What Is Trust?

Researchers John Cook and Toby Wall define trust as “a willingness to ascribe good intentions to and have confidence in the words and actions of other people.”^[27] This willingness will, in turn, affect the way in which one behaves toward others. Three characteristics are fundamental to our understanding of trust: uncertainty, risk, and perceptions.

Uncertainty

We need to depend on trust—a leap of faith—only if we do not have all information about a person or situation and if we cannot completely control the outcome. If we have total knowledge and control of a situation, we have no need to trust because we can anticipate and ensure the outcome that we want. For example, if we are willing and able to monitor all aspects of an employee's work-related behavior (for example, through videotaping, electronically counting computer keystrokes, or monitoring phone calls), then we do not need to rely on trust to ensure that the employees are doing their jobs. However, if we choose to delegate or create self-managing teams, then we must trust that employees are focusing on their tasks and working together toward organizational goals.

Risk

When we trust a person or organization, we assume that the benefits of our relationship with them will outweigh any costs to us. Indeed, trust is only necessary if the costs of a loss will be greater than the possible gain.^[28] To illustrate this point, researcher Dale Zand provides this fine example:

[A] parent is exhibiting trusting behavior in hiring a baby-sitter so he can see a movie. The action significantly increases his vulnerability, because he cannot control the baby-sitter's behavior after leaving the house. If the baby-sitter abuses that vulnerability, the penalty may be a tragedy that may adversely affect the rest of his life; if the baby-sitter does not abuse that vulnerability, the benefit will be the pleasure of seeing a movie.^[29]

Thus, when we decide to give our boss bad news, we trust that our boss will not kill the messenger. When we give employees confidential organizational information that enables them to make appropriate decisions quickly, we trust that they will not give this information to our organization's competitors.

Perception

Trust is necessary in situations in which we do not have complete information about another person's intentions. Therefore, our trust in someone is based in large part on our perceptions of that person's trustworthiness. We base our perceptions of a person's trustworthiness on several factors, including the person's reputation,^[30] our prior experiences with the person,^[31] and our stereotypes about that person's identity group memberships (such as gender, race, religion, and nationality)^[32] and organizational group memberships (such as department or hierarchical level).^[33] Researcher Michele Williams notes that we are more likely to rely on stereotypes when we are under time pressure.^[34]

The importance of perception in the development of trust and mistrust cannot be overstated because our perceptions often turn into self-fulfilling prophecies. Researcher Sandra Robinson explains that we tend to look for and focus on information that confirms our prior perceptions about a person's trustworthiness and ignore or minimize information that disconfirms our prior perceptions. Consequently, when we mistrust someone, we are “more likely to look for, find, and remember incidents of breach, even in the absence of an objective breach” because it is consistent with our prior perceptions. Similarly, when we trust someone, we are “more likely to overlook, forget, or not recognize an actual breach when it does occur.”^[35]

In short, if we have complete information about a person or organization, if we can completely control a situation, if we can perfectly predict an outcome, and if we have nothing or little to lose, then trust is not necessary. However, such situations are rare—perhaps nonexistent—in our everyday work life, so the ability to trust and to be trustworthy is essential to managerial effectiveness. Figure 3-1 describes the antecedents and consequences of trust in organizations and will be discussed in more detail in the following sections.