After a mistake: how can you rebuild your manager’s trust?
A mistake at work can damage the relationship with a manager in ways that its technical consequences alone do not explain. The useful question is specific: how can trust be repaired when a manager now doubts an employee’s competence or honesty?
What the literature establishes
Peter H. Kim, Donald L. Ferrin, Cecily D. Cooper and Kurt T. Dirks (2004, Journal of Applied Psychology) demonstrate experimentally that the effect of responding to an accusation depends on the type of violation perceived. In their experimental settings, apologies repair trust more effectively than denials when competence is questioned; the pattern reverses when integrity is questioned. Repair therefore also depends on how the violation is interpreted, not simply on how an apology is worded.
What subsequent behaviour can repair
Maurice E. Schweitzer, John C. Hershey and Eric T. Bradlow (2006, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes) examine trust restoration in an experimental setting involving repeated exchanges. Their findings indicate that a series of trustworthy actions can restore damaged trust, but that prior deception leaves a persistent obstacle to repair, even after promises, apologies and trustworthy behaviour. A mistake and a mistake accompanied by concealment are therefore not the same relational problem.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that technical mistakes should be acknowledged while anything involving integrity should be denied. That would turn an experimental finding about perceptions into a recipe for manipulation: these studies justify neither lying nor concealing an established fact. A cautious application to the relationship with a manager is to distinguish verified facts, causes that remain uncertain and corrective actions whose completion can be demonstrated. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence cannot guarantee
These experiments do not reproduce the full history of a reporting relationship, its power dynamics or the constraints of an industrial quality system. They therefore cannot support a promise that a particular wording will restore a manager’s trust after a real incident. A measure of corrective action provides information about control of the problem; on its own, it does not measure restored trust.
A practical check in Neuchâtel
Within the SHR programme « Construire une relation efficace avec son manager », an exercise could start with an actual documentation or traceability discrepancy in a Neuchâtel microtechnology, watchmaking or precision microelectronics company, without replacing quality procedures. The employee and manager record established facts, points requiring verification and agreed corrective actions, each with a deadline and the evidence expected. Over a proposed four-week trial, they calculate the proportion of corrective actions due that were completed on time with verifiable evidence, then separately review any reservations the manager still expresses. This process checks words against actions without treating the completion rate as proof of restored trust. To go further: explore the Building an Effective Relationship with Your Manager training in Neuchâtel, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Building an Effective Relationship with Your Manager in Neuchâtel
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