Building Trust as a Leader: Why It’s Your First Priority

"Trust is built in drops and lost in buckets.” – Kevin Plank

I still remember my first day leading a team I didn’t know. I had a roadmap. I had a plan.

What I didn’t have?

A team that trusted me—yet. And until I earned that trust, all the strategies in the world weren’t going to move the needle.

Some of us grow into leadership organically. You start as an Individual Contributor (IC), consistently deliver, and eventually get the nod to lead. In that case, people know your work and your character. You’ve already built a reputation—that’s a huge advantage.

But what about when you’re new?

This post is for the leaders walking into a company, inheriting a team, and trying to make an impact fast. Maybe you're stepping into a new department. Maybe you're coming from the outside. Whatever the situation, you're leading a team of people who don’t know you—yet.

And that, my friends, is where trust becomes your first real deliverable.

Think about it: Would you instantly trust someone who just showed up and started bossing you around? Didn’t think so.

How to Build Trust as a New Leader

Building trust is the hardest part. It’s not enough to say, “You need trust.” You actually need to earn it.

So… how do we earn those drops of trust?

I like to think of trust on both a team and individual level. Sometimes it’s worth asking: Who already has trust on the team? Is it the product manager? The staff engineer? A senior IC? Identifying who holds influence helps. If they trust you, chances are they’ll help others get there too. Which means… you’ll want to earn their trust early.

Here are some powerful ways to build trust:

1. Establish Personal Relationships: Learn names, backgrounds, and motivations. People don’t follow titles—they follow humans.
2. Get to Know the System & the Pain Points (Get Your Hands Dirty): Respect the work. Show you're not above it. Roll up your sleeves and ask questions.
3. Don’t Make Bold Moves Until You Understand the Problems: Observe before you act. It shows humility and signals you’re here to learn before leading.
4. Create a Mission With the Team: Shared goals create shared ownership. Co-create a north star together.
5. Be Consistent and Follow Through: Say what you’ll do. Do what you say. Repeat. Trust thrives on reliability.
6. Ask More Than You Tell—at First: Start with curiosity. Gather context before you make calls.
7. Acknowledge What Came Before You: Even if there’s a mess, avoid trashing past leadership. Honor what’s worked.
8. Be Transparent About What You Know (and Don’t): Pretending to know everything breaks trust fast. Vulnerability builds it.
9. Celebrate Wins (Even Small Ones): Recognition signals you’re watching, and you care.
10. Model the Culture You Want to Build: If you want openness, model it. If you value ownership, show it in how you lead.

Let's dive into some of these in more detail.

Building Personal Relationships: The Trust Assessment

Let’s start with the simplest, most powerful move: understanding your people.

I call it the Management Assessment. But don’t worry—it’s not an exam. It’s a tool to help you learn what kind of leader your engineers need you to be.

Because here’s the truth: Engineers aren’t there to build a relationship around you. You’re there to build one around them.

This assessment helps kick off that relationship the right way. It’s perfect when you inherit a new team or onboard a new direct report.

How It Works:

• Carve out a full hour in your first 1:1.
• Use the questions below to spark deep, honest conversation.
• Listen more than you talk.

Trust Assessment Question Bank:

Their View of Leadership

Purpose: Understand how they define good and bad management so you can align your style accordingly.

• What does a great manager look like to you?
• What does a bad manager look like?
• Can you describe the best manager you’ve had? What made them stand out?
• Are there things managers have done in the past that didn’t work for you?
• How do you like feedback delivered—direct and immediate, scheduled, written, in 1:1s?

Communication & Emotional Signals

Purpose: Learn how they communicate and how to recognize when something’s wrong.

• How do I know when you’re frustrated, stressed, or upset?
• What signs should I look for that mean something isn’t working?
• What’s the best way to check in with you if I sense something is off?
• How do you deal with conflict or misalignment?
• How comfortable are you sharing feedback upward? What helps or blocks that?

