Employees Who Trust Their Managers Are More Likely to Trust Their CEOs

In the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer survey, only 37% of global respondents rated CEOs to be sufficiently credible. Trust in organizational leaders is linked to employees’ intention to stay, compliance with strategic decisions, and unit performance. But corporate leaders can improve how credible they seem by focusing on the relationships employees have with their frontline leaders. Trust, in other words, trickles up. We found that trust transferred up when frontline leaders exhibited behaviors that were perceived to show high procedural justice, such as making decisions in an unbiased manner and listening to follower concerns. In other words, when frontline leaders were perceived as more fair, employees who trusted their frontline leaders had more trust in senior organizational leaders. A good place to start with training of frontline leaders would be to strengthen trust building skills of frontline leaders — including upholding professional integrity and genuinely caring for employees’ well-being and development — and to make sure they act fairly in making decisions and allocating rewards or resources.