Coaching practices for Interpersonal Trust Default
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Interpersonal Trust Default, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I keep everything at work behind a polished, guarded front
- With new people I try to fast-forward to being close
- I won’t hand anyone real responsibility until they’ve completely proven themselves first
- It’s not one person — it’s that I walk through the world assuming people are basically selfish, lazy, out for themselves, so I’m braced for the worst from everyone before they’ve done a thing, and I’m exhausted by how much suspicion I carry as my baseline.
- Trust with this person has cracked and I just keep apologizing for "not being trustworthy" in this big vague way
Practices that may help
- Lower your guard to raise the intimacy score
Sharing something real about yourself makes others feel safer sharing something real with you.
The Trust Equation, Made Practical - Earn the right to deepen the relationship in stages
Trust compounds over time — start with technical credibility and expand into intimacy as it is earned.
The Trust Equation, Made Practical - Extend trust deliberately to invite it
Trust others first, in bounded ways, before they have earned every dimension — it is how trust is built.
The Trust Triangle - Set charitable interpretation as your cognitive default
Deliberately adopt the assumption that people are probably doing their best given their constraints.
Hanlon's Razor: Never Attribute to Malice What Stupidity Can Explain - Diagnose which trust dimension is broken before trying to repair
Name the specific trust assessment that failed — then address that one, not trust in general.
The Trust Triangle - The Trust Equation, Made Practical
The Trust Equation (Maister, Green, and Galford) holds that trustworthiness = (credibility + reliability + intimacy) ÷ self-orientation. The model is a practitioner framework rather than a rigorously tested theory, but it usefully names the levers — especially self-orientation, which is the single biggest trust-killer most leaders overlook. - Audit and reduce your self-orientation
Self-orientation is the denominator: a small increase in it wipes out gains in all three numerator variables.
The Trust Equation, Made Practical - Have explicit trust conversations when trust is at stake
Name the trust issue directly rather than managing it indirectly.
The Trust Triangle - The Trust Triangle
Charles Feltman’s Trust Triangle (from The Thin Book of Trust) identifies four distinct assessments that together constitute trust: sincerity (I mean what I say), reliability (I do what I say), competence (I have the ability to do what I say), and care (I have your interests at heart). Trust breaks down when any one of these assessments fails — and repairing trust requires identifying which assessment was damaged. - Build vulnerability-based trust
Teams that can’t admit weakness, mistakes, or ignorance to each other cannot genuinely collaborate.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Made Practical
Related concerns
- Care Dimension Of Trust
Show that your interests and theirs are genuinely aligned — not only when it’s convenient.
Demonstrate care through visible acts in the other person’s interest
- Team Trust
Charles Feltman’s Trust Triangle (from The Thin Book of Trust) identifies four distinct assessments that together constitute trust: sincerity (I mean what I say), reliability (I do what I say), competence (I have the ability to do what I say), and care (I have your interests at heart). Trust breaks down when any one of these assessments fails — and repairing trust requires identifying which assessment was damaged.
- The Trust Equation When Burned Out
The Trust Equation (Maister, Green, and Galford) holds that trustworthiness = (credibility + reliability + intimacy) ÷ self-orientation. The model is a practitioner framework rather than a rigorously tested theory, but it usefully names the levers — especially self-orientation, which is the single biggest trust-killer most leaders overlook.
- The Trust Triangle At Work
Charles Feltman’s Trust Triangle (from The Thin Book of Trust) identifies four distinct assessments that together constitute trust: sincerity (I mean what I say), reliability (I do what I say), competence (I have the ability to do what I say), and care (I have your interests at heart). Trust breaks down when any one of these assessments fails — and repairing trust requires identifying which assessment was damaged.
- The Trust Triangle During A Big Change
Charles Feltman’s Trust Triangle (from The Thin Book of Trust) identifies four distinct assessments that together constitute trust: sincerity (I mean what I say), reliability (I do what I say), competence (I have the ability to do what I say), and care (I have your interests at heart). Trust breaks down when any one of these assessments fails — and repairing trust requires identifying which assessment was damaged.
- The Trust Triangle For My Teenager
Charles Feltman’s Trust Triangle (from The Thin Book of Trust) identifies four distinct assessments that together constitute trust: sincerity (I mean what I say), reliability (I do what I say), competence (I have the ability to do what I say), and care (I have your interests at heart). Trust breaks down when any one of these assessments fails — and repairing trust requires identifying which assessment was damaged.
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