Choosing Trust is More Powerful Than Building It
- Nonprofit Learning Lab
- 7 minutes ago
- 4 min read
This is a guest blog by Betsy Block, MPP, PCC-ACTC, ACS, Team Coach-Catalyst at B3 Coach and project director/founder of Agate Initiative, which works to make team coaching more accessible to the nonprofit sector.
Applications to join a FREE pilot cohort of Agate Initiative's Team Transformation Intensive are open through May 20, 2026.
If you lead a nonprofit team, you've probably been told that your job is to "build trust." Run the retreat. Do the icebreaker. Be vulnerable first. Share your weekend plans. Eventually, trust appears.
Except that often trust doesn't just appear.
The reframe that teams need, which shifts (and challenges) every team I coach: you don't build trust. You choose it.
And deep down, we all know this. Each of us has acted with the best of intentions to be trustworthy and still not been trusted. Each of us has refused to trust someone else, no matter how hard they tried. We know this choice from both sides.
When I discuss this with a team, we see the realization: "I have to choose to trust my team for trust to exist. And so does everyone else on my team. Every single day." And trusting you is different from trusting our team.
Interpersonal trust says, "I can predict your behavior, and we can be vulnerable with each other." Team trust layers something else on top — a shared sense that we have common goals, we assume each other is competent, and we can handle conflict without it becoming a catastrophe.
The challenge: you can have meaningful one-on-one trust with every person on your team and still have a team that doesn't trust itself. The trust issue lives in the system, not in any one relationship. There's no shortage of advice out there for team leaders. Team coaches like me stand for the team itself.
Trust is two things at once
Psychologists generally describe trust as having two layers.
First, the one we usually think about, is about the other person's behaviors — are their arms out to catch me? Do they follow through? Do they tell me the truth even when it's inconvenient?
Second, the one we know instinctively but often step back from, is my own propensity — my own willingness to trust, shaped by everything that has happened to me before I ever walked into your meeting.
Often, the "building trust" framing falls apart because we fail to address the second piece of trust. You can do every reliability-building, vulnerability-modeling, norm-setting thing on the list, and a colleague can still choose not to trust the team — and that reason may relate to something in their lived experience, or something that happened on a different team ten years ago.
Make it clear that each team member is choosing.
We don't all speak the same trust language
Here's the part that most often lands with the leaders I coach: "I trust you when…" means something different for every person on your team.
For one person, trust shows up when the rules are clear, and there's follow-through. For another, it's when they can see the big-picture vision and how this project fits into it. For a third, it's when they know their voice has been heard and there's a place for them to step in. For a fourth, it's when they feel genuinely known — when there's empathy in the room.
None of these people are wrong. They are operating from different working styles, different strengths, and different lived experiences. And when a leader defaults to their own trust language — usually unconsciously — half the team feels like something is off, even when nothing is technically broken. (Credit to Quinn Edwards and Kimberly Douglas for their wisdom on this approach.)
One concrete tool: build a trust map with your team.
Take a styles assessment your team has already done — CliftonStrengths, DiSC, Working Genius, whatever you have. Gather the team for 45 minutes. Have the groups from each domain or style share with each other how they complete this sentence: "I trust you when ______."
You'll get answers like:
"I trust you when you tell me what's coming next."
"I trust you when you provide data I can understand."
"I trust you when you check in on how I'm doing, not just what I'm doing."
This is the map. It tells your team, in their own words, what choosing trust actually looks like for each person in the room. And it often helps build empathy toward why the team has struggled with trust in the past.
Trust looks different at different stages
The lifecycle of team matters, as well - is your team Forming, Storming, Norming or Performing (learn about the Tuckman model here)? Supporting trust when your team is Forming is specific, just as what it needs when it's Performing. And the needs at each stage are additive.
When forming, trust comes from clarity — clear goals, clear roles, predictable communication.
In storming, trust gets tested and deepened by how the team handles conflict.
In norming, it grows through consistency. (note: this is when the team building piece really lands!) We notice and accommodate our differences.
For a performing team, all of that is still present, and the team adds independence, accountability, and collaboration, and celebrates our differences.
Leaders sometimes assume that activities that support choosing trust are equally applicable regardless of where the team is in its trust-choosing journey. But awareness of where the team is in its lifecycle informs how to support the deepening of trust. A forming team isn't ready for the vulnerability exercises a norming team can hold. A performing team doesn't stop needing check-ins; it needs check-ins and celebration, layered on everything that came before. (Adapted from Turaga's Building Trust in Teams: A Leader's Role.)
The Monday morning version
If you take one thing from this piece, make it this: start making it easier for every person on your team to choose trust.
Ask them what "I trust you when" means for them. Then listen to how different the answers are. That conversation, on its own, is often the shift.
Betsy Block is a Team Coach-Catalyst, coach mentor, and founder of B3 Coach. She also founded the Agate Initiative, which expands access to team coaching in the nonprofit sector. Reach her at betsy@b3coach.com or b3coach.com.