Employees are not engaged with their work. According to Gallup’s 2026 State of the Global Workplace report, employee engagement has hit its lowest level since 2020, falling for the second consecutive year. This has cost the world economy an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity.
I thought about what this means in practice. It reminded me of Claire, a leader who was proud of her team. She described them as smart and high energy, and she’d worked hard to create this kind of environment. So she eagerly read the results twice when her organization’s annual engagement survey came back.
Fully 81% of her team said they trusted the organization, but only 43% said they trusted their direct leader. Unsurprisingly, Claire was disappointed. She had to contemplate that gap for a week before she could bring herself to look at the scores closely and face the truth.
She discovered a pattern when she sat down with her team. Her team experienced her as decisive, capable, and clear on direction. However, they also saw her as distant. They didn’t know what she cared about beyond the work. They didn’t know how she made decisions or what she valued when things got hard. They respected her, but they didn’t really know her. Claire was smart enough to recognize that the trust she wanted her team to have in her wasn’t there, and she worried it might be too late to turn it around.
The window is still open
Trust in governments, media, and large institutions sits at historic lows globally. Yet leaders within organizations are bucking that trend. The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer found that while government leaders recorded a net loss of 16 trust points following major global events, direct leaders moved in the opposite direction, gaining a net 9 points.
If you’re a leader, your people are not done with you. In a world that feels increasingly uncertain and untrustworthy, they are still looking to you. In my 30 years of leadership and more than two decades of coaching and working alongside leaders, that is not a small thing. If your team still has faith in you, you can rebuild their trust no matter how fractured or conditional it might seem.
So how do you fix it?
Start by acknowledging it. If you know for sure that something isn’t working, own it. Thank them for their honesty. Don’t explain yourself, don’t justify, and don’t immediately problem-solve. Just acknowledge what you’ve heard and let them know you take it seriously.
Then go deeper. Engagement surveys tell you what, but rarely why. Once you’ve acknowledged the issue, it’s time to go back to your team and ask for more. Seek specific examples. Ask what they need from you that they aren’t getting. Listen without defending. The quality of what you hear in those conversations will determine the quality of what you do next.
Then it’s time to act on what you learn. Identify one to three concrete things you’re going to change, and name them out loud to your team. It’s important to note that this isn’t a vague commitment to do better. You need to have specific, observable shifts in how you show up. When your team sees the conversations lead to something real, the dynamic will begin to change.
Then keep asking. Check in regularly. Ask what’s working and what isn’t. This is the step most leaders skip because it feels vulnerable, but that is precisely why it matters. When your team sees that you’re willing to keep asking, they start to believe you’re genuinely committed to them.
When it comes together
Then it’s time to be relational and demonstrational. This is when you start investing, getting to know your people beyond their role and their results, and showing up in ways that consistently match your words. You’ll see things start to shift. Not overnight, but meaningfully and measurably. Engagement will no longer be a fear to manage and will become something you’re proud of.
Leaders who rebuild trust don’t do it through grand gestures. They do it through small, deliberate acts that their team can feel and see. If you have the foundation, you can restore trust and engagement. But it does require you to take ownership, humility, and time and patience to get it back.
