Trust: The Broken Spine

00:00:00: Question, do you trust yourself?

00:00:16: Hello and welcome back.

00:00:18: Today's episode is about Trust.

00:00:21: like respect it sits at the heart of any relationship.

00:00:25: Imagine what happens when trust has gone in your partnership or You lose it in a friend When you fail to build with your team And customers.

00:00:35: It's a word heavily used often proclaimed and demanded In particular leadership.

00:00:42: it feels overused and increasingly empty.

00:00:45: Trust in leaders is in decline across organizations, governments and other institutions.

00:00:52: but trust is the spine of our society And what we are watching at every layer of it Is not just a system failure.

00:01:01: It's also a failure Of humanity.

00:01:04: Companies have firing thousands and replacing them with AI tools without fully understanding the value their human workers were delivering.

00:01:12: Politicians use trust as a campaign word, while making decisions that are serving personal interests instead of people who voted for them.

00:01:21: AI technology that is reshaping the entire world is being built in money-driven race and speed does not allow questions to be answered first.

00:01:32: Geopolitical instability driven by economic interest and ego falls on millions.

00:01:39: Social media prioritizing content with strong emotional triggers is driving polarization and misinformation, while established media channels that used to be the most trusted institutions are facing scrutiny and decline.

00:01:54: And trust between people and generations is breaking too!

00:01:58: From individual-to-organizational in societal level – The erosion of Trust Is Obvious.

00:02:05: What Israeli considered as the volatility of Trust?

00:02:09: When it's given, it has great power.

00:02:11: It becomes a connective tissue for everything else but its fragile and the effort of building it can be undone in a moment.

00:02:20: What happens to world where trust is broken?

00:02:24: How can we bring it back especially in the age of AI?

00:02:26: In twenty-twenty one A group of key employees at OpenAI The company behind chat GPT looked At the product being built and the direction, The company was going.

00:02:40: And they decided it was the wrong one.

00:02:43: among them were Dario Antonella Amade.

00:02:46: Dario had been vice president of research.

00:02:49: he had helped to build One Of the most important AI products millions of people use today.

00:02:55: They left because they didn't trust the way OpenAI Was developing.

00:02:59: It was the speed values that safety considerations That didn't match what they believed AI development required.

00:03:06: So they walked out and started Anthropic.

00:03:09: What they did is rare, most people in similar situations would have stayed.

00:03:15: a lot of People do it every day when something fills off and heading In the wrong direction.

00:03:21: raising concerns requires courage And the willingness to risk our position.

00:03:26: We may send a considerate email and hope The message travels upward we hope the Direction will change and When raising concerns goes nowhere We may tell ourselves, there is nothing that we can do.

00:03:39: This is what happens most of the time when people see something they cannot stand behind.

00:03:45: Walking away like the Amadeus did Is not just a courageous decision but strongly driven by values and integrity.

00:03:53: Eventually it's self-trust decision!

00:04:04: Easier said than done, I know.

00:04:06: This is not a morality statement.

00:04:09: Values and integrity can be just as fleeting as trust And the leaders who found it anthropic on safety principles in a clear set of values are subject to the same pressures every leader faces.

00:04:23: The power paradox episode made it clear Power can corrupt anyone In competition especially in markets like AI.

00:04:30: technology can change principles and values quickly.

00:04:35: The AI race is moving at full speed, And it's not a force anyone can control.

00:04:41: But over the past years I've been watching several interviews with the Anthropic Leadership Team.

00:04:48: What i see overall Is something worth naming.

00:04:52: In last year's interview With Anderson Cooper Amade was asked if he worried about the unknowns of building AI technology.

00:05:00: Without hesitation he said, are likely to be even more unpredictable than past technological changes.

00:05:33: So he explicitly admits these are guesses, Even if they're educated ones.

00:05:39: Think about how rare it is To hear that from the CEO of a company valued in hundreds billions.

00:05:46: What I see him and other people from Anthropics speak Is the kind leadership builds trust Integrity driven by clear values The agency to step away from work they could not stand behind and build something different.

00:06:02: Responsibility, end care for the second or third order consequences And honesty paired with self-reflection when asked hard questions.

00:06:11: Now whether Anthropic can sustain that under pressure of market therein?

00:06:16: I don't know.

00:06:17: Some early commitments are already being tested reshaped but seeing these qualities so far gives me reason to trust their leadership a bit more than other players in the race.

00:06:31: It also gives me hope for different kind of leadership.

00:06:34: however, the corruptive force of politics and competition driven by money make that hope more of a spark then burning flame.

00:06:42: And The Reason is not just this observation & my experience with leaders across industries & organizations.

00:06:49: We have lost trust in ourselves Trust In our voice & agency Because our values and integrity get more and more shaped by the environment we accept, And help to sustain.

00:07:02: Like the leader I described in The Power Paradox Despite good intentions she got shaped By the leadership of her boss.

