"Does That Make Money?" to Executives [Kim Moon-kyung's Leadership Tech] (25)

[Financial News] When I talk to executives about trust, a similar question comes back.
"I know it's a good point, but does that make money?"
It is not a wrong question. Companies ultimately have to deliver results. Simply repeating that trust matters does little to move an executive's calculator. Besides, trust does not appear on the financial statements as a single line item like sales or operating profit. But just because it is invisible does not mean it is not a cost. Organizations that lose trust are already paying the price.

The person who explained trust in economic terms was Stephen M. R. Covey, author of The Speed of Trust. He said trust changes an organization's "speed" and "cost." When trust falls, work slows down and costs rise. When trust is high, speed increases and costs go down. He called the former the Trust Tax and the latter the Trust Dividend.
It is not hard to see why. If people do not trust one another, they have to check everything. They review reports one more time, add another approval step, and hold one more meeting. If responsibility is unclear, more people are copied on emails and important decisions are pushed upward. When problems arise, teams spend time figuring out who is to blame before they try to solve them. In low-trust organizations, these small acts of verification and defense are attached to work everywhere. Each one may seem minor, but together they create a significant cost.
Layoff costs are recorded directly on the financial statements. The costs created by broken trust are not. Delayed decisions, longer meetings, more reporting and approvals, silent employees, and talented people who quietly leave are all recorded under different names. There is no accounting line called trust, but the cost of trust is already being deducted from many accounts.

The problem is that this "trust tax" may grow even larger. The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer, released in January, surveyed 33,938 people in 28 countries. What the study highlighted was an "insular trust mindset," in which people find it harder to trust those who are different from them. Seventy percent of respondents worldwide said they hesitate or are reluctant to trust people whose values, information sources, or views on social issues differ from their own. Among workers, 42% said they would rather change departments than work for a boss whose values differ from theirs. Another 34% said they would put less effort into helping a project leader succeed if that leader's political beliefs were different from their own.
Let's translate those numbers into organizational language. What happens if three or four out of every ten employees do not fully support a leader's direction? You have to explain more, check more, persuade more, and give instructions again to get the same result. Salaries are still paid during that time. But the effort does not translate into the output the organization wanted. The moment trust declines, a relationship problem becomes a productivity problem.
There is also an interesting twist. In the Edelman survey, 78% of employees said they trust their employer. That is much higher than the 64% who trust businesses overall and the 53% who trust government. Even as trust in society becomes more divided, the workplace remains a space where people still place relatively high trust.
That is both a burden and an opportunity for executives. As trust outside becomes scarcer, trust inside the organization becomes a more valuable asset. So how closely is trust tied to actual performance? Neuroscientist Paul J. Zak surveyed American workers on organizational trust levels. Comparing employees in the top 25% of trust with those in the bottom 25%, he found that workers in high-trust organizations reported 106% higher work energy and 50% higher productivity. Burnout was 40% lower, and stress was 74% lower.

Of course, these numbers should not be taken as a formula that says, "Raise trust and productivity will rise by exactly 50%." Because the comparison is based on self-reported responses, these figures alone cannot prove a causal link between trust and performance. Even so, the consistent difference showing that people in high-trust organizations experience more energy, productivity, and engagement is worth noting.
One thing Zak paid special attention to in his research on trust was oxytocin. In his experimental studies, oxytocin appeared to play a role in empathy and trust behavior. He later expanded this into workplace research and identified eight management behaviors that build trust, including recognition, granting autonomy, sharing information, building relationships, supporting growth, and showing leader vulnerability.
What executives should pay particular attention to here is transparency of information. In Zak's survey, only 40% of employees said they clearly understood their company's goals, strategy, and execution direction. Uncertainty about where the organization is headed raises stress and makes collaboration harder. On the other hand, when leaders share direction and information sufficiently, employees can judge what they are working toward. That is why building trust does not begin only with grand cultural reform.
There is one misunderstanding to avoid, however. A high-trust organization is not a loose organization. Trusting people does not mean ignoring performance. The core of a high-trust organization, as Zak describes it, is to set direction and expectations clearly, give employees the discretion to get the work done, and then hold them accountable. It is a way of treating adults as adults instead of controlling every detail.
In the end, trust and accountability are not opposites. In fact, trust works when accountability is clear. By contrast, if an organization needs to review, approve, and monitor even the smallest things to feel secure, that process itself becomes another Trust Tax.
If you are an executive, try this in this week's meeting. Explain in ten sentences or fewer what your organization aims to achieve this year and what part your team is responsible for. Members should be able to picture the same direction without a long explanation. Then add one final sentence.
"This is what I still do not know."
True trust can begin not when a leader pretends to know everything, but when they honestly say what they know and what they do not. Trust is not a decorative element that creates a good atmosphere. It is the foundation of management, reducing unnecessary costs and allowing an organization to move faster with the same resources.
That is why the answer to the question, "Does that make money?" must change.
Before asking whether trust makes money, we should first calculate how much we are already spending because of distrust.
 
/ Kim Moon-kyung, Adjunct Professor at Kookmin University and Vice President of the Korean Leadership Society

[email protected] Reporter Jeong Myeong-jin Reporter