Trust forms a psychological state that involves confident positive expectations about another’s motives with respect to oneself in situations entailing risk (cf. Boon & Holmes, 1991). Trust is essential to cooperation between different parties and forms an important feature in dyadic interpersonal relationships as well as in larger collectivities such as organizations. In other words, cooperation ‘requires trust in the sense that the dependent parties need some degree of assurance that the other, non-dependent parties will not defect’ (Williams, 1988, p. 8). In line with this, Cook and Wall (1980) view trust between individuals and groups within the organization as crucial to its long-term stability. They define trust as the extent to which one is willing to ascribe good intentions to and have confidence in the words and actions of other people.
Leaders and their behaviour often have strong effects on employee behaviours and attitudes, including trust. Especially relevant to the relationship between leadership and trust is the notion that trust occurs in a dependent relationship and involves risk and vulnerability. For example, Mayer, Davis and Schoorman (1995) emphasize that the willingness of one party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party forms a key feature of trust, and McAllister (1995) focuses on trust as the extent to which a person is confident in, and willing to act on the basis of, the words, actions and decisions, of another. In organizations, employees are often at least to some extent and often largely dependent on the words, actions and decisions of their leaders. Their leaders at different levels in the organization set both individual and collective objectives to strive for. Leaders at the top determine the course of action of the organization and thus affect the long-term results of the organization, which matter to employees. Leaders at lower levels affect employees as well. They tend to have the position power to affect important proximal outcomes for employees such as their promotions and pay. Leaders often also play an important role in determining other crucial work features, such as work content and the types of challenges and assignments employees get.
In line with this, Nienaber and colleagues (2015) note that several asymmetries characterize the supervisor–subordinate relationship and that these make trust concerns especially important for employees: the leader typically has higher status, more power and information, and the possibility to exercise more control, and thus subordinates tend to face greater uncertainty and dependency in the leader–follower relationship. For employees, it is of course both cognitively and emotionally hard to willingly follow or go the extra mile for leaders whom they do not trust, which undermines cooperation and effort. As leaders are agents of the organization, not trusting one’s direct supervisor may spill over to also not trusting management or the organization as a whole, further eroding the basis for cooperative behaviour. Also, uncertainty, stress and fear are likely to arise in situations in which trust in the leader is lacking, and, in the longer run, a lack of trust in this crucial organizational relationship partner is thus also likely to affect employees’ well-being.
Consequently, employees’ trust in their leaders has formed an important topic of research and has been studied much more than the reverse, that is, whether and when leaders trust their followers. Yet, while there is an asymmetry in power and influence with followers typically more dependent on their leaders than vice versa, leaders too are (to an extent) dependent on their followers’ cooperation and effort to be able to meet (collective) goals and realize strategic plans. Leaders too are vulnerable because if they cannot trust their employees to cooperate and deliver, this decreases their own and their unit’s effectiveness. Thus, trust between leaders and followers can have important benefits for employees, leaders and the organization as a whole. However, creating trust and sustaining such trust over time can be difficult (e.g. Kramer, 1999).
This chapter focuses on the important relationship between leadership and employee trust. I review the literature on trust in the leader and also discuss work on mutual trust between leader and follower. This review is not exhaustive and several other resources that are relevant to the topic of leadership and trust include a quantitative meta-analysis on this topic of Dirks and Ferrin (2002) as well as two qualitative reviews (Fulmer & Gelfand, 2012; Nienaber et al., 2015). While the emphasis of this chapter is on reviewing the work that has been done, throughout I also outline several areas related to leadership and trust that are in need of future research.