00:07:09: We get pulled into the complexity Of a society we don't question enough But trust at an individual level is another important foundation.

00:07:19: It has also been quietly collapsing for years.

00:07:23: We rarely notice it because we're always super busy.

00:07:26: Information overload drains our attention, we accept what we are told –because speaking up has become more costly!

00:07:34: We follow the loudest voices and buy products with the slickest marketing… And often click agree to terms & conditions without reading any of them.

00:07:44: Meanwhile It feels more and more contradictory that technology is meant free us in multiple ways.

00:07:50: We're given the coolest productivity tools, and management has done its best to put efficiency into everything.

00:07:58: Still we have less time for many other things that matter in our lives than real leadership work!

00:08:14: instead of building the capabilities we need to work with AI.

00:08:24: We also get more controlled than ever before.

00:08:27: Opting out for being tracked almost everywhere is no longer just a couple annoying extra clicks, but almost impossible.

00:08:35: Devices used by other people are now collecting data that we never consented to share.

00:08:41: The environments we quietly accept may not have changed our intentions to do the right thing but these small acceptances compound into the loss of self-trust.

00:08:55: And we are now living inside what those small decisions build, as leaders and consumers.

00:09:01: The current leadership is a cumulative effect on millions of trust choices – the choices for which to buy or use, the leadership that we tolerate—what we keep paying and trading even when we know better.

00:09:16: Companies that cut corners are not doing it because they're all run by evil people.

00:09:21: They're doing it, and the market is rewarding them.

00:09:26: Leaders who walk back on their people-and-safety pledges under competitive pressures respond to our signal we're sending.

00:09:34: It's a signal that says Convenience & Speed Matter More Than Care Cost And Profit Matter More than Values.

00:09:42: What we're getting now matters more than the consequences that follow later.

00:09:47: We are choosing and voting every day, we just don't see it this way.

00:09:53: so when look at leadership say is broken have to be willing to look our part in that equation.

00:10:00: Leadership only gets us good as a demand signal sending if want different leadership become a different audience.

00:10:11: And this starts with a question most of us hardly ask.

00:10:15: Do we trust ourselves?

00:10:17: Because trust in our selves matters just as much, as trust in others and it shapes what we expect from the people where supposed to follow.

00:10:27: if We don't trust ourselves To have agency to change something that doesn't seem right We won't notice The moments Where we actually could.

00:10:36: If we Don't Trust Our Values We will keep accepting things that go against them.

00:10:42: And if we don't trust ourselves to have any meaningful influence, we'll stop

00:10:47: trying.".

00:10:48: That is how careless leadership sustains!

00:11:07: seem disconnected from the implications of their decisions and actions.

00:11:13: So what can one person possibly do?

00:11:15: I hear you!

00:11:16: Rarely, did we get someone like Daria Amade admitting We Can't Predict Everything for Sure or Jack Clark his co-founder calling The Frontier Of AI a place of genuinely unknown unknowns.

00:11:30: If even those at the top cannot fully see the consequences How are the rest of us supposed to navigate this?

00:11:39: The complexity feels paralyzing, and the whole AI fear narrative only amplifies it.

00:11:45: But we cannot afford to lose our agency!

00:11:48: When development itself is moving too fast for anyone fully understanding when wrong leaders hold strings... ...the worst thing that can be done is just hope.

00:11:59: We cannot hand responsibility over whoever is loudest who pretends they know where this is going and just hope everything will eventually work out.

00:12:08: We may not be in a position to control outcomes, what we have is smaller but more important And that is to keep paying attention To What Is In Our Control?

00:12:18: Asking questions and deciding which leaders we follow and whose products we use.

00:12:24: Agency means to keep choosing consciously.

00:12:27: Each of those actions might feel small But They Compound.

00:12:31: If enough of us started paying more attention to who builds what we use and what happens when their leaders are tested, the market signal could shift.

00:12:40: The leader's building products with care would no longer be punished for it—the people raising the right questions wouldn't be called fear mongers —and companies cutting corners will not be rewarded

00:12:53: anymore.".

00:12:58: Research also confirms that trust and leadership is declining, especially at the top level.

00:13:04: Gardner ran a survey with more than three thousand five hundred employees.

00:13:08: They asked them about trust in their senior leaders.

00:13:11: The result was published on Harvard Business Review last December.

00:13:15: Only forty-eight percent said they trust people needing their organization.

00:13:20: So more then half don't trust the people running companies work for.

00:13:25: Do you want to know why?

00:13:27: When the researchers looked at what specifically broke that trust, three behaviors stood out.

00:13:32: Withholding information especially in times of high uncertainty.

00:13:37: people are less likely to trust leaders who hide information from them or do not tell the whole story.

00:13:43: Scapegoating one of my favorites because I've seen it way too often.

00:13:48: most of us don't trust leaders whose shift blame and responsibility for failures onto others or external factors.

00:13:55: The third behavior reversing decisions, leaders who backtrack under pressure and don't stand for what they decided earlier.

