March 26, 2026

The trust problem has changed. The tools communicators have relied on — narrative, reputation, brand consistency — were built for a different era. Today, people are living through real disruption: information is messy, change is relentless, and conflicts are out in the open.

Rapid AI adoption is accelerating that pressure, and rising skepticism means audiences are actively looking under the hood. In that environment, authentic storytelling matters more than ever — but the story has to be structurally true.

Trust is now a structural asset. Trust today is built on credibility around how power is used, how decisions are made, and whether the systems behind the words actually match them. A new report from UK-based Echo Research makes this concrete: more than a quarter of FTSE 350 market value is priced on leadership credibility, governance, and delivery.

That puts communicators in a new position — not just crafting the story, but pressure-testing whether the organization can stand behind it.

ICYMI: In our last newsletter, we unpacked six practical ways for strategic communicators to sharpen their focus and stay credible, discoverable and quotable. Read it here.

In this COMPASS Q&A, we spoke with Tonia Ries — trust and business strategist — about how the definition of a “trusted leader” is evolving.

Her focus: decision-making discipline, aligned incentives, and transparency. She covers where trust breaks down, the risks introduced by AI-enabled systems, and what communicators need to know when advising leaders at high stakes.

Tonia brings more than three decades of experience in management, strategy, marketing, research and media. She helps organizations understand how trust operates at the intersection of leadership, systems and decision-making.

COMPASS: When you look at the current environment, what does it actually mean to be a “trusted leader” today — and what’s changed from even a few years ago?

REIS: Trust has shifted in both structure and tone: from building an image to designing an architecture, and from delivering certainty to providing steadiness.

A few years ago, trust was still treated as something you could earn with credibility, brand, and strong messaging. Today, that’s not enough. People are living through real disruption: information is messy, change is relentless, and conflicts are out in the open. Many feel fearful, exposed, and tired — leaders themselves included.

Today, the trust test for leaders is less about “Do people like and believe me?” and more about “Can people see I’m using power responsibly?” That means being transparent about how decisions are made: what you’re prioritizing, where the tradeoffs are, who will be accountable. It also means being honest about your own lack of certainty: “Here’s what we know, here’s what we don’t and here’s how we’ll adjust as we learn more.”

Trust deepens when people feel they belong. Leaders earn trust by sharing the values behind tough decisions, and creating real ways for employees and customers to have voice, dignity, and recourse, especially when the stakes are high.

COMPASS: Where do you see C-suite leaders most challenged when it comes to building and sustaining trust — particularly when trust is shaped by systems, incentives, and power, not just personal credibility?

REIS: Trust failures don’t usually come from a lack of communication; they more often happen when there are structural issues such as misaligned incentives or power imbalances. Leaders may say the right things, but if the metrics reward short-term wins, people will make short-term choices, even if those choices undermine values.

That’s why trust failures feel personal even when they’re rooted in structural problems: people experience mixed signals as unfairness. “We say we care about safety, but we punish the messenger.” “We say we value inclusion, but decisions are made by a small group behind closed doors.”

The leadership challenge is to make sure that the system matches the narrative. Are governance, decision rights, and incentives aligned with the trust story you want to tell and the values you want to nurture? Does your organization suppress truth-telling or protect it? Trust-building is often seen as a “soft skill,” but these are concrete operational and management questions for leadership to address.

COMPASS: How does trust show up in business performance and outcomes in tangible ways, especially in high-stakes sectors like health and technology?

REIS: Trust removes friction, which impacts costs, efficiency, scalability and legitimacy. When it is strong, information moves faster, problems surface earlier, and decisions are easier to implement because people believe the organization is competent, honest and accountable. When trust is weak, every decision costs more: more oversight, more escalation, more rework, more churn, more time spent managing backlash instead of solving the problem.

In high-stakes sectors like health and tech, trust is part of the core operational infrastructure. It shapes whether innovation can scale, whether employees or partners surface risks early and whether teams coordinate well when things get complicated. It increases adoption rates and improves product development cycles.

Trust also shapes outcomes when something goes wrong—a patient safety issue, a product failure, a data breach. Stakeholders decide quickly whether to lean in with collaboration or suspicion, backlash or boycott. You can’t wait until you’re in a crisis before you think about whether you’ll have their trust.

COMPASS: You’ve written about the erosion and distortion of trust signals. What indicators still matter most for leaders — internally with employees and externally with stakeholders — and which signals are increasingly misleading?