Research shows that employee trust in their leader relates to different, generally positive outcomes. Thus, to illustrate why trust in leaders is so important for organizations, I first describe the outcomes of employees having trust in their leaders. Second, I turn to how trust in leaders develops and what forms such trust can take. I discuss both the character- and relationship-based views of trust in the leader. Third, I review the research on how specific leader behavioural styles affect employee trust. In doing so, I discuss leader behaviours that can help build stronger bonds of trust as well as leader behaviours that can erode follower trust. Fourth, I briefly outline several additional and indirect ways in which leaders affect employee trust, for example through their role in creating certain work climates or their implementation of human resource management practices. Fifth, I touch upon the need to know more about the role of follower characteristics and trust in followers. Finally, I end the chapter with some concluding remarks highlighting the need to better understand when trust between leaders and followers is more and when it is less crucial in organizations.
Leadership forms an important area of investigation in the social sciences and can be defined as ‘the process of influencing the activities of an organized group in its efforts toward goal setting and goal achievement’ (Stogdill, 1950, p. 4) or more elaborately as ‘the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members’ (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman & Gupta, 2004, p. 15). Trust between leaders and followers is crucial in being able to exert this kind of influence efficiently and effectively without the need for coercion or constant close monitoring (e.g. Searle et al., 2011). In line with this, research suggests that in practice several trust-related qualities are universally endorsed by employees and managers alike as being important to be a good leader. The GLOBE study, which focused on cultural similarities and differences in implicit leadership theories, for example asked middle-managers as respondents to rate to which extent leaders needed to show certain characteristics to be an outstandingly effective leader. In all 60 countries involved in this study, an outstanding leader was expected to be a confidence builder who is decisive and intelligent, good at team building and communicating, as well as trustworthy, just and honest (Den Hartog, House, Hanges, Ruiz-Quintanilla & Dorfman, 1999; House et al., 2004). Thus, clearly, trust-related characteristics are universally seen as important for leaders to be able to effectively influence others.
In addition, trust in leaders is generally found to have positive correlates or outcomes in organizations. For example, Podsakoff and colleauges (1990) showed that trust in leaders related positively to employee organizational citizenship behaviour. Grant and Sumanth (2009) found in their research in mission-driven organizations that managers’ perceived trustworthiness related positively to employees’ experienced task significance as well as pro-social motivation and pro-social behaviour. Also, Davis, Schoorman, Mayer and Tan (2000) found that employees’ trust in the general manager of their restaurant was related to higher financial performance of the restaurant (sales and profits) and to reduced employee turnover. In line with this, in their meta-analytical review of the research, Dirks and Ferrin (2002) show that overall, trust in leaders was positively related to many desirable outcomes, including enhanced job performance, organizational citizenship behaviour, satisfaction, commitment and reduced turnover intentions. Its many positive correlates and outcomes suggest that trust in leaders can form an important resource for organizations. For example, Hernandez, Long and Sitkin (2014) suggest follower trust can ‘facilitate the achievement of organizational goals, the implementation of organizational changes, and the ability to guide organizations through challenging situations’ (p. 1).
Gao, Janssen and Shi (2011) showed that trust in the leader is positively related to employee voice. When employees trust their leader, they are more likely to take the risk to speak up with their opinions, concerns, suggestions and recommendations about work matters. In contrast, low trust makes it less likely that they will risk voicing such matters. Employee voice can help improve organizational processes and decision-making (e.g. Morrison, 2011). However, Gao et al. (2015) also showed that the main effect of leader trust does not always hold and should be considered within boundary conditions. Specifically, they found that empowering leader behaviours moderated the relationship between leader trust and employee voice: the positive relationship between trust in leader and employee voice only existed when employees perceive their leaders to be empowering. Thus, they found that trust only leads to more employee voice when leaders actively encourage participation and invite and encourage such voice. When leaders do not exhibit empowering leader behaviours, leader trust remained unrelated to voice. This interactive effect held for three empowering behaviours, namely participative decision-making, informing and coaching (Gao et al., 2011). These findings suggests that trust in the leader in and of itself may not always be sufficient to produce positive outcomes, but that the (leadership) context also remains important to be able to fully benefit from the existence of such trust. More research on the boundedness of the outcomes of trust in the leader is of interest.
