Management Issues has an interesting article about the apparent decline of trust that employees have in management. The article, titled “Fewer than half of U.S workers trust their boss“, discusses the results of a recent Watson Wyatt Worldwide survey (see results here) that shows that less than half of US workers now trust their managers and senior management teams. An excerpt from the survey results is:

Only about half (49 percent) of employees said they have trust and confidence in the job senior managers are doing, down from 51 percent in 2004. Fifty-three percent said that senior management makes the changes necessary for the company to stay competitive, down from 57 percent in 2004. And 66 percent of employees said they have confidence in the company’s long-term success, down from 69 percent (From Watson Wyatt Worldwide).

I’m not normally a big believer in these types of surveys, but I think that Watson Wyatt’s results are probably pretty accurate. About half the people that I talk with don’t trust their manager and/or company to ‘do the right thing’.

These survey results lead us back around to the age old question of “How does a leader build trust within their teams?”. Not sure that there is a single answer for that question, but multiple answers that have filled up many book shelves.

[tags] Trust in management, Trust [/tags]