Ten signs trust Is the missing ingredient in your executive team

Executive teams are responsible for setting clear strategic direction and defining the metrics that drive enterprise performance. These responsibilities require team clarity and alignment.

Even the strongest strategy depends on strong team dynamics to be successful.

When trust is low, the team becomes a group of talented individuals operating in parallel instead of a unified force.

Here are ten signs your executive team may need to strengthen trust to reach its full performance potential:

🔵 Silence in the room

During discussions, especially on sensitive topics, people hold back. No one challenges ideas. No one asks harder questions. Everyone nods… and then has the real conversation after the meeting.

🟠 Difficult conversations keep getting avoided

Feedback is delayed or softened. Tensions go unaddressed. Leaders tolerate issues instead of naming them. Over time, these small fractures become performance cracks.

🔵 Decisions take too long

When trust is low, leaders need more meetings, more data, more reassurance, more alignment checks. The decision making process becomes cautious and inefficient.

🟠 There is a meeting after the meeting

Side conversations. Private agreements. One on one debriefs about what people really think. These are symptoms of a team that does not feel safe expressing the truth in the room.

🔵 Energy is flat

You feel it as soon as you walk into the room. Low engagement & minimal participation.

🟠 Feedback feels like criticism

Well intended feedback is interpreted as judgment. Leaders get defensive. Conversations tighten. People start choosing their words carefully instead of speaking openly.

🔵 Cliques form

Whether subtle or obvious, we versus they dynamics begin to surface. Certain leaders collaborate easily while others feel excluded or peripheral.

🟠 Leaders operate in silos

Each function focuses on its own priorities. Information is shared selectively. Leaders optimize for their own success rather than the team’s collective outcomes.

🔵 People do not ask for help

Instead of leaning on each other’s strengths, leaders stay in their own lane. They avoid showing vulnerability or admitting what they do not know.

🟠 The team only talks about the work

Conversations stay strictly operational. No one discusses relationships, dynamics, or how they are working together. When teams stop talking about how they collaborate, results eventually suffer.

If you are seeing the signs, the place to look is at how trust is shaped through both individual Emotional Intelligence and collective Emotional Intelligence. These two elements work together as one system.

Individual Emotional Intelligence is how each leader manages themselves through self awareness, emotional control, empathy, and clear communication.

Collective Emotional Intelligence is the environment created when those individual behaviours combine. It shows up in the level of psychological safety, the honesty of conversations, the quality of debate, and the comfort people feel expressing what they really think.

When leaders show up with strong individual Emotional Intelligence, they naturally contribute to a healthier team environment. When the environment is strong, leaders show up at their best. Each one reinforces the other.

High performing teams begin with trust, not goals.