It is also important to note much of the theorizing around trust in leaders suggests that the directionality of causation (mostly) runs from trust in leaders to different outcomes, for example, employees will show more citizenship when they trust their leader, rather than vice versa (engaging in citizenship affects trust levels). Yet, much of the research to date is correlational in nature and cannot rule out that reversed causation also plays a role for certain outcomes; for example, it may be that having high trust affects subsequent performance positively. However, it may also be easier to trust the leaders in better-performing organizations as success of the collective may be attributed to its leader and make them seem more capable. Thus, outcomes such as success may form a trustworthiness cue for leader ability. Likely, causation between trust and performance runs both ways (trust better enabling performance as well as performance inspiring further trust). This may also hold for other outcomes; for example, high trust may make teams more cohesive over time, but cohesiveness may also form a benevolence-related trust cue in teams. Future research on this reciprocal influence between trust and outcomes as well as more generally the causal processes involved would be of interest. Below, I turn to how trust in leaders develops and what different forms such trust in leaders can take.
As discussed above, trust seems to have many positive outcomes and correlates in organizations, and given that trust in leaders plays such a positive role in organizations, it is interesting to explore how such trust comes about. Or, in other words, when and why do employees decide to trust their leaders or not to do so?
Trust in organizational leaders at different levels can take different forms. For example, trust in leadership is to some extent role-based. In other words, the role or office leaders hold and their training or background in that role play a role in the trust others place in leaders and managers (see e.g. Kramer, 1999). However, person-specific knowledge about a given leader’s actions, capabilities or intentions also strongly affect interpersonal trust as they impact on how trustworthy the leader is perceived to be. Behaviours and characteristics form trustworthiness cues for employees, and a leader’s trustworthiness in the eyes of followers relies on the intentions that followers attribute to the leader (e.g. Searle, Weibel & Den Hartog, 2011). Is the leader’s behaviour perceived to be driven by benevolence and integrity versus malevolence and dishonesty? Is the leader seen as competent and able to set the right goals and achieve them? Below I discuss the research on how leaders’ characteristics affect followers’ trust in more detail.
Followers thus try to judge the leader’s characteristics such as integrity, predictability, dependability, fairness, competence and ability. Cognitive inferences they make on these char acteristics affect whether they decide to trust the leader, and these inferences also affect whether employees show cooperative or trusting behaviours themselves (cf. Dietz & Den Hartog, 2006). This process refers to what Dirks and Ferrin (2002) label the character-based perspective of trust in leadership and it relates to what McAllister focuses on as cognitive trust. Such trustworthiness inferences seem to be universally important in relation to leadership. As noted above, in the so-called GLOBE study (see e.g. House et al., 2004) several such character-related trust qualities were universally endorsed as important for outstanding leadership (e.g. being just, honest and intelligent; see Den Hartog et al., 1999).
The character-based perspective thus focuses on the perception of the leader’s character – often operationalized in terms of ability, benevolence and integrity – and how this influences a follower’s sense of vulnerability in a hierarchical relationship (Mayer et al., 1995). As noted, trust-related concerns about leaders are important because the leader tends to have decision authority that can have a significant impact on employees (e.g. performance evaluations, pay, promotions, task assignments). However, the basis or nature of interpersonal trust may vary (or may over time even develop) from a shallow, calculative form of trust in which a cost-benefit analysis is central, to a more knowledge-based form of trust in which perceived reliability and dependability of the relationship partner (in this case the leader) are important to form a deeper relational bond of trust that is more affective and derived from shared experiences, identities and values (e.g. Lewicki & Bunker, 1996).
Thus, in addition to the character-based or cognitive form of trust, Dirks and Ferrin (2002) distinguish the relational perspective of trust in leadership that focuses on how followers understand the nature of the leader–follower relationship. McAllister (1995) refers to this relationship-based form of trust as affective trust. Social exchange processes are often proposed to play a central role in this form of trust (e.g. Whitener, Brodt, Korsgaard & Werner, 1998). Followers perceive a high-quality relationship and in this relationship care, consideration and reciprocation are central variables. Researchers have, for example, used this relational perspective in describing how trust in leaders can elicit citizenship behaviour (e.g. Konovsky & Pugh, 1994).
