Kay Littlehales MInstSMM , Lee Charlton and Panel host Garry Gormley unpack why trust, empathy and accountability matter more than ever.
In workplaces across the UK, trust is being tested.
Over the last few years, organisations have had to navigate remote working, hybrid policies, restructures, economic pressure, tighter performance demands and shifting employee expectations. In many businesses, leaders are now asking a critical question: is the erosion of trust beginning to damage performance?
That was the focus of a recent discussion hosted by Garry Gormley, alongside leadership specialist Kay Littlehales and seasoned contact centre leader Lee Charlton. Together, they explored how trust breaks down, what it looks like before performance visibly declines, and what leaders can do to rebuild it.
What emerged was a rich conversation about leadership behaviour, psychological safety, vulnerability, consistency and the human side of performance. The conclusion was clear: trust is not a soft extra. It is a core performance driver.
Why trust has become such a pressing issue
Opening the discussion, Garry set the scene by reflecting on how dramatically working life has changed in recent years. Before the pandemic, many organisations insisted that working from home was not viable. Then, almost overnight, the business case changed and remote working became essential. Since then, many companies have shifted again, introducing hybrid working or pushing people back on site altogether. In some cases, leaders have openly questioned whether employees are productive enough when working remotely.
This inconsistency has left many employees wondering where they stand.
When people hear one message for years, then see the opposite happen, and later hear yet another version of the truth, trust naturally begins to fray. That uncertainty can ripple through culture, communication and ultimately performance.
The discussion quickly moved beyond policy and into a deeper question: what are the early signs that trust is beginning to break down inside a team?
The early warning signs of eroding trust
Lee Charlton brought an operational leadership perspective grounded in decades of experience. Having led large contact centre operations for over thirty years, he described how the pandemic became a catalyst for exposing trust issues in a way he had not seen before.
For Lee, one of the first warning signs was disengagement. It showed up in small but telling behaviours. Cameras staying off in Teams meetings. People who would once have volunteered now becoming reluctant to help. Resistance creeping into conversations, with more comments like, “That’s not my job.” Tasks were delivered late. Energy dropped. People became less willing to contribute.
These were not dramatic breakdowns at first. They were the “smoke before the fire”.
Kay Littlehales, drawing from her work in leadership development and organisational learning, added another important dimension. From her perspective, many of the requests she receives from businesses for leadership programmes, management support or sales enablement are often symptoms of something deeper. Frequently, behind the request sits a culture where people feel disconnected, excluded or unclear.
She pointed to proximity bias as a major issue in hybrid and remote organisations. When some people are seen more often than others, those working remotely can quickly feel “out of sight, out of mind.” That lack of visibility can create misunderstanding, reduce inclusion and weaken trust. In her experience, teams often suffer not because people are incapable, but because communication has not been translated into meaning that feels relevant, motivating and human.
Together, their observations painted a clear picture. The erosion of trust often starts with:
- reduced engagement
- lower willingness to contribute
- less ownership
- confusion around priorities
- a feeling of exclusion
- inconsistent communication
- missed follow-through from leaders
By the time hard metrics begin to drop, these softer signals have often been present for a while.
Trust and performance are deeply linked
A major theme of the discussion was that trust and performance are not separate issues. They are tightly connected.
Kay explained that through trust diagnostics she and Garry have developed, they often find an interesting pattern: leadership teams may report high trust, while frontline sales or operational teams report low to mid-level trust. In other words, the people at the top may believe trust is strong, while the people closer to the customer experience something very different.
Why does this happen?
Because leaders often communicate objectives in a way that makes sense to them, but not necessarily in a way that connects emotionally or practically with the people expected to deliver them. Trust grows when people feel involved, empowered and supported consistently. If a leader gives feedback, then returns a week later to reinforce effort, recognise progress and offer support, trust strengthens. If that follow-up never happens, the original message may feel more like criticism than development.
For Kay, the issue is not usually a lack of intention. It is a lack of habit.
Lee reinforced this from an operational point of view. In his experience, the performance gap between leaders who create trust and leaders who do not can be stark. He described seeing one leader whose approach was inconsistent and changeable, creating uncertainty in the team. In contrast, another leader was clear, structured and human in her style. She gave her team autonomy, supported them properly and built trust. The results showed up in engagement, speed of decision-making and overall performance.
