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Leadership
In uncertain times, trust doesn’t disappear – it thins
Hybrid work, repeated restructurings, and constant uncertainty are eroding the emotional foundations of trust at work. Realistic optimism offers a way to rebuild connection.
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- Trust at work has not collapsed but thinned. Hybrid work, repeated restructurings, and constant uncertainty preserve performance while eroding the emotional foundations that sustain trust over time.
- The breakdown lies in affective trust, not competence. Cognitive trust often survives disruption, but emotional connection weakens, making teams feel brittle despite continued delivery.
- Rebuilding trust requires realistic optimism. Small, consistent actions by individuals and leaders – grounded in clarity, presence, and purpose – can restore connection even in constrained systems.
Something has shifted in organizations. Not dramatically, not all at once, but in the way that fatigue sets in gradually, then unmistakably.
Leaders hesitate where they once decided. Teams deliver but feel brittle underneath. People speak about pressure and restructuring and hybrid isolation, but what they are describing, in quieter moments, is something more human:
“I don’t know who or what to trust anymore.”
It is rarely said with anger. More often, it is said with exhaustion. And it is heard across industries, levels, and countries with striking consistency.
Trust has become harder to sustain.
A global decline in trust – and a rise in organizational hardness
What is heard in our coaching rooms is mirrored in global research. The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, which surveys 33,000 people across 28 countries, reports the steepest decline in workplace trust since 2018. Employees say they are increasingly unsure whether their leaders are honest with them, whether decisions are made transparently, and whether their contributions are valued.
At the same time, corporate restructurings have surged. In 2025, tech firms including Amazon, Microsoft, and others announced large workforce reductions amid restructuring and shifts toward automation and AI, part of a broader wave in which US employers announced around 1.17 million job cuts – the most since the pandemic. Restructuring, once the last resort, has become, as many describe it, “a managerial reflex.”
Even when no restructuring is happening, the constant possibility of it conditions behavior. People take fewer interpersonal risks. They hesitate to speak up. Many over-prepare or over-perform, driven by a quiet sense that they must keep proving their value. They interpret ambiguity negatively and protect themselves by withdrawing or becoming more transactional.
This isn’t a failure of character. It’s what happens when people spend too long in systems that feel unstable.
“While cognitive trust is largely independent of whether work is virtual or in-person, affective trust is significantly harder to build and sustain in remote and hybrid settings.”
Why trust feels different now
Hybrid work has brought flexibility, but it has also removed the invisible threads that used to help trust regenerate naturally: the hallway check-in, the spontaneous reassurance, the small confirmations of goodwill that pass between people when they share physical space.
Without those touchpoints, assumptions fill the void. Under stress, they often tend to take a negative turn.
A delayed reply becomes “They don’t care.” A short message becomes “They’re upset.” A cancelled meeting becomes “They’re disengaged.”
Research on trust in virtual teams helps explain this dynamic. Scholars distinguish between two forms of trust: cognitive trust – confidence in someone’s competence and reliability – and affective trust – the sense of emotional connection and genuine goodwill that develops over time. A 2025 study by Kloepfer and Carbon found that while cognitive trust is largely independent of whether work is virtual or in-person, affective trust is significantly harder to build and sustain in remote and hybrid settings. Without regular opportunities for informal interaction, emotional connection thins – and ambiguity becomes more easily interpreted as indifference or threat.
This helps explain a paradox many leaders recognize: teams that function well on paper yet feel increasingly brittle underneath. People aren’t becoming less trustworthy. The conditions for trust have weakened.
The answer begins with a mindset that is neither naïve nor cynical: realistic optimism.
Realistic optimism: staying grounded and connected amid uncertainty
So, what can individuals do when the climate itself feels uncertain? And what can leaders do to create islands of trust in systems they don’t fully control?
The answer begins with a mindset that is neither naïve nor cynical: realistic optimism.
Realistic optimism shows up less as a mindset and more as something people practice under pressure. It does not ask people to deny uncertainty, but to relate to it in a way that keeps them resourced and connected. In practice, it rests on three commitments: trusting ourselves, trusting others, and trusting the situation.
1 — Rebuilding trust in ourselves when confidence quietly erodes
When the ground is shaky, people often subtly lose trust in themselves. They question their intuition, second-guess their judgement, and forget the strengths that carried them through previous storms. Meetings are over-prepared. Emails are rewritten again and again. Not because people have become less capable – but because the environment has taught them that certainty is risky.
