Wild Enough to Trust Again By Dr. Rob McKenna

Three Truths About Learning to Trust Again

We live in a world where trust fractures, and learning to trust again is a challenging task. Institutions we once relied on feel fragile. Leaders we once admired have stumbled. Teams and families alike bear the scars of broken promises. In many ways, it can feel safer to pull back, protect ourselves, and lower our expectations.

And yet — if we stop trusting altogether, we stop living.

To lead with courage today is to take the risk of being wild enough to trust again.

#1 Trust Requires Risk

Absolute trust isn’t cautious. It’s not hedged or guaranteed. It requires us to make ourselves vulnerable — to believe in someone else, to rely on them, to hand them part of our future. That’s risky. And it can feel almost reckless when we’ve been let down before.

But here’s the paradox: without risk, there is no trust. And without trust, there is no team, no relationship, no movement worth joining.

#2 Trust Must Be Rebuilt, Not Assumed

One of the most prominent mistakes leaders make is assuming trust is either present or absent, as if it’s static. Trust is dynamic, like clay — we must work with it and rework it, with humility.

Breaks in trust don’t make us shameful. They make us human. The courage is not in pretending we never fracture trust, but in admitting it, naming it, and rebuilding it. That’s the kind of work that feels wild in a world that prizes control, image, and efficiency.

#3 Trust Is The Soil of Transformation

When leaders dare to trust again — to ask “Do you trust me?” and mean it, or to confess “Here’s where I’ve let you down” — something shifts. Walls come down—truth surfaces. Healing begins.

In our research, the healthiest and highest-performing organizations weren’t the ones that declared, “We’re healthy.” They were the ones who kept asking, “Are we healthy?” That posture of humility and curiosity is what transforms teams and entire cultures.

A Final Word

Being wild enough to trust again doesn’t mean being naïve. It means refusing to let fear have the final word. It means leading with courage, knowing that trust is the only soil in which relationships and organizations can truly flourish.

The world doesn’t need safer leaders. It needs braver ones. Leaders’ wild enough to risk trust again — and again — and in doing so, to show us a better way forward.

Dr. Rob McKenna is the CEO and Founder of WiLD Leaders, Inc. Named one of the top 30 industrial-organizational psychologists alive today, Dr. McKenna is passionate about developing whole leaders, increasing performance and well-being, and creating and sustaining trust.

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