When Engagement Scores Reveal What Trust Scores Would Say

… and What Executives Can Do About It 

The Monday Morning That Changes Everything

Mike stared at the email from Regional HQ for the third time that Monday morning. The subject line was innocuous enough: "Q4 Global Engagement Survey Results." But the numbers inside were anything but.

PharmaCorp Japan: 9% engaged. Global average: 23%. Asia Pacific: 18%.

His market was an outlier. Again.

The email that followed from his regional boss was polite but unmistakable in its urgency: "Mike, we need to understand what's happening in Japan. These scores impact our talent retention projections and R&D pipeline capacity. Can you provide a remediation plan by month-end?"

Mike's first instinct was familiar and almost reflexive. The survey must be flawed—too Western, not accounting for Japanese communication norms where people don't express enthusiasm the same way. Or maybe it was the culture—Japanese employees are just more reserved, less expressive about job satisfaction. Or perhaps everyone was simply stretched thin after the merger integration.

But there was a question he couldn't shake, one that kept surfacing as he looked at that 9% figure: If 93% of his employees were classified as "not engaged" or "actively disengaged," what did that really say about their trust in leadership? What did it say about him?

The Conversation That Cuts Deeper Than the Data

By Wednesday, Mike had convened his three business unit heads in a conference room with a view of Tokyo Tower. Tomo led R&D, Hiroki ran Commercial, and Vicky headed Operations. Between them, they were responsible for nearly 400 people.

"I need to understand what these engagement scores are actually telling us," Mike began, sliding printed copies of the results across the table. "Because if I'm honest, I don't think the remediation plan HQ wants is about better employee benefits or team-building events."

Tomo spoke first. At 53, with over twenty years at PharmaCorp, he represented continuity and institutional memory. "Mike-san, these scores don't surprise me. But I don't think they mean what HQ thinks they mean." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "The younger employees—they don't understand gaman.* They want constant feedback, transparency about decisions that frankly aren't theirs to make. Why should we share strategy uncertainties with people three levels down? It creates anxiety."

There it was. Tomo equated silence with stability, information control with strong leadership. But Mike wondered: Did Tomo's team experience that silence as stability, or as exclusion?

What Tomo was expressing—without perhaps realizing it—was a view of trust built almost entirely on competence and results. Researchers call this the "Ability" dimension of the ABI trust model, the belief that if a leader delivers outcomes, trust follows naturally. What was missing in Tomo's equation was the "Benevolence" dimension—the perception that the leader cares about the team's wellbeing beyond their utility in producing results. Without context, without transparency, his team couldn't assess whether he had their interests at heart. They could only assume he didn't.

Hiroki leaned forward. At 46, he'd spent five years at PharmaCorp's US headquarters before returning to Japan to lead Commercial. "The survey confirms what I'm hearing in my one-on-ones. People don't feel safe speaking up." He described a quarterly business review three months ago where he'd explicitly asked his team for concerns about the new product launch strategy. Silence. Not a single question. Two weeks later, three people resigned. Their exit interviews? "Lack of transparency. Don't feel heard."

"Here's what I think is happening," Hiroki continued. "We confuse respect with trust. They respect our positions—absolutely. But do they trust we'll actually listen? That's different."

Hiroki had identified something crucial: the absence of psychological safety—the belief that one can speak up without fear of consequences. Research consistently shows this is the primary mechanism through which leadership behavior translates into engagement. In Japan, 70% of engagement variance is attributable to the manager, but hierarchical norms often suppress the very dissent that signals trust. Hiroki was caught in the middle—knowing intellectually that something was broken, but not knowing how to shift it without feeling like he was betraying the cultural contract.

Then Vicky spoke. British-Japanese, she'd been in Japan for a decade and had the kind of cross-cultural fluency that allowed her to name tensions others danced around. "I think we're asking the wrong question," she said. "It's not 'How do we raise engagement?' It's 'Why don't they trust us enough to engage?'"

She pulled up her team's scores on her laptop. "My team's engagement is 14%—not great, but better than the company average. You want to know the difference? Every month I hold an 'ask me anything' session. And I don't just say 'ask me anything.' I explicitly say: 'Challenge my decisions. Tell me where you think I'm wrong.' I make it safe to dissent."

Then she turned to Mike. "When was the last time someone in your directs meeting disagreed with you in front of the others?"

