Introduction

This article examines trust in leadership by looking at trustful or distrustful leader behaviour towards employees. The objective of the article is to increase leaders' awareness and knowledge of the importance of building interpersonal trust within work relationships, particularly between leader and follower. The article looks at trust in a relational context, which means that trust develops and evolves in interactions and relationships between organizational actors. Trustworthiness is examined through leader behaviour and in the context of intra-organizational, interpersonal work relationships. The main question is how leaders show trustworthiness by building and sustaining or violating trust. The consequences of trust and lack of trust for collaboration activity, commitment, and mental work well-being are discussed.

There is no doubt that studying the topic of trust is highly timely, relevant and meaningful. This is grounded in the recently increasing awareness that existing bases for social cooperation, solidarity, and consensus have been eroded and new alternatives are needed. Because organizational change is a frequent threat to trust, better understanding is needed of ways of enacting trust in interpersonal work relationships within organizations. However, the consequences of intra-organizational trust spread far beyond the organizational boundaries. In trustful leader behaviour, competence (ability) is seen as one of the main dimensions of trustworthiness, together with three other factors: integrity, benevolence, and predictability. Distrust is associated with negative expectations and a lack of confidence in the other party. Distrust also involves the belief that one party may not care about the other's welfare and may act harmfully. Mutual trust and perceptions of trust play a crucial role in trustworthiness pertaining to cooperation and interpersonal and inter-group relationships in organizations. Personality is also a strong facet of trusting.