Distrust Breeds More Distrust

I was called into a meeting where my manager announced that all six product managers would be on-call for production issues, waking developers and staying until fixes were verified. The proposal made no sense: my role would be limited to inspecting work I couldn't influence, and I would be forced to stay up for hours while developers scrambled to resolve problems.

The manager's answer was simple - he didn't trust the developers to fix issues adequately, so someone had to verify their work. That rationale mirrors Deming's warning that inspection is too late; quality is baked into the product before any check can happen. By adding product managers as a last-minute safety net, the organization applied a duct-tape solution that masks deeper trust deficits.

What follows is the Cycle of Distrust: leaders distrust their teams, create more rules and hierarchy, which slows decision-making and delivery. Missed results feed further distrust, prompting even more controls. The loop expands, turning teams into compliance machines that lose ownership, productivity, and morale.

The antidote is to start with trust. When you can't trust a team, the problem you must solve is the lack of trust itself, not the symptoms. Removing accountability sinks and giving teams genuine ownership restores performance and morale far better than temporary on-call fixes. Trust-first leadership prevents the self-reinforcing cycle that erodes organizations over time.