His message was simple: teams perform better when they trust their leader.
What trust looks like in practice
Across the discussion, several consistent trust-building behaviours emerged.
The first was clarity. People need to understand what is expected, why it matters and what success looks like.
The second was consistency. Trust is damaged when leaders behave unpredictably in unhelpful ways, change direction constantly or fail to follow through.
The third was autonomy with support. People need the freedom to do their jobs, the permission to learn through mistakes and the reassurance that failure will not automatically lead to blame.
The fourth was human connection. Leaders who know their people, understand their pressures and make time for genuine conversations build stronger, more resilient teams.
Lee summed this up through one of his own mantras: “trust the operating rhythm, trust the process.”
For him, trust is built when leaders create a rhythm that includes coaching, one-to-ones, support and honest feedback, then show up reliably within that rhythm.
Psychological safety: more than a buzzword
At one point in the discussion, Garry challenged the panel to move beyond simply using the phrase “psychological safety” and instead explain what it actually looks like day to day.
Kay’s response was striking. She argued that before psychological safety can exist, leaders must understand the role of respect in building rapport. Rapport is not a nice-to-have. It is the foundation of trust. And rapport begins when leaders respect another person’s perspective, not just their output.
She questioned whether organisations can ever truly claim to have psychological safety if perfectionism still dominates or if people are not genuinely allowed to fail and learn. In her view, what many organisations call psychological safety is often far shallower than they think.
Instead, she emphasised the importance of leaders showing up as themselves so that others feel able to do the same. This means making time for real conversations, not just formal coaching sessions. It means checking in with a team member after a couple of months and asking how they are really finding things. It means paraphrasing back what someone has said so they know they have been heard. It means trying to understand their world, not just broadcasting your own.
The message here was powerful: psychological safety becomes real when respect, rapport and honest human connection become everyday habits.
The leadership mirror: when trust issues start with the leader
One of the most valuable parts of the conversation centred on the idea that when trust breaks down, leaders must be willing to look in the mirror.
Kay referred to this as shadow work and self-awareness. Her point was not that leaders need to become therapists, but that they do need to recognise their own imperfections, blind spots and triggers. Leaders who refuse to examine themselves often create the very conditions that erode trust in others.
She argued that organisations need visible role models who demonstrate self-acceptance and imperfection. When senior leaders subtly show that they are not perfect, and that growth is still expected at every level, they create space for others to be more open too. Compassion also matters here. A leader who notices that someone is having a difficult week and chooses a restorative conversation instead of a purely performance-focused one sends a very different signal about what kind of culture they are building.
Lee backed this up with a practical example from his time at Virgin Media Business. After making changes to commission thresholds, he noticed an undercurrent of frustration in the sales team. Rather than ignoring it, he got the team out of the building for a walk-and-talk conversation. In doing so, he recognised that the issue was not the decision itself, but the fact that he had not explained it clearly enough or invited questions.
Crucially, he did not reverse the decision. But he did own his part in how it had landed.
That is the leadership mirror in action: being willing to say, “I handled that badly,” without losing authority.
Compassion, empathy and the emotional load of leadership
A difficult but important part of the conversation explored the emotional tax that comes with leadership.
Leaders are expected to be compassionate and empathetic with their teams, while also carrying targets, budgets, reporting pressures and their own personal stresses. That balancing act can be exhausting.
Lee was refreshingly honest about how he manages those moments. When he is having a difficult day, he often goes out onto the floor and speaks to his people. Rather than retreating further into pressure, he reconnects with the team. He also leans on trusted peers, emphasising that leaders need support too.
This theme became especially vivid when Lee described his experience in the energy sector during the wholesale crisis. As energy prices surged and customers faced impossible bills, vulnerable customer teams were dealing with highly emotional and sometimes distressing calls. In response, the business removed traditional KPIs from that team. The focus shifted away from average handle time or throughput and towards simply being there for the customer.
That decision revealed something important: trust also grows when organisations show they understand the reality of the environment and are willing to adapt accordingly.
The strongest leaders do not rigidly apply the same management logic in every situation. They read the room, understand context and respond with humanity.
