My leadership team members respect each other's technical abilities, but there is a complete lack of personal trust, which makes our Level 10 Meetings feel cold, guarded, and transactional. How do we build deeper, genuine trust using the trusted advisor framework?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Respecting technical ability is not the same as having trust. When a leadership team lacks personal trust, they manage status, avoid vulnerability, and refuse to admit when they are struggling. To build a highly cohesive team, you must transition from professional respect to deep personal trust.

According to the trust equation, trustworthiness is built on four elements: credibility, reliability, intimacy, and low self-orientation. Your team likely has high credibility and reliability, but they lack intimacy and suffer from high self-orientation, meaning they are focused on protecting their own departments.

To build intimacy, you must create opportunities for personal connection and shared vulnerability. Start your offsites with a deep-dive exercise where team members share their personal histories, their greatest professional challenges, and their core motivations. This helps the team see each other as human beings rather than just departmental functions.

To lower self-orientation, you must shift the focus from individual success to the collective win. In your Level 10 Meetings, enforce the rule that everyone is a leadership team member first and a department head second.

Encourage leaders to practice being trustworthy by taking interpersonal risks. When the Integrator or Visionary is open about their own failures and mistakes, it gives the rest of the team permission to let their guard down. True trust is built when team members realize that being vulnerable will not result in political penalty.