Motivation & Growth

Purpose: Understand what drives them and where they want to go.

• What motivates you in your work?
• What drains your energy or kills motivation?
• What are your long-term career goals? Short-term?
• What kind of work do you want more or less of?
• What does “success” look like in the next 6 months? In a year?

Work Style & Preferences

Purpose: Adapt your style to reduce friction and boost collaboration.

• How do you prefer to communicate—Slack, docs, live conversations?
• What’s your ideal balance between heads-down time and collaboration?
• What kind of projects do you love most?
• Do you prefer structure and process, or flexibility and autonomy?
• How do you typically organize and manage your work?

Support & Partnership

Purpose: Show that you're invested in helping them succeed.

• How can I best support you?
• What does “feeling supported” mean to you?
• Are there blockers preventing you from doing your best work?
• What do you wish your previous manager had done more or less of?
• Is there anything I haven’t asked that you want me to know?

Trust isn’t a vibe—it’s a practice. And the leaders who earn it? They’re the ones who listen first, follow through, and keep showing up.

Don’t Make Bold Moves Until You Understand the Problems

This is a huge red flag—the biggest of big. If you come in making changes without understanding the team’s pain points, you’re almost guaranteed to break trust, break systems, and break morale.

Let me give you two real scenarios I’ve seen:

Case #1: The Demander

A manager came in and, right out of the gate, started demanding output from the team. They didn’t pause to understand what was actually holding the team back—and worse, they didn’t seem to care. Within weeks, the team was defensive, disengaged, and no longer receptive to leadership. Why? Because the manager didn’t take time to learn the system, the constraints, or the people. When a pivotal moment came, the team wasn’t there to rally—they were adversaries instead of allies. The result? That leader didn’t last long.

Case #2: The Senior Assumer

I’ve seen senior leadership fall into this trap too. They assume they know what the problem is—but never take the time to confirm it. They just blindly listened to what other leaders told them and didn’t do a great job of actually learning the system. They let advisement rule their decision-making and didn't do the work to get the whole picture. Because they skipped that understanding phase, they made poor decisions that have left engineering lacking complete trust in them. Now this org leader doesn't realize their own failure, or does and doesn't care. And nothing erodes trust faster than someone confidently making the wrong call.

So what should you do instead?

Learn First. Pivot Later (If Needed).

When you come in, focus on learning. Interview the team, understand the systems, and map out the challenges. If you must make a big move early—which can happen—do it with transparency.

Here’s how I handled it when I had no choice but to pivot a team fast:

When I joined a new company, I inherited a project that was completely off the rails. Within a week, I had to redirect the team. Yes, it was impressive to leadership—but it wasn’t my original plan.

What made it work?

• I brought the team in immediately.
• I explained what I saw and shared my concerns.
• I asked if I was seeing it right—was I missing anything?
• I said clearly: “This pivot wasn’t my intention, but I believe it’s necessary.”
• I invited them to keep me honest and speak up if I was wrong.
• I made it clear I needed their help to do it right.

That level of honesty made the discomfort more bearable. Because I respected their insight, they gave it. And because I invited them into the process, they followed—not because of my title, but because they trusted my approach.

When in doubt: Pause. Learn. Ask. Then act—with clarity and care. That’s how you move a team forward with them—not just in front of them.

Create a Mission With the Team

I touched on this in my last article about building strategy—but it’s worth repeating: Create a mission. And do it with your team.

It might feel too early to talk about vision or mission when you're just getting started. But this is actually one of the most effective early trust-building exercises you can do.

Why? Because co-creating a mission does a few powerful things:

• It shows the team you're not here to dictate—you’re here to collaborate.
• It gives you valuable insight into how the team sees their role within the organization.
• It surfaces what they value, what they care about, and what they think success looks like.
• It begins to align everyone's energy toward something shared, instead of scattered.

