From Fortune · Deborah Lovich · · 3m
The trust gap: why CEOs and employees see leadership differently
Nearly 90% of CEOs think their staff trusts them. Only 46% of employees agree. A Boston Consulting Group partner explains what leaders are missing.
In brief
Nearly 90% of CEOs think their staff trusts them. Only 46% of employees agree. A Boston Consulting Group partner explains what leaders are missing. A Boston Consulting Group study found only 46% of employees trust their leaders despite 90% of CEOs believing they do. The gap closes when leaders focus on emotional needs…
The confidence gap
Nearly 90% of CEOs say they are confident or very confident that their employees trust their leadership. Only 46% of employees agree, according to The BCG CEO Insomnia Index.
Work as a product
Employees choose daily how much energy and effort to bring to work. They are like customers deciding whether to buy a product: the day-to-day work, culture, processes, and how leaders engage.
Emotional features matter most
Pay, benefits, and flexibility are table stakes. What drives genuine enjoyment, loyalty, and performance are feeling that work matters and feeling respected, supported, and connected to people around you.
The good news for leaders
Emotional features cost almost nothing to deliver. They just require leaders willing to change their day-to-day behaviors. This is extraordinarily good news for leaders.
Dropbox redesigns work
Dropbox treated the employee as customer and work as product. After Covid, the company used customer discovery and design thinking to create its Virtual First remote-first work model.
Virtual First results
At Dropbox, the percentage of employees who said they felt successful at work jumped from 48 percent to 92 percent after Virtual First was implemented. Offer acceptance rates rose and attrition dropped.
Frontline manager performance
A Boston Consulting Group client analyzed frontline manager performance and found some teams performed much better than others. The difference came down to how managers inspired, motivated, and coached their teams.
Daily shift handover redesign
The client redesigned daily shift handover meetings so leaders do three things: explain the why behind directions, celebrate someone for something great they did, and promote collaboration among team members.
Celebrate your people
When you see something great happen at work, tell the person immediately how impressed you are and why.Specific, timely recognition activates intrinsic motivation in ways performance reviews and bonuses cannot replicate.The cost is zero.
Go, see, and help
Get out from behind your desk and go to where the actual work is happening.Look for ways to help.Proximity signals that leaders value what employees do and changes how employees feel about their work.
Be interested in people
Ask people about their goals, their lives outside work, what they care about, what they are working toward.
Cocreate everything
Do not design, launch, or change anything that affects your people without involving them from the beginning.When employees are involved in change, they support it.Cocreation makes the work product better and change management largely unnecessary.
Do it first
Whatever you ask your organization to do, you should do it first and talk about it openly.If you won't do it, do not ask them to.
Start small and build
What works is starting small, being consistent, and building habits slowly. A single piece of recognition today, one genuine conversation, one meeting where you invite an employee into the room. Start by starting.
What matters most
A Boston Consulting Group study found only 46% of employees trust their leaders despite 90% of CEOs believing they do. The gap closes when leaders focus on emotional needs like respect and connection rather than functional benefits.