The above character-based and relational trust perspectives are clearly linked. Leader characteristics and behaviours both form cues for trustworthiness and can directly affect the relationship between leader and follower. However, while both affect clearly trust, some research suggests that the relational perspective might be most central to the development of follower trust. Hernandez and colleagues (2014) studied how leader behaviour relates to trust in leaders through three lenses: the leader (personal leadership), the leader–follower relationship (relational leadership) and the situation (contextual leadership). Personal leadership behaviours are leader-related and can be thought of leader-focused leadership behaviours that convey to followers that the leader has personal qualities that merit trust as discussed above. Relational leadership behaviours relate to the dyad relationship level. Relationship-focused leadership behaviours are those aimed to facilitate the connection between a leader and follower, build their relationship and emphasize that leaders will not take advantage of followers’ trust. Contextual leadership behaviours are situation-focused leadership behaviours that help followers interpret the context and organizational dynamics.
When they were assessed independently, Hernandez and colleagues found that all three forms of leader behaviour affected follower trust. When considered jointly, relational leadership behaviours formed the most proximal source of trust and mediated the impact of personal and contextual leadership behaviour on trust. These findings suggest that leader behaviours that communicate competence and other personal characteristics (as suggested in the character-based approach) as well as broader context-focused leadership behaviours mostly ‘influence follower trust through the relational features of follower treatment, such as leader behaviours that demonstrate concern, respect, and fairness’ (Hernandez et al., 2014, p. 17). These findings start to point to the importance of leader behaviour for follower trust; thus, below, I discuss the research on how different (perceived) behaviours of leaders or styles of leadership affect employees’ trust in the leaders positively or negatively.
Many different leader behaviours have been related directly to trust in the leader and to subsequent attitudinal and behavioural outcomes (with trust often proposed to form an important mediator between leadership and such outcomes). Here, I discuss several examples of such leader behaviours and the relationships that have been shown with trust, starting with leader behaviours that relate positively to trust and then turning to behaviours that erode trust.
One of the most classic distinctions in leader behaviour arguably focuses on task- versus relationship-oriented leader behaviour, also often labelled initiating structure versus consideration (see Bass & Bass, 2008, for an overview of the classic studies in this area; and see Judge, Piccolo & Ilies, 2004, for a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of both of these classic behaviours). Relationship-oriented leader behaviour or consideration describes leader behaviours aimed to develop good relationships based on mutual trust, respect and a certain warmth between leader and followers as well as among the team as a whole. This form of leader behaviour is closely related to the aforementioned relationship-based or affective forms of trust. A leader’s task orientation or initiating structure focuses on how the leader organizes, directs and defines group activities, roles and tasks and as such relates more to knowledge-based or ability-related trust elements (Searle et al., 2011).
In the last few decades, transformational, visionary and charismatic models have been very influential in the field of leadership research, albeit not without criticism (see e.g. van Knippenberg, & Sitkin, 2013, for one such critique). These models propose that both transformational and charismatic leaders articulate an attractive and inspiring vision and behave in ways that reinforce the values inherent in that vision. Followers come to share this vision of the collective future with which they can identify and become highly committed to the goals of the collective (e.g. Bass, 1985; Shamir, House & Arthur, 1993).
Charisma involves followers bestowing exceptional qualities on the leader (e.g. Shamir et al., 1993). Transformational and charismatic leadership are related, yet while attributions of charisma and the strongly related element of inspirational motivation through a communicated vision are central to both charismatic and transformational leadership, transformational leadership was originally conceptualized as being broader. Bass (1985) proposed that intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration additionally form transformational leader behaviours (Bass, 1985). Intellectual stimulation focuses on whether the leader asks followers to provide ideas and input and challenge current assumptions. Individualized consideration focuses on leaders providing support and mentoring to meet individual needs and caring about individual followers’ concerns.