00:14:03: And what do those three behaviors have in common?

00:14:06: They are often considered just a lack of communication skills – they're not!

00:14:10: We can't fix them with the better town hall or more polished message.

00:14:14: These are primarily failures of self-trust…and I want to make an important distinction because self trust gets often confused with self confidence.

00:14:24: but Self-confidence is what we can see from the outside.

00:14:29: The decisiveness and clarity in meetings, the willingness to make decisions or the ability to take a stand.

00:14:36: Self-trust is what sits underneath it.

00:14:39: It's the reliance on our own integrity Our judgment And our values... ...the conviction To act in line with What We actually Stand for even under pressure.

00:14:49: So self trust Is the foundation.

00:14:52: Self confidence builds On top of it.

00:14:55: What we are seeing in many leaders today is different.

00:14:58: Super confident on the outside, shaky on the inside The performance of certainty and confidence without inner stability to support it because a foundation of values and integrity Is no longer there or has never existed.

00:15:12: but that gap between Performance & Foundation is where trust breaks.

00:15:18: This is where Confident Humility comes back In –the practice That keeps our confidence And self-trust connected.

00:15:24: I talked about it in the confidence trap.

00:15:27: It is what allows a leader to say, We cannot simply ask it back once it is broken.

00:15:57: we can only do the slow work of earning it again, if we get a second chance.

00:16:02: The same Gardner research found something else to consider.

00:16:06: Employees are more likely to trust senior leaders who show authentic concern for what they care about.

00:16:13: So its not confidence or charisma but Authentic Concern which IS just another word for Care.

00:16:20: Authentical concern cannot be performed.

00:16:23: Leaders who genuinely care have done the inner work of knowing what they stand for, What their value and Who They Actually Are.

00:16:31: So what is happening at the societal level right now?

00:16:34: Is not separate from what is Happening At The Individual Level.

00:16:39: It Is The Same Pattern At A Bigger Scale!

00:16:42: At This Scale Trust Does Not Collapse Without Millions Of Individual Trust Failures Underneath.

00:16:48: it happens Through The Leaders We Accept The Products we Keep Buying behavior we tolerate in our workplaces as well as our personal lives, and through the voices we amplify or the voices that we ignore.

00:17:01: We aren't just observers of the trust collapse—we are part of it!

00:17:06: In a blog article I wrote recently called Careless Leaders…I talked about how cynicism protects the wrong kind of leadership because cynicism makes us stop believing And once we stop believing in our own agency, We stop using it.

00:17:24: Carelessness doesn't sustain because there are too many careless leaders.

00:17:29: It sustains because the rest of us stopped caring enough to challenge them.

00:17:34: care begins where self-trust returns and Self trust Returns with small repeated conscious decisions The decision to question something instead of accepting it To look at who built a tool before giving them our data and paying attention, even when it is exhausting.

00:17:54: We still decide!

00:17:56: So let me return to the question I asked earlier – can we bring trust back especially in the age of AI?

00:18:05: Yes by being leaders that want us to follow….

00:18:08: …and using our agency to help establish this kind of leadership everywhere else.

00:18:14: Our Agency isn't as small as cynicism makes us believe.

00:18:18: It just takes more consistency.

00:18:21: That is the compounding effect!

00:18:23: If we start investing into it today, and add a little bit from now on... ...it will make a difference.

00:18:31: So what are practices that help us to keep our self-trust?

00:18:35: And building trust with others in such complex environment?

00:18:39: To give you this job of my reflection episode which I'll publish Friday What i want leave herewith today is simple observations.

00:18:49: So ask yourself, where have I stopped paying attention?

00:18:53: Do I trust the products that are used?

00:18:55: Which type of leaders do I follow?

00:18:58: Do people trust me?

00:19:00: What other kinds values stand for even when they might become inconvenient.

00:19:06: Notice how self-trust has eroded through what you've accepted while staying quiet because raising a question fell too costly.

00:19:14: Each moment is small loss to agency and each of them is something you can choose to interrupt, certainly not all at once.

00:19:24: But the fact that You stayed with me till this point tells Me Something Important about You!

00:19:30: And That Is...that YOU CARE!

00:19:33: You care enough to accept Me saying we are ALL PART OF THE TRUST EROSION AND THAT WE NEED TO RECLAME OUR AGENCY.

00:19:41: Trust starts with us…and so does care – they go hand in hand because trusting someone who doesn't care, could be naive.

00:19:49: And Care Without Trust easily reads as manipulation.

00:19:54: Let's explore what genuine care looks like in the next episode.

00:19:59: I just saw that this podcast has reached people in twenty countries by now.

00:20:03: This gives me hope and courage.

00:20:06: So thanks to everyone whose listening so far!

00:20:10: If you think more people need hear it Please share with them.

00:20:15: Stay curious Stay tuned.

00:20:18: Thanks for tuning into the New Work Playbook, where work is better because people matter!