We measure everything in business… Except the most important thing.

We measure everything in business.
Revenue per employee. Customer churn. Time to hire. Even Zoom fatigue.

But ask a leadership team how they measure trust?

Crickets. Maybe a vague reference to the engagement survey. Or worse—confident assumptions.

Here's what nobody wants to say out loud: Trust isn't measured because most leaders assume it's already there.

Research shows executives overestimate how much their teams trust them... by nearly 30%!

We think we're trusted because people show up to meetings and nod along. But showing up isn't trust. It's compliance.

And here's why this matters more than your Q4 targets:

• Without trust, you don't get psychological safety.
• Without psychological safety, you don't get honest feedback or bold ideas.
• Without honest feedback, you don't catch problems early.
• Without bold ideas, you don't get breakthrough innovation.

And without either, small issues become expensive disasters while competitors move faster.

The best leaders I know don't assume trust exists. They architect it.

One leader I worked with added a single question to monthly team check-ins: "Do you trust this team to have your back when you make a mistake?"

Not "are you engaged." Not "do you feel valued." A yes/no question about trust when it actually matters.

They made trust visible. So it became fixable... and a fixture of the team culture.

So, if trust appeared on your dashboard tomorrow—right between revenue and retention—what would the trend line show?

And more importantly: what would you do about it?