More Answers... (05/27/26 Newsletter): Learning to Trust a New Boss When Your Last One Was Awful

More Answers from Ask Christa! 

Hi Everyone, 

Here are More Answers... to help you head into the work week. Remember, you can see previous newsletters at askchrista.com/MoreAnswers.

Today’s topic: Learning to trust a new boss when your last one was awful.

I don't know anyone who hasn't had at least one bad boss, and when I say "bad," I mean a consistent display of at least three or more of the following: out of touch, unresponsive, petty (petulant), rigid in their thinking, hypercritical, hyper-conditional ("sure you can try for that promotion, but first you have to [enter impossible goals here]), dismissive, belittling, negligent, exclusionary, and any other term or adjective or phrase that comes to mind after reviewing this list.

I say at least three or more because humans are messy, and most managers are not prepared to be managers, so if you "only" have one or two of these issues, chances are you can manage well enough. But three or more means you have very little relief or balance to counteract the effects of a bad manager.

And remember: most times managers not only lack the skills and development to be effective managers, but they also have a bad boss who lacks the skills and development to be an effective manager.

(and we’ve all seen the cycle THAT creates…)

The Magic of an Effective Manager: Positivity --> Productivity
(not just working more, but finding ways to work better)

When I think about and effective manager, I think of an ability to positively affect other people. It's an ability to connect, BE connected, be a connecting personality type, and lead with a connective style that recognizes you get work done with humans (yes, even now) in your team and outside of your team. 

That ability starts with trust, and that's not a birthright simply because you've become a manager. A team that had a terrific (trust-forward) manager ahead of you will be more inclined to trust you, but think about your own experience with most of YOUR managers... yup... previous experiences shape how much anyone will trust a new boss.

We all know that, and I've offered other posts describing how, poor management contributes to emotional exhaustion, burnout, disengagement, anxiety, and lower workplace well-being overall. The research supports this, too (Gilbreath & Benson, 2004; Skakon et al., 2010). When employees spend extended periods working under leaders who are dismissive, unpredictable, hyper-critical, politically manipulative, or emotionally reactive, they often adapt in protective ways, starting on the inside then affecting what happens on the outside. They may become more guarded, more hesitant to speak openly, less willing to take interpersonal risks, or more skeptical of managerial intentions.

And, my friends, we know that is ALL about trust.

What is Trust in the Workplace?

Trust in a manager is not about whether someone is nice, friendly, charismatic, or approachable. Those qualities FOR SURE pave the way, but the old saying that "trust takes time" is perhaps the most important lesson about building trust. This is more true than not for new managers because trust is whether employees believe the manager can and will consistently exercise power, authority, decision-making, communication, and accountability in ways that are engaged (meaning: in the context of the team, the work, and the organization), fair, stable, respectful, and psychologically safe.

Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman's Trust Model (1995) describe trustworthiness through three dimensions, and I'm sure these will resonate with many of you:

• Ability
• Benevolence
• Integrity

(not necessarily in that order in real life, although the model is sometimes referred to as the "ABI Model," and if you're feeling really ambitious, here's an excellent and highly readable-- albeit very academic-based-- 2020 article by Svare, Gausdal, and Möllering called, "The function of ability, benevolence, and integrity-based trust in innovation networks")

Of course, we don’t need research to tell us what makes us trust managers more or less, but the research really drives it home. Employees tend to trust what they repeatedly experience. And unfortunately, many people have experienced managers whose conduct teach employees not to trust—or at least, to trust how the bad patterns are when they emerge.

Truth: Not Every Manager Deserves Trust, and Even if They DO, it May Take Time (and that’s OK)

Of course, it's also important and healthy to realize that not every manager deserves immediate trust simply because they hold a management title.

Many workplace cultures unintentionally pressure employees into premature trust by treating skepticism as unsupportive (when skepticism is, "I'm open to believing, I just need to see more first"). Healthy trust involves observation, consistency, judgment, and time. In psychologically safe environments, which comes up a lot in my posts, trust develops because employees repeatedly experience fairness, reliability, honesty, accountability, and respect over extended periods of interaction (Edmondson, 1999).

Some managers establish this relatively quickly because their behavior consistently aligns with their words, and their nature feels... well... safe. Others reveal over time that they are self-protective, politically driven, emotionally volatile, dishonest, exploitative, or incapable of handling authority responsibly. Employees are not wrong for noticing either patterns.

At the same time, learning to trust a new boss after a damaging experience often requires employees to avoid turning every future manager into a replica of the previous one. That can be difficult because human beings naturally use prior experiences to assess future risk. For example, who hasn't thought about a former bad manager then decided not to bring up a question during a meeting with a new manager?

Those reactions are understandable (I've done it, too, and still do it sometimes), but they can also keep us from developing great workplace relationships with our new bosses when it's deserved-- and remember, WE deserve that, too.

You Can Be Open and Curious Before You Trust:
The Burden of Trust is on the Manager, too

Employees benefit from allowing enough openness to accurately assess the new manager based on current behavior rather than exclusively through the lens of previous experiences. That does not require blind trust or immediate emotional comfort, though. It simply requires enough willingness to let present-day evidence matter.

And remember: as employees, we aren't the only ones involved in the trust exchange. For those of us who are managers and leaders, this is an an important point. Managers carry the greater responsibility for building trust: there is an automatic power dynamic between a manager and an employee, no matter how small it might be, and that means the manager must demonstrate (consistently, over time) trustworthy behavior.

After all, employees tend to remember manager behavior more during moments of high stress, mistakes, confusion, difficult conversations, confrontations, and competing priorities or interests. Those moments will shape trust far more powerfully than the calm moments, and this is also where organizations frequently underestimate the seriousness of management capability. 

Trust is valuable precisely because it should be earned.

And when employees encounter managers who consistently demonstrate fairness, accountability, emotional steadiness, honesty, respect, and competence over time, it can significantly reshape how people experience work itself. Employees become more collaborative, more communicative, more creative, more willing to contribute ideas and take ownership while "stepping up their game," when there is trust. And when an employee experiences a new boss who has earned trust, especially after a terrible boss destroyed it, the effects can be profound. 

(we know this… my hope is this post was relatable enough to give you confidence for what you already know…)

Booster for the Week!

Trust in the workplace can consume us more than we think. Here is an excellent TED video from Professor Frances Frei, published in May 2018. It's called "How to Build (and Rebuild) Trust."

"My favorite trait is redemption. I believe that there is a better version of us around every corner."

Wowsah. For those of us in the turn-around and business recovery business, this is how we get by.

She brings up the three components we can practice to enhance and build: authenticity, logic, empathy. (slightly different from what it takes to be perceived as trustworthy, the ABI Model... welcome to the world of business research...)

You'll love the video.

With kindness,

Christa

(Helpful? Interesting? Please feel free to forward and invite others to subscribe at askchrista.com/newsletter.)

References

Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350-383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999

Gilbreath, B., & Benson, P. G. (2004). The contribution of supervisor behaviour to employee psychological well-being. Work & Stress, 18(3), 255-266. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678370412331317499

Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 709-734. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1995.9508080335

Skakon, J., Nielsen, K., Borg, V., & Guzman, J. (2010). Are leaders’ well-being, behaviours and style associated with the affective well-being of their employees? A systematic review of three decades of research. Work & Stress, 24(2), 107-139. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678373.2010.495262

(remember: most public libraries in the USA offer access to academic papers; however, if yours does not, then Google these papers to see where they are listed, how you can learn more about them, and how you can find similar papers to learn more about this topic)