At my last startup in the UK, things were moving fast. We were in that messy, exhilarating phase of building. Every day felt urgent. We were growing, shipping, hiring etc. Keeping the wheels turning with grit, caffeine and far too many shared Google Docs. From the outside, it looked like momentum. But something didn’t sit right. There was a quiet weight I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
One afternoon, during a one-on-one, our head of engineering sat down, paused for a moment longer than usual, and looked me in the eye.
“I’m drowning!” he said. He didn’t flinch. He wasn’t emotional. He was just telling the truth. Plain and simple. And I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting it. I remember feeling a wave of guilt. How did I miss this? This was someone I trusted deeply. One of our most capable leaders. The kind of person who never complains, just gets on with it.
But as we kept talking, it became clear. He hadn’t fully realised what was happening either. The burnout hadn’t arrived in one big crash. It had crept in quietly. Through late nights and skipped breaks. Through carrying other people’s work. Through the unspoken pressure to hold everything together.
The thing is, when you’re building fast, it’s easy to miss the signals. Sometimes even the person going through it can’t name it. Until a conversation makes space for it to surface.
That moment shifted something in me as a leader. We reshuffled the workload. Slowed down where we could. But more importantly, I gave him something I should’ve offered sooner: room to breathe, and permission to be human.
The product still launched. Just a little later. But what mattered most was that he stayed. And over time, he grew into one of the most trusted, respected leaders in the company.
That conversation taught me something that’s stayed with me ever since:
Trust isn’t just about results. It is about safety. Honesty. Belonging. And it’s at the heart of every team that works.
Trust isn’t fluffy. It’s fundamental. I’ve seen this in practice. And it’s backed by research too.
In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni writes that trust is the foundation of performance. Not the kind that says, “I think you’ll meet your deadline.” The kind that says, “I can tell you what’s really going on, and I won’t be punished for it.”
According to Great Place to Work, companies with high-trust cultures retain employees twice as long and grow significantly faster. ADP found that employees who trust their manager are 26 times more likely to be engaged. Not 26 percent. Twenty-six times.
Trust is what keeps the invisible parts of a company working. When it’s missing, performance suffers long before anyone admits it out loud.
The three layers of trust
Over time, I’ve come to think of trust in three dimensions:
- Trust in managers: “Am I safe to be honest with you?”
This is where it starts. If someone can’t tell their manager the truth — that they’re stuck, burned out, confused — the whole system suffers.
You don’t need to be perfect as a manager. You just need to be present. To listen. To follow through. To admit when you don’t have the answer.
The more consistently someone sees that, the more trust they’ll give you.
- Trust in teams: “Will you catch me if I fall?”
I’ve worked with brilliant teams that couldn’t innovate, simply because no one felt safe being wrong.
On the best teams, people take risks. They ask “dumb” questions. They disagree respectfully. They don’t have to perform, they just get to be.
That kind of culture isn’t built in a single offsite. It’s built in the daily rhythms of working together, showing up, and looking out for each other.
- Trust in the company: “Do we walk the talk?”
This one’s the hardest to rebuild once it’s lost.
A friend of mine was recently laid off by email. No conversation. Just a link to FAQs and a locked-out Slack account.
Of course layoffs happen. But how they happen says everything.
If we say we care about people, and then act like they’re expendable, people remember.
If we talk about wellbeing, but punish people for taking leave, the culture notices.
Employees aren’t just watching what we say. They’re watching who we are, especially when it’s hard.
Why we built Hoogly as a trusted space
When we started building Hoogly, we didn’t begin with features. We began with a question:
What would it look like to create a workplace where people feel safe enough to be real?
That’s why we designed Incognito Mode — a way for people to speak up anonymously when they’re not ready to speak up publicly. Not everyone has a great manager. Not everyone feels comfortable raising their hand. But everyone deserves to be heard.
When people feel safe, they’re honest. And when leaders respond with care and action, trust builds.
Leadership without trust is just management. You can hit your targets. You can launch on time. You can even win awards. But if people don’t feel seen, heard, or safe — it’s all just noise.
Trust is quiet. But it’s the thing holding everything together. And the leaders who invest in trust — even when it’s inconvenient — are the ones who end up with teams that stay, grow, and thrive.
When someone tells you the truth, listen like it matters. Because it does.
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