Your employees can tell when you're not genuine. They might not say it directly. They may nod in town halls and respond to your Slack messages with appropriate emojis. But somewhere between your carefully crafted values statement and the decisions you actually make, they've noticed a gap. And that gap costs you more than you realize.
We don't have a leadership crisis in organizations today; we have an authenticity crisis. According to a Gartner survey of more than 3,500 employees, only 48 percent trust their senior leaders. The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer found that 68 percent of people distrust business leaders globally, a 12-point increase from the previous year. Gallup's research shows that only 21 percent of employees strongly agree that their leaders are genuinely honest and ethical.