REIS: In a world where anything can be gamed or generated, the signals that matter are the ones that are hard to fake. Signals that are increasingly seen with suspicion are those that can be manufactured quickly: high engagement, polished narratives, and “trust us” promises. What can’t be faked is a track record of fair decisions, accountable leaders, and respectful treatment of people and communities.

Internally, one of the most important signals is whether truth can travel upward. Do people feel safe raising concerns? Do issues get addressed early, or do they get buried until they become crises Another signal is whether inclusion is real: who is listened to, who is protected and who bears the cost of mistakes.

Externally, the durable signals are consistency and follow-through. Do people see a clear connection between what you say and what you do over time? When you make a mistake, do you explain it, own it and fix it—or do you minimize and move on?

COMPASS: Many organizations are optimizing aggressively for efficiency, speed and scale. Where do you see leaders unintentionally trading away trust in the process and what’s a better way to think about those tradeoffs?

REIS: Leaders often trade away trust when they skip over explanations, compress timelines and limit conversation in the name of efficiency. It can happen quietly: decision-making centralizes, communication gets thinner and people find they are expected to accept outcomes they can’t understand or challenge. That can look efficient in the short run, but speed without fairness weakens legitimacy—and legitimacy is what keeps people cooperating when they’re anxious or disagree with the outcome.

Trust is not the enemy of efficiency, as long as you design for speed in a way that people can understand it and feel they are part of it. Make your decision process transparent, create clear escalation paths and build feedback loops so that people can actually weigh in and change outcomes.

When people experience the system as fair and understandable, you get speed that lasts: less resistance, fewer surprise flare-ups and more willingness to collaborate under pressure. Over time, that is far more efficient and scalable.

COMPASS: As AI-enabled agents and automated systems take on more responsibility, what trust risks do leaders tend to underestimate and what governance principles matter most to prevent power from concentrating in ways that feel opaque or unfair?

REIS: Automation concentrates power, so the most important thing governance has to do is to define responsibility. AI systems can quickly create new routines with real impact, shaping hiring decisions, customer outcomes and information flow. The trust risks are predictable: opaque decisions, unclear ownership and questions about potential bias. People don’t just fear decisions that are wrong: they fear decisions that can’t be understood or challenged.

The governance principles are straightforward: keep decision rights legible; tie accountability to specific individuals; require explainability for high-impact decisions; create oversight and auditability; and give affected people real mechanisms for appeal, override and correction.

AI also affects people’s sense of safety—jobs, privacy and the credibility of information itself. To gain full buy-in for AI-based initiatives, leaders will need to acknowledge and address those concerns and help their employees and customers navigate change.

COMPASS: For leaders navigating high-stakes change or scrutiny right now, what’s one trust-related principle or discipline you think is most important to get right?

REIS: Leaders build trust when they make their decision-making process transparent. Tell us about what you prioritized, who you consulted and what would make you change course.

They don’t need to have all the answers; pretending to have certainty can quickly backfire. What people need is steadiness: clear principles, visible accountability and a real path for questions to be heard and harms to be repaired.

COMPASS: For leaders navigating high-stakes change or scrutiny right now, what’s one trust-related principle or discipline you think is most important to get right?

REIS: Reputation still matters because AI can’t mediate the lived experience people have with your brand or organization over time. You can use AI to automate how I interact with your organization, but a strong reputation is tested and built through decisions that can’t be automated: how you treat people, whether accountability is real, whether actions consider the interests of all stakeholders, and whether you fix problems and repair harm quickly and transparently.

A good reputation is earned when you deliver on your promises over time. And that’s also the kind of leader people trust, and the kind of organization they want to do business with.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Trust is no longer a communications output – it’s a leadership discipline expressed through decisions, governance and accountability. For communicators, the mandate is to translate how the organization operates into clear, credible narratives that align words with action. As AI accelerates scale and introduces new opacity, scrutiny of decision-making will only intensify. Earned media is already shifting from what organizations say to how they act. The advantage goes to leaders and teams who can articulate tradeoffs, demonstrate accountability and communicate with precision and consistency-building durable credibility in environments where trust is continuously tested.

Key upcoming events

Marketing + Media

• Adweek Social Media Week (New York City, April 14-16) Marketers, creators and brand leaders will convene to navigate platform fragmentation, AI disruption and the evolving business of attention, examining how social drives culture, commerce and measurable impact. Speakers include Rob Gaige, Global Head of Insights at Reddit; Sean Atkins, CEO of Dhar Mann Studios; and Jessica Yellin, Founder of News Not Noise.