Conceptually, transformational forms of leadership are proposed to relate strongly to (relationship-based, affective and identification-based) trust. In line with this, both field and experi mental research shows that transformational leadership relates positively to trust in the leader (e.g. Gillespie & Mann, 2004; Jung & Avolio, 2000; Pillai, Schriesheim & Williams, 1999; Podsakoff et al., 1990; see also the Dirks & Ferrin 2002 meta-analysis) and such trust in the leader related to transformational leadership seems to spill over to trust in generalized others in the collective such as management and coworkers (e.g. Den Hartog, 2003).
Research also shows that trust in the leader mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and other relevant outcomes such as organizational citizenship behaviour (e.g. Podsakoff et al., 1990). As such, enhanced follower trust seems to form one of the mechanisms through which transformational forms of leadership affect followers. Although transformational leadership thus clearly has quite a substantial relationship with trust, the exact causal process remains unclear, and Dirks and Ferrin (2002) suggest that one issue that needs to be solved is to identify which behavioural components are responsible for relationships with different trust components, for example, role modelling and charisma may be more related to character-based trust, and consideration to relationship-focused forms of trust.
Transformational leadership is usually contrasted with transactional leadership. Transactional leadership is an exchange-based form of leadership, focusing on leader–follower relations as a series of (implicitly economic) exchanges between leaders and followers where, in exchange for promised rewards, followers will perform as expected. Here too trust is important as followers will need to trust their leader to be fair, keep their word and provide them with the promised rewards in exchange for their efforts. The meta-analysis by Dirks and Ferrin (2002) indeed shows transactional leadership also relates to trust in the leader as expected, albeit somewhat less strongly than to transformational leadership.
More recently, ethical forms of leadership have received increasing attention. Ethical leadership has been defined as ‘the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement and decision-making’ (Brown, Trevino & Harrison, 2005, p. 120) and is also described in terms of the socially responsible use of power (De Hoogh & Den Hartog, 2009). Ethical leadership has been proposed to enhance both followers’ cog nitive and affective trust and, in turn, to enhance desirable forms of follower behaviour (e.g. De Hoogh & Den Hartog, 2009; Eisenbeiss, 2012).
Ethical leaders are seen as moral people and moral managers (cf. Brown & Trevino, 2006). This implies they are honest and trustworthy (that is, they show trustworthiness cues which should relate to character-based forms of trust) and that they act fairly and supportively, create a work environment that is psychologically safe and in which ethical standards are upheld, and in doing so they build trusting relationships with followers. Both cognitive and affective trust (cf. McAllister, 1995) are likely to result and will make followers more willing to engage in potentially risky and trust-related work behaviours that can benefit the organization, such as voicing concerns and ideas, reporting errors or taking the initiative to solve problems (e.g. Den Hartog, 2015; Kalshoven et al., 2013).
Initial research supports the proposed positive relationship between ethical leadership and trust (and the mediational role of trust in the relationship between ethical leadership and subsequent outcomes such as follower citizenship). For example, positive relationships were found of ethical leadership with trust in the leader (e.g. Brown et al., 2005; Lu, 2013; Newman, Kiazad, Miao & Cooper, 2013) as well as trust in wider management (Den Hartog & De Hoogh, 2009). In addition to the unidimensional measure of overall ethical leadership that was developed by Brown and colleagues (2005) and that most of these studies used, Kalshoven, De Hoogh and Den Hartog (2011) developed a multi-dimensional measure of ethical leadership differentiating between seven related but different ethical leader behaviours. Specifically these are fairness, power sharing, people orientation, integrity, role clarification, ethical guidance and a concern for sustainability. They found that all seven of these perceived behavioural dimensions related positively and significantly to followers’ trust in the leader.
