Why listening is key to building trust in a world in crisis

‘Permacrisis’, ‘polycrisis’, the ‘raging 2020s’ – the descriptions used for our current era are rather grim. On top of things, public trust in leadership finds itself at a historic low.

Yet, if we look at leadership as the process of influencing others to accomplish shared objectives, while facilitating individual and collective efforts for the public good, leadership has never been more needed than today.

Climate change, armed conflicts and fast-paced technological disruption are only a few of those challenges that require collective action. What is more, they require broadly supported leaders that can build bridges across societal divides and offer converging solutions in times of polarization.

While everybody seems to know intuitively what constitutes good leadership, leaders across the world are struggling to address this permacrisis effectively, reinforcing the cycle of growing mistrust towards leaders.

The decline of trust towards organizational leaders we have observed since 2019 seems to be widespread. According to the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, 68% and 69% of people reported thinking business or government leaders, respectively, are misleading people.

And according to the same source, not only do 61% of the people surveyed report a moderate or high level of grievance against governments and businesses. Over half (53%) of those who report a high level of grievance also testify to have a zero-sum mindset. That is, thinking that what benefits another group of society (one that holds different views) would inevitably come at the cost of their own group.

What all this highlights is that opposite sides are hard to reconcile in a permacrisis world and are not ready to converge towards shared solutions, because they see their respective solutions as incompatible – resulting in gridlocks at the cost of society, security, prosperity and the planet.

In the past few months alone, France has seen political parties fail to coalesce towards a common policy outlook, while in the US, eight in 10 US voters report that the two sides of the political landscapes do not only disagree on plans and policies, but also on basic facts. As the common fact base of society dwindles, so does a shared reality that enables societal cohesion, solidarity and a shared vision for the future to thrive.

In this current context, leaders are not only tasked with finding solutions, more than ever they need to co-create those same solutions across the political spectrum and with those who are directly concerned.

Navigating diverging views, distilling shared interests and finding pragmatic ways forward will be integral to rebuilding trust across groups of society, sectors and even countries.

As counter intuitive as it may seem, by listening to different sides and by seeking to integrate views and interests of seemingly opposing groups, the space for leadership action expands, rather than shrinks. Leaders who listen can open up spaces for solutions that are bigger than those of each individual side.

A strong example of this is the work that was done by Nelson Mandela. The global statesman and South Africa’s first democratically elected president left valuable lessons on how to lead during times of crisis.

He embodied a sense of moral authority and vision of how South Africans could imagine and create new ways of being together despite a divided past. Mandela, notwithstanding some criticism, chose the path to support national unity over retribution after apartheid, which showed his long-term vision for peace and stability.

While he was very analytical and strategic in his decision making, he equally displayed humility, listening to diverse perspectives in the construction of the globally renowned South African constitution; and acknowledged that change can be messy, yet still yield just outcomes if everyone came together to do the hard work of building bridges across divides.

While Mandela combined charisma and leadership, there has been a general long-standing confusion between leadership on one hand and charisma or personal ambition on the other, that needs to be disentangled.

As such, listening has become the most underrated yet crucial skill of effective leadership because of the positive impact it has on creating trust and building bridges.

Listening leaders can collect perspectives and data from different actors and points of view to inform their strategies and decisions, and are able to create inclusive cultures that enable even further trust-building.

Such a cultures equally require transparency and consistency – both in how decisions are taken and how they are applied. A good example of why this is important is that then British prime minister Boris Johnson and his staff violated the lockdown rules during Partygate, they lost the trust of voters for not applying to themselves the rules they sought to enforce on others.

Needless to say, listening is becoming ever more complex for leaders. Navigating an accelerating and multi-layered decision-making environment requires leaders to manage and filter through the sheer mass of information, digest data and use it as a lever to substantiate their conversations and convince their audiences.

Despite the hard time that public health or economic challenges have given data and science, empirical backing and evidence can only further trust and encourage compromise in the shorter run, if the benefits are clear in the long run.

Finally, building trust through listening, evidence, transparency and consistency does not automatically mean solutions will always garner broad support. In the context of the permacrisis, what might be the right long-term response can be difficult and unpopular, tempting leaders to opt for short-term solutions in order to please the people they depend on – be it electorates, shareholders or yet other kinds of supporters.

From the fall of Lehman Brothers to the Volkswagen emissions scandal, we can observe a pattern of leaders opting for easy fixes, and refusal to renege on profitable yet excessively risky – or even harmful – models.

Yet, being able to switch between and combine long-term orientation and short-term reactivity is crucial to navigate the permacrisis.

The former prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Arden, had been able to build trust in the long run. She capitalized on the trust she had built to deal with the Christchurch terrorist attacks in 2019 – sharing the sorrow of the country on the one hand whilst tightening gun law swiftly on the other – and later with the COVID pandemic. While this stock of trust capital ultimately depleted, the example of Ardern highlights the long term benefits of building positive relationships with constituents.

Turning the crisis of leadership around is certainly not an easy task at hand and not a task for one single leader alone. Indeed, many challenges of the poly- and permacrisis will outlast this decade, just think of climate change or public health.

Yet, with leaders that are able to open up new spaces for solutions by listening across divides and proposing galvanizing solutions with an evidence base, by balancing short-term gains with true long-term benefits, by applying transparency and consistency to their own actions – we might be able to spark that kind of leadership that enhances trust again and can accomplish shared objectives for the public good.