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Gallup’s ‘Great Detachment’ and the predicted ‘quitting wave’ are more than just warnings – they’re indicators of workplace cultures in need of repair. Employees are increasingly dissatisfied, disengaged, and for many, distrustful of their organizations.Â
Fear and distrust don’t announce themselves loudly. They appear as subtle shifts in behavior or quiet hesitations that are easy to overlook if you don’t know what to watch for. This article isn’t about fixing fear or distrust – it’s about recognizing them. Before you can take action, you need to understand the warning signs that may already be present on your team.
Fear and distrust undermine team cohesion, productivity, and retention. Left unchecked, they can snowball into disengagement and eventually attrition. Here’s how to spot the red flags before it’s too late.Â
Fear often makes people reluctant to speak up, even when something is clearly wrong. Meetings are a key place where this plays out. Are your team members quiet? Do they avoid commenting on new initiatives, goals, or strategies?Â
One way to test this is to throw out a deliberately bad idea and watch how your team reacts. Does anyone push back or do they just nod along? If your team is unwilling to speak up against an obviously flawed idea, it’s a clear sign of fear or distrust.Â
Disengaged or distrustful people often withdraw in subtle but telling ways. While these changes don’t always point to distrust, they’re worth investigating. Watch for:Â
Dropping out of conversations: team members who once contributed ideas now seem checked out.Â
Avoidance behaviors: skipping meetings, avoiding eye contact, or steering clear of interactions.Â
Decline in initiative: previously enthusiastic employees stop volunteering for projects or taking ownership of tasks.Â
Fear of retaliation or dismissal can make employees hesitant to share feedback, even when explicitly invited. If you notice vague or surface-level responses during one-on-ones, engagement surveys, or team discussions, it could mean they don’t feel safe being honest.Â
To test this, ask pointed, open-ended questions and pay attention to whether their answers seem genuine or carefully filtered.Â
How does your team react when you roll out something new? Immediate resistance or a lack of enthusiasm can signal something deeper. One way to test trust levels is to explicitly ask questions like “What potential risks are there with this approach?” or “What blind spots are we missing here?” If these questions are met with silence, vague, or neutral responses, it means your team doesn’t feel comfortable speaking up. Â
Team members might outwardly agree to a decision or initiative but fail to fully commit to it in practice. Or, instead of pushing back or participating fully, they might withdraw altogether, effectively “opting out” of the team dynamic.Â
Engagement surveys, stay and exit interviews, and informal check-ins can all provide valuable information. It’s important to analyze patterns in the feedback you’re getting… or not getting. Are people using neutral language like “things are fine” rather than specific examples of what’s going well or not? The absence of feedback can be a sign that employees don’t trust the process or believe their input will make a difference.Â
Distrust often leads to a breakdown in alignment, where individuals prioritize their own goals over the team’s objectives. This can signal a lack of belief in the organization’s mission or a feeling that collaboration doesn’t benefit them personally.Â
Signs of misalignment include: team members pulling in different directions during projects, a reluctance to collaborate or share information, or subtle competition rather than partnership. Does your team feel like allies or do they feel like individuals operating independently? If team members are more invested in their own success than the team’s, it’s worth asking why. Is it a lack of trust in leadership? A perception that their contributions aren’t recognized?Â
Our trust levels are a result of a complex interplay of experiences, actions, and environments. Leaders and professionals alike carry the weight of their past experiences – many of which may have been marked by toxic or dysfunctional work environments, layoffs, terminations, or betrayals by untrustworthy colleagues or direct reports.Â
These experiences often leave lasting scars. This fear of being let down or judged often shows up in behaviors like micromanaging, avoiding confrontation, or withdrawing from interactions.Â
Middle managers often bear the burden of spotting and addressing fear and distrust within their teams, but even their best efforts can be undermined by the broader organizational culture. Additionally, when middle managers themselves don’t trust their superiors, frustration and disengagement set in. This creates a ripple effect: leaders who feel unsupported or disillusioned may struggle to see the value in addressing fear and distrust within their own teams and this is one of the biggest barriers to engaging in this critical exercise.
While middle managers can work to create “micro cultures” of trust within their teams and shield their employees from the larger organization’s shortcomings, there are limits to what’s possible in a culture that doesn’t prioritize psychological safety. This isn’t necessarily about individual failings, but a systemic issue. Trust flows – or stalls – from the top down. When it stalls, middle managers face an uphill battle and the ripple effects extend throughout the organization.Â
The signs of fear and distrust are often subtle, but they’re worth noticing. As a leader, your willingness to spot and address these issues is the key to creating a culture of trust and engagement in the upcoming year.Â
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