Effective leadership is based on trust. As leaders, we must be trusted by others to influence them. Managers who are not trusted by employees don’t have their respect.

Employees who trust their supervisors have better job performance, whereas abusive supervisors aren’t trusted and negatively affect performance. Unfortunately, the public’s trust in business leaders in most countries is low because of unethical behavior. As you probably already realize, being trustworthy is important in your personal and professional life.

Trust is the positive expectation that another will not take advantage of you. Most new human relations begin with deterrence-based trust because we lack experience dealing with the other person. It is the most fragile since one violation or inconsistency can break the trust. So we try to be on our best behavior when we first meet people.

Knowledge-based trust is the most common organizational trust. Trust is based on experience dealing with the other person. The better you know people, the better you can predict their behavior—and trust them. Identification-based trust occurs when there is an emotional connection—friend rather than just coworker. It is the highest level of trust. People look out for each other’s best interests and act for the other.