Sean GlazeWorkplace Culture Speaker | Facilitator at Great Results Team Building

TRUST WILLING VS TRUST WORTHY

22 Oct 2026 · 1 min

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1:05

In this presentation, the speaker differentiates between "trust willing"—the degree to which an individual is prepared to place trust in others, shaped by personal history and varying across team members—and "trustworthy"—the responsibility of a team to earn trust through consistent behavior. Trust willing is portrayed as a personal, mutable disposition, while trustworthiness is presented as a set of actions a team must uphold. The speaker introduces a "three‑legged stool of trust," three criteria by which coworkers, clients, or community members evaluate a team's trustworthiness. Trust is framed as a positive assumption based on prior actions, contrasted with doubt as a negative assumption. The overall message emphasizes that effective teams must both understand the variability in individuals' willingness to trust and deliberately cultivate the three foundational elements of trustworthiness.

Chapters

So I think that trustworthy is important, but sometimes I don't believe we understand the importance of trust willing. Trust willing is different than trustworthy. Trust willing is going to be the amount to which the person that you're having interaction with is willing to trust somebody else. Can that be affected by their past? Their willingness to trust is something they will continue to work through, and that's going to be different for every member of your team. Trustworthiness is what you're responsible for as a winning team, and trustworthiness is built on 3 things. If trust is a positive assumption that we make based upon previous actions— again, doubt's a negative assumption we make based upon previous stuff, trust is a positive assumption that we make— we extend trust to others based upon previous experiences. There are 3 things that the people on your team will judge you for, and whether it's a coworker or a client or someone in the community, Trust is always going to be based upon these 3 things. We'll call it the 3-legged stool of trust.