Early in my career, I had a manager who was, without question, one of the worst I've ever had. I left a company I genuinely loved because of her. Strong pay, great reputation, real growth potential, and none of it was enough to stay.
What made her so bad wasn't incompetence. She was smart. She knew the work. What destroyed any chance of a real relationship was that she only cared about her own career. Her team existed to get her to the next level, and that came through in everything she did.
When I was going through a really hard time personally, my father was ill and I had to travel home last minute for a health emergency. Her response was to ask me when I'd be back. That was it. No acknowledgment. No empathy. Nothing. And once you've seen that in a manager, you can't unsee it. It's very hard to care about someone who has made it clear they don't care about you.
That experience did something important for me though. It gave me a very clear picture of the manager I never wanted to become. And it made me think seriously about what actually builds trust, because she had authority, she had a title, she had seniority. What she didn't have was any of her team's trust.
Most new managers assume trust comes with the role. That because they have the authority, their team should extend the trust. It doesn't work that way. Authority and trust are two completely different things. One is given to you. The other has to be earned.
Here's the framework I use to think about it. I call it the trust equation:
Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Empathy) ÷ Self-Interest
The last one sits in the denominator for a reason: the higher your self-interest, the more it erodes everything else.
Credibility is about whether you know what you're talking about. As a new manager, this doesn't mean you need to be the most technically skilled person in the room. It means being honest about what you know and what you don't. "I don't know yet, but I'll find out" is more credibility-building than a confident answer that turns out to be wrong.
Reliability is about whether you do what you say. This one is built in small moments. "I'll talk to that stakeholder by Friday." "I'll get you feedback before your presentation." These feel minor. But every small commitment you keep is a deposit into someone's trust in you. Every one you miss is a withdrawal. And the account starts at zero.
Empathy is about whether you actually understand what your team members care about. Not their deliverables, but them. What motivates them. What frustrates them. What they want to grow into. A manager who doesn't know the answer to any of those questions has usually spent all their 1:1s running status updates. You cannot effectively develop someone you don't actually know.
Self-interest is the variable that sits in the denominator, and it's the most important one to be honest with yourself about. When a manager is primarily optimizing for their own visibility, their own career, their own credit, their team feels it in every decision, every conversation, every moment where they're wondering whose interests are actually being served. You already know what that looks like. It's the manager who asks when you'll be back when your father is ill. It's not dramatic. It's just a small moment that tells you everything you need to know about where you sit in someone's priority list. And once your team has had that moment with you, everything you do gets filtered through it.
The trust equation is slow. But it compounds.
During our last annual review cycle, I asked my direct reports for feedback on me as a manager, and one of them said: "I don't have any constructive feedback right now, but I know that when I do, I can come to you and you'll actually listen and do something with it."
I loved hearing that. Not because it was a compliment, but because of what it actually meant. The fact that a direct report feels safe enough to give you feedback, trusts that you'll receive it well, and believes you'll act on it — that doesn't happen by accident. It's the result of two years of small, consistent behaviors. Reliability. Empathy. Low self-interest. It was the trust equation in practice.
One thing to try this week
Pick the variable where you're weakest right now and start there. If it's reliability, make one specific commitment to someone this week and follow through without being reminded. If it's empathy, ask a team member what they want to grow into and actually listen to the answer. If it's credibility, say "I don't know, but I'll find out" the next time you genuinely don't know. And if it's self-interest, ask yourself honestly whose benefit the last three decisions you made were really serving.
Small deposits. Consistent over time. That's how the trust grows.
— Andrea
P.S. Not sure where you actually are in the transition? I built a free 5-minute assessment that shows you exactly which IC habits are still running the show — across how you execute, communicate, and delegate ownership. Nine questions. Immediate results. You can find it here.
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