How to heal teams driven apart by suspicion and mistrust

When Tony Banet stepped into his role as CEO of Especias Hispania’s North America division*, he inherited a team fractured by distrust. During the six-month leadership gap before his arrival, intense battles had erupted between marketing teams competing for resources to support new product launches. The previous CEO had created a cut-throat culture where individual success was all that mattered. This had resulted in what Banet described as “pervasive protectionism”. Team members focused on defending their territories instead of supporting collective success. Key executives played politics and withheld information, while marketing leaders engaged in constant turf wars. Even potential partners had withdrawn due to the toxic team dynamics.

Banet knew he would have to diagnose and repair these multifaceted problems before he could improve the team’s performance. New leaders often inherit teams with serious trust issues – not just isolated breakdowns between individuals but systemic problems that undermine performance.

Rebuilding trust is essential if you want to lead a high-performing team. However, this takes more than the usual leadership skills. You will first need to become an investigator to uncover and understand the sources of damage. Then, you need to be a healer to fix the foundations of trust.

Trust breakdowns can stem from many sources: we’ve all seen these play out and perhaps suffered the consequences. Your predecessor might have pitted team members against each other, as Banet discovered. Long-standing personality clashes may have created deep-seated tensions. Differing work styles may have resulted in chronic misunderstandings. Organizational changes like mergers or downsizing could have left the team insecure and defensive. A history of unmet expectations or past failures, whether from previous leadership or between team members, might have gradually taken its toll.

Your awareness of these issues and other trust deficits is the first step toward creating a more cohesive, high-performing group. Once you have a better idea of the nature of the problems, you can look to implement targeted strategies to address them, ultimately fostering an environment where trust can be rebuilt and strengthened over time.

These “repair” strategies take many forms and should be tailored to the types of trust breakdowns you face. For example, if there is unhealthy competition or personality clashes, you might engage the team in defining a shared set of values and rules for collaborative behavior. If there are many misunderstandings, consider establishing communication guidelines and encouraging a more open environment.

However, before you embark on this two-step process of diagnosis and repair, it’s important to understand the different kinds of trust that influence a team’s performance. Insight into the multidimensional nature of trust will empower you to apply the appropriate repair strategies, just as a doctor knows what medicine to prescribe for each ailment.