Organization Trust

Danny R. Rios

SOUTH TEXAS COLLEGE

ORGL-4352 Capstone I

Dr. Sandra E. Trevino

November 5, 2020
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Organization Trust

Safe-Eco Wave Limited is a company that generates clean electricity using innovative

technology from sea and ocean waves. The company is aimed to produce affordable and clean

energy, using smart design but simple, and sell power to its customers using an underground

cable. However, the Production Assistant Manager can no longer trust his boss, the Production

Manager. Both their professional and personal relationship seems to have broken, and the

company is finding it extremely hard to repair. The Production Assistant cannot trust his superior

leadership and he feels his job is unsafe, like no one cares for him, and then he is spending most

of his energy on searching for another new career path than performing at his job. The company

is fearing that he might leave the organization, and it will be faced with employee turnover costs

and acquisition costs which it estimates to be around 110%-120% of the assistant manager’s

salary. In this regard, there is a need to use a variety of perspectives to analyze this problem,

provide solutions, and anticipate any criticism that may arise as a result of Safe-Eco Wave

Limited adopting the solutions.

Plato believed that an ideal state is built on trust, and the members of that state are

required to trust their leaders without a question (Price, 2020). Using his book, the Republic,

Plato represented a dialogue between Glaucon and Socrates, his older brothers. Deriving from

their conversation, Plato’s philosophical thoughts are founded on mistrust between the three

different classes in an ideal state: the producers who were laborers, the auxiliaries were

defenders, and the guardians who were the rulers. He believed that it was the common people,

the auxiliaries and producers, who gave the guardians the power to rule. However, when

auxiliaries and producers could no longer trust their leaders, the guardians used their given

power to execute common people such as Socrates. This gives us our first reason why there is a
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mistrust between the production manager and his assistance: simply because the production

assistant cannot trust the leadership of his superior to be transparent. As for Aristotle, he believed

that the cultivation of virtuous friendship was built on trust and intention. He argued that people

who incorporate a degree of emotional, demonstrate abilities to logical reasoning, and those who

have good characters in the context of their arguments, are more likely to engage in a

communication of trustworthiness (Azizan, 2018). This gives our second reason to believe that

the relationship between the two is without emotions, logic, or good character and they simply

cannot trust each other at personal and professional levels.

Hobbes concept of trust is founded on his “Hobbesian Concept,” which is derived from

the formation of the social contract. He argued that the state of nature would eventually lead to a

state of war that required a mutual covenant based on trust, and this formed his Hobbesian

concept. This concept proposed the idea of voluntary social contract between people who wanted

to refer to each other as equals. Hobbes believed that a state of nature has two escape routes:

One, sovereignty by institution; as a result of a mutual, voluntary contract. And second,

sovereignty by acquisition; as a result of forced subjection to a contract through the terror of

death (Odzuck, 2017). But his notion implied that there is mutual trust between two people who

formerly used the terror of death and their ability to kill was subject to each other. As such, this

gives the third reason to believe that the assistant manager cannot trust his superior because of

fear of retaliation. On the other hand, Kant believed that trust is a fundamental requirement in an

ideal moral community because respect was acquired through trust in the relationships between

members of a kingdom (Peterson. 2020). Kant’s philosophical thought suggests to us that

members of an ideal community never break or lie their promises, and every person trusts
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everyone else. Perhaps this gives the fourth reason to believe that the relationship between the

two is of lies and broken promises.

Mill believed that the truth can be understood better by removing the errors if an opinion

was wrong. He argued that most of the opinions are either completely false or completely true.

He believed in the search and discovery of the truth as a way to build trust. In this regard, he

used his utilitarian principle: where representatives of governments required public trust, in

which every representative was to speak the truth and aim for the common good, and collective

and individual deliberations are driven by diversity of perspectives and experiences (Cohen,

2017). Therefore, the lack of communicating the truth could be another reason why the

production manager and his assistance have trust issues. Interestingly, Nietzsche believed that a

noble man lived in openness and trust to himself and a resentment man was neither

straightforward nor honest nor naïve and upright with himself (Hollingdale, 2018). A man

without openness and trust love back doors, secret paths, and love hiding places. Nietzsche

insisted that a resentment man was bound to become a noble and clever man who knows how to

keep silent, not to forget, and keep silent. Therefore, the openness between the two managers

could be another reason why their relationship is represented with mistrust.

Safe-Eco Wave Limited needs to increase employee trust in leadership in order to boost

performance. One way of doing this is by increasing leadership compassion. Instead of the

company spending money and time trying to rebuild broken trust, it should take upfront time to

train leaders to be compassionate so as to gain employee commitment and trust. The business

performance only increases when a leader takes care of employees. Another way is recognition

that increases trust between employees and leaders. Leaders need to recognize a well done job

from their employees. If Safe-Eco Wave Limited wants to achieve its business goals even in the
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times of great demand and uncertainty, leadership needs to appreciate positions, ideas, and

values. However, the company should anticipate criticism from adopting these two solutions.

This may include the employees criticizing the company for failing to enforce these solutions

when they were most needed. But the company should give employees a listening ear and

encourage them to learn from their mistakes.

In conclusion, analyzing trust issues within an organization creates a foundation of

successful relationships at various levels of leadership, departments, and divisions. In case of any

broken trust relationship, the company should eliminate this problem by increasing leadership

compassion and recognition. This way, Safe-Eco Wave Limited gains employee commitment

and trust as well as achieve its business goals.

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Reference

Azizan, S. (2018, September 18). The philosophy of trust: Aristotle’s “Truth Roughly” & the

Impact of Human Trust. Band of Peers – Putting forward credibility.

https://www.bandofpeers.com/the-philosophy-of-trust/

Cohen, R. (2017). JS Mill's boundaries of freedom of expression: a trust. Philosophy.

Hollingdale, R. J. (2018). Nietzsche: The man and his philosophy. Cambridge University Press.

Odzuck, E. (2017). The Concept of Trust in Hobbes’s Political Philosophy. In Trust and

Happiness in the History of European Political Thought (pp. 118-141). Brill.

Peterson, S. N. (2020). Kant on trust: What was Immanuel Kant's approach to the question of

trust? nraeLnepO. https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-

arts/culture/philosophy/kant-on-trust#:~:text=Trust%20is%20fundamental%20to

%20the,and%20everyone%20trusts%20everyone%20else.

Price, C. (2020). On trust and philosophy: Trust in Plato's work "The Republic". OpenLearn -

Open University. https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/culture/philosophy/on-

trust-and-philosophy