GUEST POST from Robert B. Tucker
The recent release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, revealing the involvement of numerous high-profile figures, has laid bare the diminution of trust in modern society —and the urgent need to reverse the slide.
Public reaction to episodes involving powerful insiders, whether in the corporate world, reveals causation in the downward slide. Trust erodes when people suspect the rules are not applied evenly. When powerful systems protect insiders, while ordinary standards apply to everyone else, the result is cynicism and distrust.
The warning lights have been flashing for decades. And now, at a time when artificial intelligence is working its way into all realms of life, and when information and misinformation travel instantly around the globe, and when the speed of change is increasingly exponential, the temptation is to retreat into suspicion and tribalism.
Trust was once the glue that bonded relationships and societies together. Honesty and truthfulness were the operating system that enabled strangers to cooperate, institutions to function, businesses to make deals, and countries and communities to build better futures.
But trust cannot be assumed in today’s world. It must be earned, created, and guarded.
The collapse of trust started decades ago. Surveys from Pew, Gallup, and from social-capital research stretching back to the 1970s all tell a similar story: confidence in institutions, leaders, media, business, and even neighbors has been on the decline for decades.
Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam was among the first to reveal the social dimension of this disintegration in his landmark book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. His research found that civic engagement and community participation peaked in the late 1960s, before steadily declining thereafter. Americans stopped joining clubs and attending church. Neighborhood interaction declined. Shared civic rituals began to fade.
The result has been the slow erosion of social capital – the invisible glue that makes cooperation possible.
The University of Chicago’s General Social Survey is one of America’s longest-running social studies. In 1972, when the study began, nearly half of Americans believed “most people can be trusted.” By 2018, that number had fallen to 33%. In the 2024 survey, trust between fellow human beings had fallen to 25%.
The gold standard of trust measurement is the annual Edelman Trust Barometer. For 25 years, Edelman has tracked confidence in four institutions: government, media, NGOs, and business. Created in response to globalization protests and widening skepticism toward elites, the survey now spans roughly 30 countries and tens of thousands of respondents annually, offering a rare multi-decade, multi-cultural window into the psychological state of trust.
Recent findings show a widening “trust gap” between elites and the general population. As economic growth has not been widely shared, large portions of the public believe capitalism is failing to deliver basic affordability, much less upward mobility.
The new trust destroyers are social media and artificial intelligence, which create lots of advantages in terms of productivity and reach, but which are often used to create deception and fraud as well. Experts see technological change, especially generative AI, having accelerated social fragmentation.
Columbia law professor Tim Wu uses the term “extraction economy” to describe the business model in which tech companies grow powerful, not by selling products directly, but by continuously harvesting something from users – primarily attention, behavior, and personal data. Platforms design algorithms to keep people engaged for as long as possible. Every click, search, or swipe becomes information that can be analyzed, predicted, and ultimately sold to advertisers or used to shape future behavior. The result is not only a concentration of economic and cultural power in a handful of companies, but a relationship devoid of trust.
How To Build Trust in a World of Distrust
If we are serious about building a better future, restoring trust is not peripheral work. It is foundational.
Trust does not drift upward on its own. It must be cultivated deliberately—one clarified expectation, one kept commitment, one repaired mistake at a time. Built patiently, it remains the most renewable resource leadership possesses, and we can start at any time to build trust in a world where nobody trusts anybody anymore.
Robert Putnam demonstrated decades ago that civic engagement and cooperation reinforce one another. Small acts—honoring a deadline, giving credit generously, admitting uncertainty—ripple outward. In organizations navigating technological upheaval, these micro-behaviors create emotional stability that strategy alone cannot supply.
Perhaps the best-known trust guru is Stephen M. R. Covey, who argues that trust is not merely a moral virtue; it is a learnable competency. Covey, the son of famed “Seven Habits” author Stephen Covey, teaches that trust grows from consistent behavior, not charisma or intention. Leaders often harbor the mistaken idea that trust is something bestowed upon them because of position or expertise. Instead, argues Covey, it accumulates through observable habits repeated over time. Covey emphasizes credibility—the alignment of character and competence. Character asks whether you are honest and motivated by shared benefit. Competence asks whether you can deliver results.
Charles Feltman, author of The Thin Book of Trust: An Essential Primer for Building Trust at Work, approaches trust from a unique angle. His definition of trust is relational: “choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions.” Feltman identifies four assessments people make when deciding whether to trust someone: sincerity, reliability, competence, and care. Most breakdowns occur, says Feltman, not because of dramatic betrayal, but because expectations were never clarified.
In practical terms, this means leaders must become unusually precise communicators. Reliability is strengthened when commitments are explicit and modest rather than vague and ambitious. A manager who promises weekly updates and delivers them faithfully builds more trust than one who announces sweeping transformation but repeatedly misses deadlines. In accelerated environments where plans quickly become obsolete, Feltman encourages renegotiating commitments openly. Silence erodes trust faster than bad news.
Both Covey and Feltman emphasize the power of repair. Distrust grows when mistakes are hidden or minimized. Trust grows when harm is acknowledged quickly and concretely. In organizations facing AI disruption or restructuring, leaders who communicate early and empathetically often preserve loyalty even through painful transitions. People are more willing to endure change when they believe they are being treated honestly.
For leaders, building and maintaining trust is not an abstract academic conversation. In a world shaped by exponential technologies and volatile narratives, trust is a performance advantage. High trust reduces friction and speeds execution. Low trust multiplies oversight, legal review, defensive communication, and second-guessing.
In the Age of Acceleration, building trust truly matters.
This article originally appeared in Forbes
Image credit: Pixabay
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