Trust Isn’t Soft. It’s How Complexity Gets Managed.

Most leaders say they value trust.

Then pressure shows up.

Deadlines compress. Risk feels closer. External partners enter the picture. Visibility drops. In those moments, trust often gives way to controls, approvals, audits, and “just to be safe” processes.

None of this is malicious. Most of it feels responsible.

But research suggests something uncomfortable: when trust erodes, complexity does not disappear. It simply relocates into people’s heads, calendars, and inboxes (Kattumana and Larson; Steinmo and Rasmussen).

Trust as a Complexity-Reduction Mechanism

Trust is not a personality trait. It is a decision about where complexity is allowed to live.

Uzzi’s work on embeddedness shows that trust reduces decision complexity by allowing individuals and systems to operate without constant verification, monitoring, and defensive coordination. Kattumana and Larson similarly describe trust as a mechanism that allows people to accept vulnerability in exchange for reduced complexity.

When trust is present, information flows earlier. Coordination requires fewer cognitive resources. Judgment is exercised closer to the work itself.

When trust is absent, people compensate by increasing oversight and verification. Ironically, this consumes more time, more money, and more attention than the risks it aims to prevent (Yang and Cheng).

Trust is not softness.

It is operational efficiency.

A Familiar Scenario

A leader asks for a weekly status update.
Not because something went wrong.
But because visibility feels thin.

The team complies.

Then adds context.
Then pre-meets before the update.

Nothing breaks.

But over time, decisions slow. Questions stop surfacing early. People begin managing the update instead of the work.

This is how distrust accumulates quietly.

Why Distrust Feels Responsible (and Why It Isn’t)

Distrust feels like prudence.
Like accountability.
Like leadership.

But distrust does not eliminate risk. It repackages it.

Research on cross-functional and inter-organizational teams shows that low trust increases cognitive burden by forcing individuals to verify information, protect themselves from blame, and filter what they share (Maharjan). Studies in healthcare and organizational settings further show that low trust disrupts open communication and lowers decision quality (Bahrami et al.).

There is also a paradox at play.

Acts of distrust still require trust.

You must trust the audit.
Trust the metrics.
Trust the controls.
Trust the people who built the verification systems.

Distrust does not remove trust. It pushes trust further away from the work, where it becomes less adaptive and less informed (Kattumana and Larson).

Control vs Trust Is a False Binary

Many leaders assume trust and control sit on opposite ends of a spectrum.

Kostis and colleagues challenge this idea, showing that trust and distrust are distinct organizing principles that can coexist and even complement one another depending on context.

Early in relationships, trust and control often operate together. As uncertainty decreases, trust reduces the need for formal controls rather than eliminating them entirely (Waerness et al.).

The problem is not control.

The problem is control used as a substitute for trust.

Internal vs External Trust Is Also a False Divide

Organizations often claim trust is appropriate internally but risky externally.

Research on collaborative and inter-organizational relationships shows that trust across organizational boundaries lowers negotiation costs, improves information flow, and increases shared ownership of outcomes (Nielsen; Robertson et al.).

How leaders treat external partners sends a powerful signal internally.

If partners are micromanaged, internal teams learn caution.
If advisors are second-guessed, initiative shrinks.
If trust is withheld by default, people optimize for safety rather than excellence.

Trust and distrust are contagious.

Another Scenario

An organization hires an external partner for expertise.

The partner is asked to advise, but not decide.
Trusted with execution, but not judgment.

Leaders say, “We just need to be careful.”

The partner senses hesitation and withholds early risk signals until they’re certain.

By the time issues surface, they feel sudden.

They weren’t.

Why Slowing Down Actually Speeds Things Up

Trust feels slow at the beginning.

It requires alignment.
Shared understanding.
Clear decision rights.

Distrust feels faster.

Add a control.
Insert an approval.
Require documentation.

But studies of complex and innovative projects show that trust reduces downstream rework, coordination failures, and verification cycles (Ghazinejad et al.; Fitzhugh et al.).

Trust front-loads effort to remove friction later.

Distrust defers effort and pays interest over time.

Trust as a Leadership Signal

Trust is never neutral.

It communicates where judgment is allowed to exist.

Trust says, “I believe thinking can live here.”
Distrust says, “I’m not sure who I can rely on.”

Kostis and colleagues show that where trust is withheld, thinking centralizes. Where trust is extended, thinking distributes.

This is not abdication.

It is leadership architecture.

The Grey Scale Mindset Reframe

Grey Scale Mindset rejects the idea that trust is binary, naïve, or unconditional.

Trust is contextual, dynamic, and directional.

The real leadership question is not:

Can I trust them?

It is:

Where does this system need trust to function without collapsing under its own weight?

When leaders ask that question honestly, trust stops being soft.

It becomes strategic.

Works Cited (MLA)

Bahrami, S., et al. “The Relationship between Organizational Trust and Nurse Administrators’ Productivity in Hospitals.” Iranian Journal of Nursing and Midwifery Research, 2012.

Fitzhugh, Sean M., Christopher K. Maupin, and Andrew H. DeCostanza. “Trust Then Talk or Talk Then Trust? The Coevolution of Communication Networks and Inter-Organizational Trust.” Cognitive Research, 2025.

Ghazinejad, M., Bassam Hussein, and Yacine Zidane. “Impact of Trust, Commitment, and Openness on Research Project Performance.” 2018.

Kattumana, Tina, and Heidi J. Larson. “Building Trust during Crises by Engaging with Existing Distrust.” Frontiers in Public Health, 2025.

Kostis, Angelos, Mats Bengtsson, and Malin Näsholm. “Mechanisms and Dynamics in the Interplay of Trust and Distrust.” 2021.

Maharjan, Prabin. “Trust for Knowledge Creation in Cross-Functional and Inter-Organizational Teams.” 2019.

Nielsen, Bo. “The Role of Trust in Collaborative Relationships: A Multidimensional Approach.” 2004.

Robertson, Jeandri, Ian Paul McCarthy, and Leyland Pitt. “Leveraging Social Capital in University–Industry Knowledge Transfer Strategies: A Comparative Positioning Framework.” Knowledge Management Research & Practice, 2019.

Steinmo, Marianne, and Einar Rasmussen. “The Interplay of Cognitive and Relational Social Capital Dimensions in Collaboration.” Research Policy, 2018.

Uzzi, Brian. “Embeddedness in the Making of Financial Capital.” American Sociological Review, 1999.

Waerness, Kjersti, Erik Solstad, and Birgitte Bertheussen. “Trust-Based Management Control in Inter-Organizational Relationships.” Journal of Management Control, 2023.

Yang, J., and Q. Cheng. “The Conditional Limitation of Relational Governance.” Advances in Civil Engineering, 2021.