Employees’ trust in managers’ decisions declines the further up the management structure the boss sits

The further removed you are from your employees, the less likely they will trust you, according to research.

A survey by the British association of Communicators in Business found that while seven in 10 trust their immediate boss, only four in 10 trust their manager’s boss. Only three in 10 trust the manager above that.

Communicators in Business national chairman Suzanne Peck said: “I’m not surprised by the results. All the evidence shows that the more remote the manager – both in terms of people skills and location – the less they are trusted.

“No employee is going to trust any manager who they don’t know or who can’t talk to them like a normal human being.”

Communicators in Business sent out its survey to 4,700 subscribers to its online magazine.

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One responded: “The head of my team thinks only of his own interests and never supports the team, although he is quite happy to take the credit for our successes.”

Another added: “The difficulty lies with my boss’s boss, who frequently lands us in it through over-promising, lack of contact, lack of consultation, lack of basic information sharing and frequent mistakes.”