You’ll learn more in this one session than you might in weeks of just observing. And in return, the team learns something key about you—that you’re a leader who’s building with them, not above them.

Even a rough, evolving mission is better than silence. It’s a compass. It gives people something to rally around—and in times of uncertainty, it gives your leadership credibility.

So don’t wait. Invite your team to the whiteboard (or virtual one), and ask:

• What do we want to be known for?
• How do we create value for our partners and customers?
• What kind of team do we want to be?

The answers might surprise you. And the trust you build by simply asking will go farther than you think.

Ask More Than You Tell—at First

I touched on this earlier when talking about not making bold moves too soon. But it deserves its own spotlight.

Let’s face it: If you don’t understand the system, you can’t advocate for it. And if you don’t understand the people, you can’t lead them well.

Your job isn't just to deliver—it’s to diagnose, support, and then drive change. That starts with asking questions.

Spend your first 30 days like a researcher. Be a sponge.

• Read documentation.
• Review past retros, code reviews, and architecture decisions.
• Watch how the team works.
• Sit in meetings and observe what’s said—and what’s not said.
• Set up knowledge transfers (KTs) with engineers. Ask them to walk you through their systems and workflows. Most engineers take pride in their work—give them the opportunity to show it off. They’ll feel seen, and you’ll get a real window into the technical landscape and team culture.

Don’t rush to fix things. Form opinions slowly and thoughtfully. By the end of those 30 days, you should have a high-level sense of:

• Where friction lives
• Where things are working well
• What gaps you might help close
• And most importantly: how to build the next version of the team with them, not for them.

This is your listening phase. The more questions you ask now, the more informed, aligned, and trusted your decisions will be later.

Acknowledge What Came Before You

This one’s a major red flag—and honestly, a personal pet peeve.

There’s nothing worse than someone joining a team and immediately questioning everything with what could be perceived as condescending remarks like:

• “Well, why don’t you just do it this way?”
• “Why didn’t you think of doing X?”
• “You should’ve built it like this instead.”

Every time I hear that, my internal reaction is the same: Actually, we did think of that. We’re not missing creativity—we’re dealing with constraints: tech debt, legacy architecture, resourcing challenges, or organizational blockers. If you had taken the time to learn our context, you’d know that too.

Here’s the truth: we all inherit systems and decisions we didn’t make. That’s part of the job. You’re not coming into a blank slate—you’re stepping into a story already in progress. And if you don’t know the history, you’re bound to repeat the same mistakes. I’ve seen it happen over and over again.

The biggest misstep new leaders make is assuming their clever idea is brand new. In reality, your team has likely already explored it. Maybe it didn’t work. Maybe it couldn’t work. So don’t act like they missed something obvious—ask why things are the way they are.

Approach your questions with curiosity, not judgment.

Instead of: “Why didn’t you just build this as a self-service tool?”

Try: “I’m curious—have we ever explored a self-service option here? What challenges came up?”

That one shift in tone does two things:

• It gives the team space to share institutional knowledge.
• It shows you respect the work that came before you—even if it needs to evolve.

On my own teams, I’ve watched this dynamic play out repeatedly, especially around stakeholder self-service tools. Every few months, someone new would suggest or say, “Let’s just build a self-service tool and let stakeholders manage things themselves.”

What they didn’t realize was: we tried that—three times. Each time, stakeholders bailed when they realized the actual lift required. They wanted “self-service” in theory—not in practice.

Had they asked, they would’ve saved time—and maybe tried to understand what creative ways we have gotten around these issues, and what else we might want to consider going forward to help speed things along.

Bottom line: honor the past if you want to lead into the future. That doesn’t mean you accept everything as-is. It means you learn before you prescribe, and you respect the people who’ve been holding it together long before you showed up.

Be Transparent About What You Know (and Don’t)

It’s okay to be new. It’s okay to not have all the answers. And it’s more than okay to say, “I don’t know yet—but I’m here to learn.”