In addition, Kalshoven and Den Hartog (2009) proposed and found that group prototypicality and trust sequentially mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and leader effectiveness. Building on social identity theory, leaders’ group prototypicality has been shown to form an important determinant of perceived leader effectiveness (for a review, see van Knippenberg, van Knippenberg, Cremer, & Hogg, 2004). A prototype forms an ideal representation of appropriate attitudes and behaviours in the group (e.g. Hogg, 2001). A leader who is characterized as the group prototype is typically more effective in influencing the employees within the workgroup because followers identify with such a leader. Giessner and van Knippenberg (2008) showed that prototypicality influences leader effectiveness via trust, and Kalshoven and Den Hartog (2009) further extended this to show that ethical leaders who form powerful role models for employees tend to be seen as more group prototypical and, in turn, they are more trusted and more effective. While this may form one mechanism by which ethical leaders affect trust, the research to date is mainly cross-sectional and the exact causal mechanisms that occur are in need of further study.
Related forms of leadership that should relate positively to employees’ trust include servant leadership (e.g. Graham, 1991; Liden et al., 2007) and authentic leadership (e.g. Gardner et al., 2011). For example, servant leadership behaviour emphasizes the leader’s personal integrity and their role in serving others including employees and focuses on how leaders forgo self-interest and attend to subordinates’ personal needs and help followers to develop and prosper (Graham, 1991; Chan & Mak, 2014; Liden et al., 2007). As expected, perceiving one’s leader to engage in servant leadership behaviour correlates positively with trusting this leader (e.g. Chan & Mak, 2014) as does authentic leadership, a construct that focuses on leaders staying true to their values and behaving consistently, while focusing on positive psychological capacities (e.g. Clapp-Smith et al., 2009).
Also related to ethical leadership is the work on leader fairness and more specifically interactional justice that focuses on the quality of the interpersonal treatment individuals receive when procedures are implemented in the organization (e.g. Bies & Moag, 1986) as such implementation is often done by leaders. These fairness- and justice-focused types of behaviours are similarly expected and found to relate positively to trust in the leader. A meta-analysis of the justice literature by Cohen-Charash and Spector (2001) shows that justice indeed relates positively to trust. In addition, the meta-analysis by Dirks and Ferrin (2002) showed that interactional justice and transformational leadership had the largest relationships with trust in the leader, followed by transactional leadership and participative decision-making (the meta-analysis of course did not yet include more recent leadership styles such as ethical or authentic). As noted, more work on causality and how the trust process develops over time in relation to different leader behaviours is needed.
The work to date suggests that leader behaviour can strengthen the bond of trust, however leaders’ negative or deceitful behaviours can of course also erode trust. For example, unethical leadership which can be defined as ‘behaviors conducted and decisions made by organizational leaders that are illegal and/or violate moral standards, and those that impose processes and structures that promote unethical conduct by followers’ (Brown & Mitchell, 2010, p. 11) should relate negatively to different forms of employee trust. Such behaviours will undermine perceptions of integrity, benevolence and ability and thus form cues that a leader is not trustworthy. Examples of such unethical or destructive forms of leadership include abusive, despotic and undermining leadership (De Hoogh & Den Hartog, 2008; Duffy et al., 2002; Tepper, 2007).
Kalshoven and Den Hartog (2013) note that many unethical leader behaviours are in direct contrast with the aforementioned forms of ethical leader behaviour and have opposing effects. For example, such leaders show a lack of consideration and care, are unfair, hostile, exploitative, self-aggrandizing and harsh as opposed to treating others fairly, supportively and respectfully (see also Den Hartog, 2015). They are not intent on acting benevolently and do not build supportive relationships with followers. Followers of destructive leaders are thus found to have negative attitudes and show resistance towards their leaders (see the meta-analysis by Schyns & Schilling, 2013). These unethical forms of leadership are therefore also likely to relate negatively to both cognitive and affective forms of trust in the leader. In addition, passive leaders are not dependable, show no care for others and show minimal effort or involvement, and thus passive leadership should also relate negatively to trust, which indeed is also found empirically (e.g. Gillespie & Mann, 2004). More research on this erosion of trust in leaders and when and how such damaged trust might be repaired is of interest to the field.