Global Economy + Policy

• Semafor World Economy Summit (Washington, D.C., April 13-17) More than 400 global CEOs, as well as investors and policymakers, gather for five days of conversation examining the forces reshaping the world economy — from AI and geopolitics to capital flows, climate and future industries. Speakers include Deko (Hisayuki) Idekoba, CEO of Indeed and President & CEO of Recruit Holdings; Roger Lynch, CEO of Condé Nast; Henry M. Paulson Jr., Chairman of the Paulson Institute and former U.S. Treasury Secretary; Dennis Mathew, Chairman & CEO of Optimum; and Patrice Louvet, President & CEO of Ralph Lauren.
• CNBC Invest in America Forum (Washington, D.C., April 15) Top investors, policymakers, and CEOs examine how economic policy is translating into real-world consequences for American business and accelerating investment in technology and AI infrastructure. Speakers include Marc Rowan, Co-Founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management; Scott Strazik, President and CEO of GE Vernova; moderated by Sara Eisen, Co-Anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” and “Money Movers.”

Talent + Workforce

• WSJ CPO Council Summit (Palo Alto, March 25-26) A gathering of top Chief People Officers and other HR senior executives examining how AI is reshaping the workforce, from talent strategy and hiring to organizational resilience and large-scale change management. The program features expert speakers, peer discussions, and curated experiences designed to help leaders prepare for a future in which work is increasingly driven by AI. Our client Julia Anas, Chief People Officer, Qualtrics, will lead a discussion on “Employee Listening — and the Credibility Gap.”

• HR Brew The Talent 2030 Collective (New York City, April 21) Join HR leaders for a day of conversations on how to recruit, develop and retain top talent amid economic uncertainty, from AI in hiring to skills-based workforce strategy and long-term employee wellbeing. Speakers include Dr. Benjamin Granger, Chief Workplace Psychologist at Qualtrics; Daniel Chait, CEO and Co-Founder of Greenhouse Software; and Amber Grewal, Chief Growth Officer at Eightfold.

AI + Enterprise Execution

• Reuters Momentum AI New York (New York City, April 27-28) Learn how to move AI from experimentation to execution over two days of practical, case-driven conversations focused on scaling responsibly, building trusted systems and turning strategy into measurable impact.
  

Health

• Fierce Pharma Engage (San Diego, April 22-24) A gathering of senior leaders in pharma marketing, PR and communications, medical affairs and business development and licensing focused on strategic collaboration, candid conversation and meaningful connection. The event matches profiled senior executives with solution partners for discussions that address their most pressing challenges.

Bookmark Global Gateway Advisors’ event tracker, updated weekly.

Media news

• Semafor rolls out a new global CEO podcast. Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson and Penny Pritzker will host The CEO Signal show/podcast. The show builds on The CEO Signal newsletter, featuring candid conversations with the leaders running the world’s biggest companies.
• CNBC launches a new business show. Starting this week, CNBC’s Morgan Brennan is hosting Morning Call, at 5am ET. The program will deliver market-moving insights and break down unfolding global developments, in addition to setting the business agenda for the trading day ahead.
• Nexstar merges with rival TV station owner. The FCC greenlit Nexstar’s $6.2B merger with Tegna, creating the largest local TV station operator in the country.
• Axios restructuring. The outlet cut 11 staffers across national, local, news desk, visuals, and social teams, including April Rubin and Maxwell Millington.
• CBS News announces more cuts. CBS News announced a new round of changes – laying off 6% of staff and shuttering CBS Radio – as Bari Weiss remakes the broadcast network.

Media moves

• Adam Banicki was promoted to General Manager, Video at Fortune, and has joined the Senior Leadership Team.
• Stephanie Ruhle is departing the 11:00 p.m. ET slot at MS NOW to anchor a new two-hour morning show on the network airing at 9:00 a.m. ET. Other MS Now changes include: Alicia Menendez moves from 7:00 p.m. ET (“The Weeknight”) to 12:00–2:00 p.m. ET; Ali Velshi takes over 11:00 p.m. ET; Luke Russert joins “The Weeknight” at 7:00 p.m. ET; “Morning Joe” shortens to 6:00–9:00 a.m. ET.
• NOTUS is expanding its newsroom, with notable additions including Washington Post alumni Jeff Stein, Paul Klane, Dana Milbank, Paige Cunningham, Sam Fortier, Andrew Van Dam and Missy Khavmongsa. Also joining the team is POLITICO’S Joe Gould and The Hill’s Al Weaver.
• Endpoints News is adding Karen Weintraub and Kevin Miller as editors.
• Bloomberg News hired Victor Swezey as a Rotational Reporter.

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