kind of trust-building leadership. Empathic, humble, interactive. Consistent and clear. Open about what is known and not known. About what can and cannot be communicated. About what needs investigation, and by when action is planned. These qualities are the cornerstones of authenticity, reliability, healthy information flows and trust. They are also difficult to maintain under pressure and need to be monitored.
Trust should apply to the global perspective - the big picture, mission, and strategy. A trust-building CEO has a clear strategy and keen ears: “I have a plan, but I’m listening.” “I’ve got this under control, but if you can give me evidence that shows we’re on the wrong path, we can adjust.” Far from being threatened by open channels, top leaders benefit from them. The corner office can be a lonely place.
Today, audiences are skeptical and conditioned to challenge. The era of unquestioning trust in top leaders is over. Ethical behavior is different. It may be unrealistic to expect a CEO to score 90% for overall trustworthiness. But there can be zero tolerance for misdemeanours.
In a VUCA world, it’s easy for an organisation to part company with its declarations. Stakeholders, especially younger ones, are particularly sensitive to say/do gaps, particularly given the return of charismatic leaders to the political arena. Such a powerful leader may appear authentic and trustworthy. But, confident in their invincibility, they can also be erratic. Over time, their unreliability alienates even the most loyal followers. Trust can never be taken for granted, especially when leadership communication and behaviour fall out of alignment.
Beyond the noise, numbers and slogans, regular cultural checks are vital. What if there are no alarm bells? Silence does not equal serenity: it can signal hidden issues, quiet quitting or declining employee trust.
Why CEOs need presence, not just visibility
If proximity is essential to build trust, then ‘walking the floor’ is as important as it ever was for CEO trust. Of course, the bigger the organisational footprint, the harder it is for a CEO to keep pace. It is nonetheless important to identify formats that create opportunities to connect. Digital platforms can establish some proximity if they project a real personality and listening ear, rather than a synthetic image. It is vital to extend those platforms to a management team that embodies the core trust building values. In this way, trust is institutionalised, radiating outward from the CEO to the C‑suite and beyond, underpinned by the board.
Trust as a strategic discipline
Leadership trust is built through clarity, consistency, and the courage to listen. It grows when leaders stay present, communicate honestly, and create cultures where people can speak up without fear. In a noisy world, trust thrives on evidence, not slogans; on behaviour, not branding. When CEOs and boards treat trust as a strategic discipline rather than a sentiment, they strengthen corporate trust, resilience, credibility and the integrity of the entire organisation.
Trustworthy communication shouldn’t be overly complicated. It’s simple and people are calling for it.
*2025 Edelman Trust Barometer
