There was a time when I believed that the culture of an organization rested solely in the hands of a CEO, ED or President. I thought that a single leader could transform the environment overnight with their words and actions. I was incredibly wrong. It wasn’t until I became an Executive Director (ED) that I realized how misguided this belief was.

In reality, the emotional epicenter of a low-trust workplace lives with the frontline employees—the true foundation of any organization. These are the people at the base of the organizational pyramid: the teachers in school districts, the players on a sports team, the line-workers in a factory, the program managers for a city, or the investigators in a firm. As you move up the pyramid, the next layer above these frontline employees includes the supervisors, then managers, and then directors. The CEO, ED, and President, sits at the very top.

In low-trust organizations, frontline employees often feel unsupported in their roles, ignored in their concerns, dehumanized, and treated like interchangeable parts in a machine. Their professional ambitions are stifled, and advancement seems impossible. The people most likely to understand these frustrations are not the executives—they’re too far removed from the day-to-day operations—but the supervisors, managers, and directors.

When you're an executive, what many don’t realize is that you often get "handled." Your direct reports, no matter how well-meaning, typically filter out the everyday struggles of frontline employees unless they are crises that have a high probability of creating financial or repetitional damage. Their intent is to protect you, to ensure you're focused on the strategic tasks to grow and improve the organization, instead of getting bogged down in daily operations.

But here’s the truth: the real power to change the level of trust within an organization doesn’t lie at the top (thankfully because you really wouldn’t want one person to able to change an entire workplace culture dependent on their personality) —it lies with the supervisors, managers, and directors who interact closely with frontline staff. They are the ones who can either fuel the flames of distrust or begin to rebuild it through everyday actions.

So ask yourself this—if you’re a leader who’s close to the frontline, are you seizing the opportunity to build trust? Or are you letting it slip through your fingers, waiting for someone higher up to make a change? The power is in your hands—use it wisely.

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