In addition, it is of interest to develop further understanding of whether and when trust breaches by one leader also affect trust in subsequent or other leaders (i.e. is there a spillover effect from one target to another?). While one would expect such ‘spillover’ trust in subsequent or other leaders to be less strongly affected by such breaches than trust in the focal (trust breaching) leader, organizational justice research does suggest that such spillover to other targets may occur (see, e.g. Rupp, Shao, Jones & Liao, 2014).
Another area that is in need of attention is that leader behaviour is not always consistent, and this inconsistency and lack of predictability is likely to erode trust in the leader (Den Hartog, 2015). Research on behavioural integrity focuses on the perceived alignment between leaders’ words and deeds and the effects of this on followers. Whether a leader’s words and deeds are aligned or misaligned strongly affects employees’ trust and mistrust (e.g. Simons, 2002). Similarly, different actions can be misaligned or contradicting. Leaders can, for example show both ethical and unethical acts towards followers. For example, Duffy et al. (2002) found that being both unethical and supportive towards followers negatively affects outcomes. Showing this inconsistent mix of ethical and unethical leader behaviour was even related to lower levels of trust and higher levels of insecurity on the part of followers than when unethical leader behaviour was shown by itself.
Also, observing others being treated badly is likely to affect the feelings of the observer (Den Hartog, 2015). For example, research shows that when employees observed leader bullying of other followers, they experienced lower levels of job satisfaction and higher levels of stress and turnover (e.g. Rayner, Hoel, & Cooper, 2002). This is also likely to hold for trust, with observing bad treatment of others eroding trust in the leader. This too forms an interesting area for research.
In addition, unequal and differential treatment between followers may negatively affect trust levels. For example, Duffy, Ganster, Shaw, Johnson and Pagon (2006) argue that when leaders treat all employees badly, the impact of bad treatment is likely to be attenuated compared to leaders who treat a single employee differently. Similarly, research on justice climate level and strength shows that these interact to predict outcomes (e.g. Colquitt, Noe & Jackson 2002). For example, Buengeler and Den Hartog (2015) found high justice in the interaction with the line manager (i.e. high justice climate level) promotes the performance of diverse teams, but only when team members shared this perception (i.e. there was also high climate strength) and not when leaders treated team members differentially. This may also occur for trust. Future work thus needs to further consider what the impact of showing inconsistent leader behaviours towards some or all followers on trust is and address the role of observer effects in the trust process in more detail.
Leaders do not only affect trust and subsequent outcomes through their own characteristics and behaviours, but also through their contextual behaviours (Hernandez et al., 2014) as well as their key role in the implementation of broader management practices, such as control systems (Weibel et al., 2015) and HRM practices (Searle et al., 2011). For example, as Purcell and Hutchinson (2007, p. 3) suggest: ‘The HR practices perceived or experienced by employees will, to a growing extent, be those delivered or enacted by line managers, especially front-line managers with direct supervisory responsibility.’ Den Hartog and Boon (2013) note that leaders’ HR roles typically involve the performance management process, including setting objectives, monitoring progress and appraising performance, and providing performance feedback. They also often involve selecting new employees, determining training and development needs, and they can offer more or less participation in decision-making. Procedural fairness as well as skill in execution of these crucial HR tasks as well as leader characteristics and behaviours are all likely to affect trust in the leader as well as trust in the organization as a whole.
In addition to their direct impact on employees through leader behaviour and management tasks, leaders also affect trust indirectly through creating a certain work environment and work climate. For example, leaders can help establish an ethical climate (Dickson et al., 2001), and in turn, this climate can affect mutual trust levels. Work on ethical leadership suggests that the process of influencing ethical norms and the corresponding attitudes and behaviours is likely to start at the top of organizations and cascade down via the existing middle management and supervisory levels in the organization. Top managers are the role models for managers at lower levels who in turn are the role models for the shop floor (Mayer et al., 2009). Thus, the behaviour of leaders at multiple levels is likely to directly or indirectly affect employee trust levels. Most research on trust in leaders focuses on direct supervisors and more research on the impact of more distal organizational leaders on trust is of interest. Also, Fulmer and Gelfand (2012) indicate research should clearly distinguish between trust at a given level of analysis and trust in specific different referents (such as the leader, team, organization) and it would be of interest to the field to better understand the role of leadership in trust both at different levels and towards different referents.