When you step into a leadership role on a new team, there’s often pressure to prove yourself quickly. But ironically, trying to appear confident when you’re still getting your bearings usually backfires. Pretending to know everything shuts people down. Admitting what you don’t know opens them up.

I grew up in the Midwest, where humility is a core value. We have an unspoken belief: If you brag about how good you are at something and then fall short, we’ll hold that against you far more than if you had just admitted you were still figuring it out.

The same principle applies here. Humility builds trust. It shows that you’re self-aware, reflective, and willing to grow. And honestly? That’s the kind of leader most engineers want—someone they can give honest feedback to, someone who asks for input and actually listens.

When you’re onboarding, it’s perfectly fine to speak from your experience—talk about creative solutions you’ve used before, share your past wins—but do it while making space for local context.

Try saying things like:

• “Please correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that this service does X.”
• “I think I get the gist, but I’m sure someone here can speak to the nuance better than I can.”
• “Here’s how I’ve seen this solved in the past, but I’d love to know how it’s been approached here.”

These phrases show:

• You’re paying attention.
• You’re trying to learn.
• You welcome being corrected.

It also signals to the team that they don’t need to put on a performance for you either. You’re creating psychological safety—and that starts with modeling it yourself.

Confidence isn’t pretending to know everything. It’s being secure enough to admit when you don’t.

Celebrate Wins (Even Small Ones)

When I started managing a new team that had been running on fumes, it was obvious early on where we needed to invest. There were some clear opportunities—tech debt cleanup, broken workflows, inefficient tooling—and those “easy wins” would make a big difference in reducing operational burden.

From the start, I could tell the team was eager to dig in. They wanted to fix things. They were motivated by a vision of smoother systems and fewer on-calls. And I’ll be honest—I was direct with them. I told them we’d need to make some real functional changes, and it wouldn’t be easy. But I also promised I’d be with them every step of the way.

And here’s what I noticed: Every time we knocked out one of those lingering issues, I got genuinely excited. Not just a polite “good job”—I celebrated it. Out loud. In Slack. In standups. In one-on-ones. I recognized the impact of each win, and I shared how meaningful it was—not just for the roadmap, but for the team’s confidence, culture, and energy.

That kind of recognition has a compounding effect. When people feel seen, they keep showing up. When they know their contributions matter, they lean in harder.

Here are some practical ways to celebrate wins on your team:

1. Call It Out in Retros & Standups: Use retros to reflect not just on what could be better—but what went well. Acknowledge improvements, effort, and resilience. Let the team speak to each other's work too.
2. Create a Monthly “Wins & Highlights” Email or Slack Post: Shine a spotlight on key achievements. Include graphs, screenshots, GIFs, team photos—make it visual and fun. Bonus: this also creates visibility with stakeholders outside your team.
3. Personal Shout-Outs in 1:1s: Not every win needs to be public. Quietly recognizing someone’s contribution during a check-in can mean just as much—sometimes more.
4. Rotate a “Team MVP” or “Invisible Work” Award: Celebrate the unglamorous but essential work: debugging gnarly incidents, writing great documentation, supporting a teammate. You’ll build a culture that values more than just shipping code.
5. Surprise Celebrations: Bring in donuts. Drop a thank-you note. Post a meme. Celebrate bug zero. Little surprises go a long way.
6. Encourage Peer Recognition: Make space for team members to recognize each other. You don’t need to be the only source of praise—sometimes it’s more meaningful coming from peers.
7. Tie Wins Back to Impact: It’s one thing to say “great job fixing that bug.” It’s another to say, “because of that fix, our page load time dropped by 20% and CSAT went up.” Show the team how their work is moving the needle.

Recognition builds momentum. It reinforces trust. And most importantly, it reminds your team that their effort matters—not just to the business, but to you as their leader.