Three practical approaches can help rebuild inner trust:
- The 60-second strengths recall. Before an important meeting or decision, taking one minute to recall a moment of handling a challenge well can make a meaningful difference. The nervous system responds immediately to remembered competence – it steadies a person before they even open the door.
- The values micro-check. When tension rises, ask yourself: “What value do I want to bring into this moment?” This shifts attention from fear to intentionality. Breathing out a little longer than usual while answering will further calm the nervous system.
- The two truths practice. Holding two realities at once: “This is hard” and “I have faced hard things before and found a way” prevents both denial and spiraling. Inner trust is not built through grand declarations, but through repeated moments of self-recognition.
2 – Rebuilding trust in others – interrupting the negative story machine
Under stress, the brain is wired to interpret ambiguity as threat. In hybrid work, where cues are missing, this tendency becomes even more pronounced. Small gestures – a glance, a quick clarification, a shared moment of levity – are simply no longer there to correct misunderstandings before they harden into beliefs.
- Replace assumption with curiosity. Instead of completing the story, ask a question: “I might be misreading this – is everything okay?” This can prevent assumptions from becoming fixed. Curiosity is often more powerful than reassurance.
- Signal presence in small, consistent ways. A three-line message checking in. A short voice note. Asking, “How did that go?” after a stressful meeting. These gestures are modest, but their impact is disproportionate.
- Share constraints openly. When people understand the “why” behind behavior, they stop imagining the worst. Transparency is one of the fastest shortcuts to rebuilding trust.
Purpose doesn’t eliminate uncertainty, but it gives it direction.
3 – Rebuilding trust in the situation – finding agency without illusion
Many people oscillate between two unhelpful positions: resignation (“There’s nothing I can do”) and hyper-control (“I must anticipate everything”). Neither helps. Resignation drains energy and agency, while hyper-control exhausts attention and creates brittle expectations.
- The ‘Circle of Influence’ pause. When overwhelmed, asking, “What is one thing I can influence in the next 24 hours?” immediately reduces helplessness. Agency does not require control over everything; only clarity about what is possible now.
- Ritualize grounding moments. A two-minute breathing reset before an intense call. A walk after a difficult conversation. A short reflection at the end of the day on what went well. Grounding rituals widen tolerance for ambiguity rather than trying to eliminate it.
- Reconnect to purpose. Purpose doesn’t eliminate uncertainty, but it gives it direction. Even one sentence: “I want to respond with dignity,” or “I want to be a calming presence today,” can shift the emotional tone of a situation.
Trust is rarely rebuilt through major initiatives or sweeping cultural statements.
What leaders can do: small actions that rebuild trust in teams
Many leaders sense the strain in their teams even when performance indicators remain strong. People deliver. Deadlines are met. Yet something feels brittle beneath the surface. Leaders often recognize that trust is under pressure while feeling constrained by systems they did not design and decisions they did not initiate.
Trust is rarely rebuilt through major initiatives or sweeping cultural statements. It is rebuilt through consistent signals that shape the emotional climate day by day. Five concrete micro-practices stand out:
- Create predictability where possible. Regular check-ins, transparent decision updates, and clear rhythms provide stability in unstable environments. Predictability doesn’t remove change – it reduces anxiety about the unknown.
- Name uncertainty instead of hiding it. People trust leaders who say: “Here’s what we know, here’s what we don’t know yet, and here’s when we’ll update you.” Clarity about uncertainty is often more stabilizing than false certainty.
- Offer context, not just decisions. When people understand the reasoning behind trade-offs, especially difficult ones, they feel respected and included, even if they disagree with the outcome.
- Acknowledge pressure without dramatizing it. A simple “I know this phase is heavy – here’s how we’ll navigate it together,” validates experience without amplifying fear.
- Model realistic optimism. Leaders’ emotional posture travels quickly through teams, especially when uncertainty is already high. When a leader embodies grounded hope – neither denial nor despair – the team’s resilience rises. Small signals from leaders regenerate trust faster than grand declarations.
Restructuring, hybrid work, and economic pressure are not temporary phases; they are the new context of leadership, but the human ability to respond with clarity, dignity, and courage remains intact.
The path forward
There is no return to the old stability. Restructuring, hybrid work, and economic pressure are not temporary phases; they are the new context of leadership, but the human ability to respond with clarity, dignity, and courage remains intact.
Trust will not rebuild itself, but it can be rebuilt – relationship by relationship, interaction by interaction – when realistic optimism is practiced from the inside out.
Not the kind of optimism that says, “everything will be fine.” But one that says: “We can meet what comes with presence and humanity.” That kind of optimism doesn’t eliminate uncertainty, but it does restore trust.
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