The Importance of Trustworthiness

Trust thought for today - Thanks to Roger Miles - is the importance of Trustworthiness.

Roger, thank for the clip, really interesting. I too have been wondering about this. Syed calls it moral, which of course it is, but it is also useful to look at it as 'trustworthiness'. It is no surprise that where the Mafia rules, Southern Italy, citizens don't trust each other because the endemic corruption, ignored or colluded in by central government means you can't be sure who is trustworthy or not. Smart of them. Ditto the US divide he mentions, and other regimes often run by egocentric totalitarian individuals and governments.

The important of the role of trustworthiness in relation to social trust can also be seen here in the Jan 2020 ‘Global Satisfaction with Democracy Report’

'...if satisfaction with democracy is now falling across many of the world’s largest mature and emerging democracies... it is not because citizens’ expectations are excessive or unrealistic, but because democratic institutions are falling short of the outcomes that matter most for their legitimacy, including probity in office, upholding the rule of law, responsiveness to public concerns, ensuring economic and financial security, and raising living standards for the larger majority of society.”

Governments caring more about themselves than their citizens is about morality, but somehow it's also just about doing your job right. Our 7 'trust drivers/signals of trustworthiness' (which came from Western trust literature) are in the 'good government guidelines' for every government. Here they are flipped, which is what we are seeing now:

1 Intent - which is focused on personal gain not greater good
2 Incompetence - inconsistency, unpredictability
3 Lack of integrity - honesty, accountability
4 Unfairness - being uncaring about fairness and inequality
5 Lack of openness and transparency - decisions taken by elites behind closed doors
6 Lack of inclusion - of citizens or any alternative perspectives.
7 Disrespect - disdain of elites for others becomes endemic

Perhaps we should focus on 'conduct risk management in government'!!??