Besides character and behaviour of the leader, individual differences as well as behaviour on the part of the follower may play a role in the development of trust between leaders and followers. For example, employees having a secure attachment style (Simmons et al., 2009) has been linked to higher levels of trust in leaders. Also, employees’ propensity to trust has been proposed to facilitate the development of interpersonal trust because individuals with a high propensity to trust are willing to form new relationships and to give others a second chance when needed (e.g. Dirks & Ferrin, 2002; Fulmer & Gelfand, 2012). Indeed, Colquitt and colleagues (2007) found that individuals’ propensity to trust is positively correlated with perceiving others as trustworthy (in terms of ability, benevolence and integrity; cf. Mayer et al., 1995). This should also hold for trust in leaders.
In addition, Grant and Sumanth (2009) found that perceiving managers as trustworthy strengthened the relationship between employees’ prosocial motivation and their performance. Dispositional trust propensity played a role such that high trust propensity compensated for low manager trustworthiness to strengthen the relationship between employees’ prosocial motivation and performance. More work on how individual differences between followers affect the bond of trust with the leader as well as outcomes would be of interest.
As noted, most work in this area to date focuses on followers’ trust in leaders, rather than leaders’ trust in followers or mutual trust. Interestingly, Sniezek and Van Swol (2001) found that individuals with low power trusted their counterparts with high power more than the highpower counterparts trusted them. Thus, trust in a dyad is not always equally strong for both partners. More research on when and why leaders place more or less trust in their followers and how this affects (leader) decision-making and performance would be of interest to further understand the trust between leaders and followers and its effects.
The above study clearly shows that trust in leaders matters for organizationally relevant outcomes and that there are many ways in which leaders can build or erode such trust. At the same time it is important to note that trust in leaders and management or trust in followers does not always have an equally large impact on outcomes and that trust is not always an equally salient concern (see e.g. Searle et al., 2011). For example, research by Brockner, Siegel, Daly, Tyler and Martin (1997) focused on whether employees’ trust in authorities affects employees’ support for these organizational authorities. They reasoned that issues of trust are less salient or critical in determining support for leaders when outcomes of decisions are favourable for employees than when they are unfavourable. Receiving favourable outcomes is far less likely to raise questions of trustworthiness with employees as these favourable outcomes themselves suggest that the leader can be relied upon to benefit the employee. Thus the impact of trust should be less strong under those conditions. Instead, when they receive unfavourable outcomes, employees’ trust levels become more salient in determining their support in the authority, and the relationship should then be stronger. The findings of Brockner and colleagues (1997) indeed showed that trust related more strongly to support for the authority when outcomes were unfavourable. Thus, for organizations, ensuring high trust levels among employees is especially important when decisions with unfavourable outcomes for the employees may need to be taken, and it should form an especially salient concern under such conditions (see also Searle et al., 2011).
More generally speaking, there may also be other conditions under which trust is more or less salient or important, and more research on this is of interest. One more general example of such a situational factor, suggested by Dirks and Ferrin (2002), is that the greater the uncertainty or vulnerability in a context (e.g. a situation of downsizing or crisis), the more mindful individuals may be of trust, and trust is then also more likely to have a larger impact on outcomes. In addition, whether cognitive or affective trust is more relevant may also depend on the situation (Dirks & Ferrin, 2002). For example, believing that a more socially distant leader has integrity may affect outcomes more than affective trust, whereas in relation to one’s daily supervisor both forms of trust in may have an impact on outcomes. Creating a better understanding of when which form of trust is more or less salient is both of scientific interest and of practical relevance for organizations as it can help direct the attention of trust-building efforts.
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