The trustworthy leader: The first step toward creating high‐trust organizations

Abstract The sorry state of many of today's institutions is not one, Hurley contends, of lack of trust, but of trustworthiness. He defines trust as “confident reliance on a person, group, organization, or system (for example, the financial system) in the face of risk and uncertainty.” He says we must “develop trustworthy leaders, and enable those leaders to embed trustworthiness in the architecture (strategy, structure, culture, systems, and processes) of their organizations.” Trustworthiness must be embedded in a firm's culture, because research shows that many ethical and benevolent people will adapt to a culture of opposite values.