How Great Leaders Rebuild Trust After Making Big Mistakes

Rebuilding trust after we have broken it is one of the hardest things we can do. As the saying goes, "Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair."

Key Insights

Rebuilding trust at work after a leadership mistake is possible provided the behaviour that caused the damage actually changes. Trust is not repaired through apology alone. It is repaired through visible, consistent new behaviour over time. Leaders who turn it around share one common trait: they stop defending what went wrong and start doing something about it. Follow these eight steps, drawn from executive coaching practice and research.

But not all trust violations are created equal.

Perhaps you have repeatedly missed deadlines, turned up late to meetings, failed to follow through on commitments, or led your team in a way that has caused them to lose confidence in you. Maybe your actions have cost others time, money, energy, or unnecessary stress.

The good news is that these types of trust breaches are often recoverable.

Other violations such as cheating on a partner, publicly humiliating a colleague, stealing from work, or bullying others, can cause much deeper damage and are far harder to repair.

Over the years, I have coached many leaders who found themselves at risk of losing their role because their team, colleagues, or even their boss had stopped trusting them. The leaders who successfully rebuilt that trust all had one thing in common: they were genuinely committed to changing their behaviour, not just repairing their reputation.

Here are eight steps to rebuilding trust at work.

How to Rebuild Trust at Work

1. Apologise. And mean it.

A real apology is not "I'm sorry you felt that way." That is blame dressed up as remorse.

A real apology names the specific behaviour, acknowledges the impact on the other person, and makes no attempt to explain or minimise. It sounds something like: "I have been regularly missing our agreed deadlines. That has made your job harder and I imagine it has been frustrating. I am sorry."

Short. Specific. No defence. Many leaders rush through this step because it feels uncomfortable. But the apology is the foundation. If you cannot do this sincerely, none of the steps that follow will land.

2. Commit to changing the behaviour

One of the things I say in my book, Trusted to Thrive, is: "You can't talk your way into trust, you have to behave into it."

When we have made any sort of big mistake at work, it is recoverable, provided we get into action and show people we are working on fixing the behaviour that caused harm. It is not about "Yeah, I'll fix it" and then forgetting about it three days later.

This requires having an honest look at the specific behaviour that keeps tripping you up. The one you keep defending. It is time to stop defending it and do something about it. The more you get defensive, the less likely people are to trust you again. Showing genuine remorse is what people need to see before they will take a risk on you.

This could be shutting people down in meetings, not being aware of time, or reacting when you are overwhelmed. Whatever it is, own it, then take steps to change.

3. Self-reflect and understand your wiring

After a significant mistake, most leaders naturally start reflecting on what went wrong. The trick is not to do this from a place of blame, defensiveness, or shame. You will never make good decisions from those states.

Get yourself into a more neutral headspace first. Go for a walk. Spend time with people who ground you. Play sport. Whatever helps you come back to yourself. Then from that calmer place, sit with the question: what do I need to do differently?

Research from Zenger Folkman found that 72% of employees were not surprised when they received redirecting feedback. They just hadn't fully grasped how serious the problem was or hadn't worked out how to change.

One layer worth going deeper on: understanding your own personality tendencies. Knowing why you keep defaulting to a particular behaviour, not just that you do, shifts the work from willpower to strategy. In my coaching practice, this is often the moment things start to move.

4. Ask for feedback

Most likely, you have received some form of feedback about the offending behaviour. But sometimes it doesn't make sense, or you are genuinely unclear about how you are coming across. At times like this, ask someone you trust for an honest read.

Share with them what you think went wrong and what steps you plan to take. A good sounding board is genuinely valuable here.

Best practice: ask them, listen without interrupting, thank them. Then check back in 30 days and ask if they have noticed any difference. Listen again without defending or explaining. This loop, done consistently, rebuilds credibility faster than almost anything else.

5. Build daily habits and a framework for your trigger behaviour

This is the step that matters most in practice, and where most people stay too vague.

Reflection without action is just rumination. Once you know what needs to change, start. Not next Monday. Now.

But there is a difference between "I will try to do better" and "I will do x every single day." The leaders who turn it around build their new behaviours into daily rhythms. A morning check-in with the team. A standing debrief at the end of each day. A new process for how they handle the type of conversation that has historically gone wrong.

That last one matters. Think about the specific situation that keeps triggering your old behaviour. Build a written framework for how you will handle it before it happens again. When you have a protocol ready, you have something to reach for instead of defaulting. And when you do slip up (because you will), you will at least know you slipped up. That self-awareness is itself a sign of progress.

The key word is visible. The changes have to be noticeable to the people whose trust you damaged.

6. Hold yourself accountable

Change rarely sticks without a structure around it. Getting yourself an executive or leadership coach is helpful here, particularly if the stakes are high.

If that is not an option, find an accountability partner: a colleague, a trusted friend, someone outside the situation who can check in with you regularly. Once a week, tell them what you committed to, what you did, what worked, what did not, and what you are trying next. That structure alone will accelerate your progress significantly.

7. Tell key stakeholders you are working on it

Most leaders assume that changing their behaviour will speak for itself. According to Marshall Goldsmith, one of the world's foremost executive coaches, that assumption is wrong.

People hold onto their past impressions of you. Goldsmith's research shows that proactively telling key stakeholders what you are working on, and asking for their input, materially changes how they perceive your progress. Simply changing is not enough. You need to announce the change.

That means telling your boss. It means updating the people whose trust you most need to rebuild. Be specific: "I know I have been letting the team down on delivery. I am working on x and y. I would value knowing if you notice a difference."

This level of transparency is uncomfortable. It is also one of the most powerful things you can do.

8. Be patient and kind to yourself

Rebuilding trust at work takes longer than breaking it. That is uncomfortable but true.

The biggest mistake leaders make at this stage is expecting fast results, then losing momentum when the relationship does not immediately warm. The people around you will take time to update their perception of you, even as your behaviour changes. That lag is normal.

But here is what to look for. The signs of progress are rarely dramatic. They are small. A colleague who used to avoid eye contact says hello in the corridor. Someone who stopped copying you into emails starts again. A direct report asks for your opinion in a meeting rather than waiting to be asked. These moments are easy to miss if you are only watching for a full repair. Notice them. They are data. They tell you the work is landing before anyone says so out loud.

These small signs are worth celebrating because you will still make mistakes as you learn a new way of being.

Something I tell the leaders I coach: it does not matter if you stuff up today. There will be days you stuff up. What matters is that you know you stuffed up and that you focus on what you will do differently next time. Avoid criticising yourself or feeling that it's not working.

Be kind to yourself through this process. Committing to this work is about stepping into a new version of you. It is hard. It is uncomfortable. Your ego will want to go back to the safety of the old you. But the effort is worth it. You will look back on yourself with pride.

It's the consistency and commitment, not the grand gestures, that eventually shifts how people see you.

The leaders who successfully rebuild trust are not always the most talented. They are the most honest. Honest with themselves about what went wrong, with others about what they are changing, and honest enough to stay the course when it gets uncomfortable.

If you want some help with that, find out more about the Tribe of Trusted Leaders, a 12-month leadership program where leaders work on exactly these challenges together.

Want to go deeper? Read more about how to build trust in the workplace and how to rebuild trust in a low-trust culture.

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