Stop Trying to be Liked!

Building Trust as a Leader

What’s more important: being liked, or being truly trusted?

In a world full of uncertainty, there’s one thing every team craves: trustworthy leadership.

Leadership is influence, and influence requires trust.

Without trust, you can’t align, inspire, or engage others. You may manage tasks. You may enforce compliance. But leadership? That’s built on a very different foundation:

Character.

You can’t fake trust. You earn it. And while competence matters, it’s character, your integrity, consistency, and care, that becomes the deciding factor.

“Character is doing the right thing even when no one is looking.” — C.S. Lewis

What Makes a Leader Trustworthy?

While trust has been studied for decades across psychology and sociology, Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman’s 1995 model brought lasting clarity to trust in leadership. Their research distilled trustworthiness into three key components:

1. Ability (your skills and competence)
2. Benevolence (your care for others)
3. Integrity (your values and follow-through)

Additional insight comes from Michele and Dennis Reina, experts in organizational trust, and authors of our favorite book on trust – Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace. They expanded the field with their research and identified three types of transactional trust:

1. Contractual Trust (trust of character): Can I count on you? Do you keep commitments, walk your talk, and act consistently?
2. Communication Trust (trust of disclosure): Do you tell the truth? Are you honest, transparent, and willing to speak and hear hard truths?
3. Competence Trust (trust of capability): Do you value my skills and support my growth? Do you respect others’ contributions, involve them in decisions, and acknowledge their strengths?

Trust is not a soft skill. It is the cornerstone of real leadership. In times of uncertainty, teams do not just want direction, they want leaders they can believe in. While task management can function on authority alone, true leadership depends on trust, built through consistent character, clear communication, and authentic care. When leaders embody these qualities, trust becomes a force multiplier. It accelerates collaboration, fuels initiative, and lays the foundation for influence that lasts.

ACTION:

Choose one relationship this week and practice a trust-building habit:
✔ Keep a promise.
✔ Initiate a conversation about expectations.
✔ Be intentionally consistent.

Trust doesn’t require perfection. It requires presence, character, and care.

Likeability may open doors. But only trust invites people to follow you through them. – Donna Brighton