The Trust Triangle
The four distinct assessments that make up trust — and how to repair each one specifically
What is the Trust Triangle and how do you build trust using it?
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.
Most people treat trust as a single thing that you either have or don’t. Charles Feltman’s framework disagrees: trust is a judgment made across four separate dimensions, and knowing which dimension failed is the key to targeted repair. A colleague who is sincere and competent but unreliable has a very different problem than one who seems reliable but doesn’t actually care about your interests. The practices here apply the Trust Triangle to building, maintaining, and repairing trust in real relationships.
Practices
- 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.
- Build sincerity by saying only what you mean
Only make commitments and assertions you actually believe — and retract the ones you don’t.
- Build reliability by making smaller, keepable promises
Under-promise consistently, then exceed rather than over-promise and fall short.
- Be transparent about your competence limits
Name what you can do, what you can’t, and what you’ll need to learn — before you are found out.
- Demonstrate care through visible acts in the other person’s interest
Show that your interests and theirs are genuinely aligned — not only when it’s convenient.
- Extend trust deliberately to invite it
Trust others first, in bounded ways, before they have earned every dimension — it is how trust is built.
- Have explicit trust conversations when trust is at stake
Name the trust issue directly rather than managing it indirectly.
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Related concepts
- The Trust Equation, Made Practical
The four trust levers and why self-orientation is the denominator that matters most
- Radical Candor, Made Practical
The 2x2, the mechanisms behind real candor, and an honest read on the evidence
- Crucial Conversations, Made Practical
Safety, mutual purpose, STATE, and the stories that drive us
- Nonviolent Communication (NVC), Made Practical
The four components, the mechanisms behind them, and an honest read on the evidence