Model the Culture You Want to Build

I firmly believe culture matters. Not just company culture in some abstract sense—but team culture. The day-to-day tone. The energy in meetings. The way people treat each other when no one's watching. I want to work in places where you can feel the passion—through the people, the mission, and the way we show up for one another.

But here’s the thing: culture isn’t declared, it’s demonstrated. It starts with you. As a leader, you are setting the temperature for your team—whether you mean to or not. And people will always watch what you do more than what you say.

So ask yourself honestly: What kind of team do you want to build? And are you behaving in a way that shows others how to live that culture every day?

How to Model Culture (and Build a Trusting Team):

Value Time → Respect Their Time: If you say you value time, show it. Keep meetings tight and purposeful. Cancel the ones that don’t serve a clear need. Document well so others don’t need to chase context. Let async win when it makes sense.

• Model it: Block focus time. Show up prepared. End meetings early. And make space for deep work.

Care About Mental Health → Normalize Rest: If you want a culture where people feel safe taking care of themselves, then take care of yourself visibly. Share how you decompress. Talk about therapy, exercise, meditation—whatever works for you.

• Model it: If you’re taking a mental health day, say so. Celebrate people for resting—not just grinding. And don't wear burnout like a badge of honor.

Support Families → Normalize Real Life: If you have parents or caregivers on your team, set the tone: life is not an interruption to work—it’s part of it. Never let someone feel like they have to apologize for their kids, doctor appointments, or family responsibilities.

• Model it: When a kid walks into a Zoom, smile. When someone needs to shift hours, support them. Be vocal about your own life too—lead as a full human.

Foster Accountability → Own Your Mistakes: Trust doesn’t come from being perfect. It comes from being real. If you drop the ball, say it. If a decision didn’t land well, name it. Accountability is contagious.

• Model it: Admit when you’re wrong. Apologize if needed. Share what you learned. The team will follow your lead.

Encourage Positivity → Don’t Tolerate Toxicity: Complaining, blame, or passive-aggressive comments spread quickly if unchecked. But so does gratitude, encouragement, and optimism. You have to decide what thrives on your team.

• Model it: Recognize good work out loud. Assume good intent. Redirect negative spirals. Be someone who makes the room feel better—not heavier.

Promote Inclusion → Elevate All Voices: It’s easy to say you want an inclusive team. It’s harder to actually create space for every voice. Are you hearing from the quiet engineer in the back? Are you giving credit where it’s due?

• Model it: Invite diverse opinions. Rotate who leads meetings. Shout out contributions in public forums. Watch whose voices dominate—and shift the balance.

Culture isn’t a one-time event—it’s a thousand small signals. And over time, those signals compound into trust.

By modeling the culture you want to build—through your actions, tone, habits, and priorities—you teach the team what’s acceptable, what’s celebrated, and what kind of place they get to be part of.

You don't need to be perfect. You just need to be intentional. Because your example is the clearest blueprint they’ll follow.

The Outcome: Trust is Earned.

We've covered a lot of ground, and that's because building trust isn't a checklist—it's a dynamic, ongoing practice. The ultimate outcome we're striving for? A team where trust isn't just a hopeful wish, but a reality that has been actively earned.

For you, as a leader, this deep dive serves a few critical purposes:

1. Reflection: Take a moment to honestly assess: Do you have trust on your team? Do they trust each other? Crucially, do they trust you? If there are areas for growth, these steps provide concrete avenues for improvement.
2. Proactive Building: Whether you're stepping into a brand new team, navigating a significant transition, or simply looking to refresh your leadership approach, this is your opportunity to think intentionally about how you'll foster trust from day one. The "Management Assessment" and other tools highlighted here are designed to give you a strong head start.

Trust isn't simply given; it's earned through consistent effort, genuine curiosity, and a willingness to show up authentically. By applying these principles, you're not just managing a team; you're building a foundation for extraordinary collaboration, resilience, and success. Go win that trust!