Trust is listed as a core value in workplaces, but it can often be weaponized
Recent headlines sparked by the Trump administration reveal how trust is becoming both a language of power and punishment in today’s workplaces.
Recently, Dr. Susan Monarez, the former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testified to Congress that she was fired from the job because Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. deemed her “untrustworthy.”
Then, the Justice Department announced the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, who was famously fired by Trump in 2017, several months after refusing to pledge his “loyalty” to the president.
If this sounds familiar, it should. Most of us have seen trust used as a weapon at work — whether it’s a manager playing favorites, a colleague getting frozen out for asking tough questions, or even junior employees being labeled as “not team players” for pushing back on unrealistic demands.
Trust is a determinant as to whether one’s networks pay off
Interpersonal trust has long been romanticized in the workplace. In the 1920s, the famous Hawthorne experiments clued employers into the motivational benefits of attending to workers’ social and emotional lives.
Today, you can open any popular business magazine and be greeted by titles like “How Leaders Can Build a Culture of Trust — And Why They Should.”
Big-name companies proudly proclaim trust as a core organizational value, and “Best Companies to Work For” lists are based in large part on the degree of trust reported in a workplace.
To be sure, workplace relationships do matter. Not only do overworked Americans spend significant time with their colleagues, but opportunities flow through social networks. And as other studies have shown (documented in books such as “Hedged Out,”“Lone Pursuit,” and “Ain’t No Trust”), trust is often a critical determinant as to whether one’s networks pay off.
In a labor system stripped of worker protections and strong unions, interpersonal ties at work can literally make or break not only one’s current job but also future jobs (think, for example, about the dreaded fear of “burning bridges”).
Trust must be backed by real protections and accountability
The problem is that a system built primarily on trust ignores how power is typically exercised and hopes that everyone acts in good faith — as if good intentions always triumph over self-interest.
It assumes that those who have made it earned their position through trustworthiness rather than politics, connections or sheer luck. But in my research as a sociologist of work, I frequently observe how trust is not distributed evenly. Because white men are more readily assumed to be good leaders, they are given significant room to maneuver in how they present themselves. Women and people of color, in contrast, often are not given that same implicit trust and have to prove themselves again and again.
Dr. Monarez’s and Director Comey’s firings may look like political theater, but they echo what countless workers experience on a smaller scale: trust used as a reason to reward some and punish others.
Because job references are often a condition of future employment, managers can wield the promise of a referral as leverage, turning it into a tool for control over workers. Indeed, as I explore at length in my recent book “Trust Fall: How Workplace Relationships Fail Us,” managers often exploit informal “gifts” — like granting a worker a good schedule — not as kindness but to further their agenda.
At work, trust can be a source of connection, but when it becomes the main currency, it’s also a lever of inequality and dominance. The lesson is clear: Unless trust is backed by real protections and accountability, it is always vulnerable to being weaponized — whether in a federal agency, restaurant kitchen or corporate office.
Sarah Mosseri is a sociologist based in Athens, Georgia, and author of the forthcoming book “Trust Fall: How Workplace Relationships Fail Us” (University of California Press).
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