Trust, accountability and difficult conversations
Another key tension explored in the session was how leaders balance trust with accountability.
Too little accountability can lead to drift and inconsistency. Too much, delivered badly, can crush trust. So how should leaders handle poor performance or challenging behaviour without damaging the relationship further?
Kay challenged the very language many organisations use. She argued that labelling sessions as “difficult conversations” creates a problem before the conversation has even begun. If leaders approach these moments as difficult, the brain prepares for threat rather than growth.
Instead, she advocated for cultures where feedback is normalised. In a healthy environment, leaders coach, give feedback, run development sessions and create enough openness that performance conversations do not build up into intimidating moments. Radical candour and what she and Garry have developed as “radical feedback” are useful here: direct, respectful, specific and rooted in care.
She also made an important point about organisational design. Too many businesses still think of leadership vertically, with layers of hierarchy separating senior leaders from everyone else. In reality, effective leadership should feel more horizontal. Development, coaching and accountability should exist at every level, not just cascade downward.
That means senior leaders should not expect their managers to coach while never coaching them in return. Trust weakens when development is expected from some but not modelled by others.
When trust feels too broken to repair
One of the most practical moments in the discussion came when Garry asked what leaders should do when they feel trust has been damaged so badly that it may be impossible to repair.
Lee offered a grounded example from a period of redundancy and restructuring after Covid. A manager in his team had to lead conversations where long-serving employees lost their roles. Unsurprisingly, the remaining team members were upset and some directed their anger towards the manager.
Lee’s advice to her was twofold.
First, acknowledge what has happened, be clear about the future and create a line in the sand. Second, recognise that while leaders can do everything possible to rebuild trust, not everyone will choose to stay on that journey.
His phrase was memorable: you’re on the bus or you’re off the bus.
That was not about being harsh. It was about clarity. Leaders should support, coach and create opportunity for repair. But if someone ultimately does not want to come with the direction of travel, pretending otherwise only prolongs dysfunction.
Importantly, this example also highlighted something else: sometimes trust is restored not by avoiding hard realities, but by facing them openly and respectfully.
The role of vulnerability in leadership
As the discussion moved towards a close, the panel explored the role of vulnerability in building trust.
Kay introduced the idea of positive vulnerability, which she defines as having the courage to show up as yourself in all situations. That does not mean oversharing or collapsing boundaries. It means being human enough to let people understand part of your world.
For example, a leader may say to their team, “This conversation is about performance, but I also want you to understand some of the pressures that come with my role. I do not want to place that stress on you, but I want you to see the bigger picture and help me understand what I may be missing from your side too.”
That kind of openness, handled well, strengthens trust because it invites mutual understanding rather than hierarchy.
Lee’s own examples showed how this works in practice. Across the pandemic, redundancies and the energy crisis, he and his peers had to lean on one another, make difficult decisions and remain visible to their people. Vulnerability did not weaken leadership. It strengthened it, because it was paired with action, integrity and dependability.
As Kay noted, trust depends not just on competence or care, but also on reliability. People need to know that their leader will show up, follow through and remain dependable, especially in uncertain times.
So, is a lack of trust eroding performance?
The answer from this discussion was unmistakably yes.
When trust begins to erode, performance rarely collapses overnight. It slips gradually through disengagement, hesitation, confusion, inconsistency, poor communication and lack of follow-through. Over time, those small fractures become cultural fault lines.
But the panel also made clear that trust can be rebuilt.
It is rebuilt through clarity. Through consistency. Through empathy. Through honest feedback. Through visible humility. Through dependable leadership rhythms. Through rapport. Through creating environments where people feel heard, respected and able to grow.
In the closing moments, Garry asked both panellists for one final piece of advice.
Lee’s answer was that leaders must focus on the environment they create. Trust grows when people feel able to speak openly without fear of judgement and when values are lived rather than just written on a wall.
Kay’s closing thought was equally compelling: create a reliable environment, but do not always be predictable. In other words, leaders should be dependable, but still human, thoughtful and capable of doing something unexpected and meaningful that people remember.
That may be the real challenge for leaders today. Not just to manage work, but to create cultures where trust is strong enough to carry performance through uncertainty.
Because when trust is present, people lean in.
When trust is absent, even the best strategy begins to wobble.
