“What if the crisis in leadership wasn’t about skills—but the lack of trust and the absence of whole people?”
The Invisible Crisis
We don’t have a leadership development problem. We have a trust problem.
In organizations, schools, families, and communities, the most consistent fracture isn’t a lack of skill. It’s a deficit of belief. Belief that we can trust the people we follow, the people we lead, and often—ourselves. Most of us are trying to lead without the one thing that makes leadership possible: trust. And the leaders we look up to? Many are silently wondering whether anyone truly trusts them at all.
"Trust is the invisible but measurable core of leadership effectiveness. And most of us are trying to lead without it."
The WiLD Trust Index, developed by our team at WiLD Leaders, is showing us this clearly. It’s a diagnostic tool used across industries to assess trust at three levels: personal, team, and organizational. And it’s revealing a painful truth:
Many leaders are surrounded by people who don’t trust them or don’t trust each other—and they have no idea.
Whole Leaders Are the Only Leaders Who Can Build Real Trust
We’ve professionalized leadership. Created frameworks. Published books. Held retreats. And all of that matters. But in doing so, we’ve often forgotten something fundamental: leaders are people. Messy, hopeful, reactive, resilient people. The people we lead don’t want perfect leaders. They want real ones. They want leaders who show up with clarity, care, and courage.
That’s what we mean by Whole and Intentional Leader Development (WiLD). Whole leaders are not perfect—they’re integrated. They’re not always fearless—but they are self-aware. They’re not just strategic—they’re human.
"Leaders aren't machines and neither are the people we lead. As long as humans are at the helm, trust won’t be optional—it will be the operating system."
And it turns out that wholeness—not charisma or cleverness—is what builds trust. Especially the kind that endures in conflict, crisis, and change.
Where Trust Breaks (and Where It’s Built)
When we began measuring trust, patterns emerged. These patterns became the WiLD Trust Quadrant: a simple but powerful map that shows where teams, leaders, and organizations tend to land.
There are four quadrants:
Jungle of Trust: Low trust in team members and low trust in the organization. Emotion is present, but direction is missing. A team member in the jungle feels alone relationally, and marooned missionally.
Shell of Trust: High clarity, low openness. Performance exists, but people are guarded. The surface looks strong, but there's fragility just underneath.
Islands of Trust: High trust in small pockets, but no shared foundation. Individuals or teams trust each other, but don’t trust the system.
Stronghold of Trust: High openness and high clarity. Truth and trust are paired with aligned direction and accountability. This is where real transformation happens.
"Some organizations are strong on the outside and fragile on the inside—a shell of trust. Others feel open and honest, but can’t get anything done. That’s the jungle. The goal is the Stronghold: truth, trust, and performance integrated."
Leaders often don’t know where they are in this model until they see the data. The best of them don’t react defensively—they get curious. And then they get to work.
Measuring Trust Is Possible (and It Changes Everything)
Trust is often misunderstood as a vague feeling. But our research shows otherwise: trust is a set of conditions that can be defined, measured, and intentionally built.
The WiLD Trust Index assesses drivers like:
Transparency: Are we telling the truth?
Support: Do people feel invested in?
Consistency: Do we follow through?
Composure: Do we respond with grace or react with fear?
Competence: Can we actually deliver what we say?
These drivers predict whether people experience trust not just personally, but collectively. And the results speak for themselves: organizations that build trust perform better, retain talent longer, and adapt faster in crisis.
Because trust isn’t soft. It’s structural. It’s strategic. And it’s the foundation of every high-performing team.
The Personal Work Is the Strategic Work
Too many leaders try to build trust externally without doing the internal work first.
But if we’re not aware of our own emotional patterns, leadership motivations, or personal readiness, we risk becoming accidental leaders—reacting, not leading. And people can feel that.
Whole leader development is the integration of personal clarity and collective impact. It’s not about turning leaders into therapists—it’s about grounding them in a deep understanding of who they are and how they lead.
That kind of self-awareness changes how we:
Hire and promote
Handle conflict
Build diverse teams
Respond to crisis
Drive strategy with heart and rigor
"Whole leaders are those who know where they stand, choose to grow anyway, and build the kind of trust that outlasts the storm."
This isn’t theoretical. It’s happening in real time—in executive teams, nonprofits, school districts, churches, startups. And every time we see a leader align their identity with their actions, trust expands.
The Next Generation Is Watching
What we model now is what they will inherit next.
If we continue to separate leadership from trust—or trust from strategy—we will hand the next generation a broken model. But if we show them a different way—a way of whole leadership and intentional trust-building—we might just restore what’s been lost.
Trust doesn’t begin with perfection. It begins with truth. It begins with leaders willing to see themselves clearly and step into the storm anyway.
That’s what whole and intentional leaders do.
That’s what wild and sustaining trust makes possible.
And that’s why the future depends on both.
About the Author
Dr. Rob McKenna
CEO + Founder of WiLD Leaders
Named one of the top 30 I-O Psychologists alive today, Dr. McKenna is passionate about developing leaders and about transforming the way we see the people in our organizations. As he will tell you, we have the tools at our fingertips to invest in our people in ways that are meaningful to them and will get the results we need. Thirty years of research has taught us much how people learn and grow on the job. We have what it takes to create rich learning environments for the people we lead, and all we have to do is begin to act on what we know.
Dr. McKenna brings a combination of approachability, authenticity, expert knowledge, and humor to his talks. Whether you are interested in character development, dealing with conflict, creating engaging learning cultures, or developing the next generation of leaders, his approach of getting real about what’s going on in your life and work brings people alongside him in a way that inspires change. The models he uses in his talks are based on decades of research on leadership, team functioning, organizational health, and individual development.