The question hung in the air. Mike tried to remember. He couldn't. Not because his decisions were always right. Because somewhere along the way, his team had learned not to dissent.

Vicky's approach embodied what researchers call vulnerability-based trust—the model that says real trust isn't just about predictability (knowing how someone will act), but about leaders creating explicit permission for others to be uncertain, make mistakes, and challenge authority. By lowering the perceived risk of speaking up, she was building the "Integrity" pillar of the ABI model: consistency between stated values (we want your input) and actual behavior (and we reward you for giving it).

The Research That Mike Wished He'd Read Sooner

That evening, Mike stayed late. He pulled up everything he could find on engagement and trust in Japan. The numbers were worse than he'd realized.

Japan consistently reported some of the lowest employee engagement scores globally: 6-7% engaged compared to a global average of 23%. Approximately 93% of the Japanese workforce was classified as "not engaged" or "actively disengaged." The economic cost of this disengagement? An estimated ¥86 trillion annually in lost productivity.

But here was the data point that made him pause: Leaders consistently rate themselves as 29% more trustworthy than their teams perceive them to be. Twenty-nine percent. Nearly a third.

Mike started connecting the dots. Engagement doesn't exist in a vacuum. You can't be genuinely engaged with work if you don't trust three things about your leader: that they see your contributions and you have the ability to influence outcomes; that they care about your development beyond immediate results; and that they'll be honest even when it's uncomfortable.

These three dimensions—Ability, Benevolence, Integrity—form what's known as the ABI model of trust. Mike realized: his team probably trusted his competence. He'd built a successful career, delivered results, knew the pharmaceutical business inside and out. But did they trust his motives? Did they believe his words matched his actions?

In hierarchical cultures like Japan, respect flows automatically from position and tenure. Trust, on the other hand, must be earned through behavior. Mike had been managing a team that respected him. The engagement scores were telling him they didn't necessarily trust him.

And he'd been conflating the two for years.

The Three Behaviors Hiding in Plain Sight

Mike couldn't launch a corporate-wide trust initiative. He didn't control HR policy, couldn't redesign the engagement survey, couldn't mandate that regional HQ start treating trust as a board-level KPI. But as he reflected on the conversation with Tomo, Hiroki, and Vicky, he realized he controlled three things that mattered more than any corporate program.

The Vulnerability He'd Been Avoiding

Tomo's blind spot was Mike's too. When was the last time Mike had said to his leadership team: "I don't have the answer yet. Here's what I'm considering. What am I missing?"

He thought back to the merger integration six months ago. Regional HQ had given him three weeks to propose which roles would be consolidated, which functions would be centralized, which teams would be restructured. He'd made those decisions in closed-door sessions with his HR director and finance lead, then announced the outcomes to his Japan leadership team in a polished presentation with clean org charts and talking points.

He'd called it "efficient decision-making." His team had experienced it as exclusion.

The vulnerability-based trust model suggests that leaders who can't say "I don't know" or "I made a mistake" send a powerful signal: this environment isn't safe for you to be uncertain either. The result? Teams hide problems until they metastasize into crises. In Japan, where admitting "I don't know" can feel like losing face, this pattern becomes especially toxic. Younger professionals increasingly interpret leader certainty as dishonesty—because they understand how genuinely complex the business environment is.

If Mike couldn't admit uncertainty to his team, he wasn't protecting them from anxiety. He was teaching them to hide their own doubts until it was too late to solve the problem.

The Humility That Gets Performed Rather Than Practiced

Hiroki's struggle was one Mike recognized in himself too. They both knew that listening mattered, that input was valuable, that collaboration produced better outcomes. They'd both been trained in "inclusive leadership." But there was a gap between knowing this and actually creating the conditions for it to happen.

Mike thought about the last strategy offsites, where he'd dutifully asked for input on the three-year plan. People had offered suggestions. He'd nodded thoughtfully. Then he'd presented the plan to regional HQ almost exactly as he'd drafted it before the offsite. He told himself he'd "considered" the input. But had he actually changed anything because of it?

His team could tell the difference between ritual humility—the cultural script of "I am unworthy of this position, please guide me"—and true humility, which sounds more like "I might be wrong about this. Help me see what I'm missing."

This is the "Integrity" dimension of trust: the perceived consistency between what leaders say they value and what they actually reward. When there's a gap between asking for input and genuinely being open to changing course, trust erodes faster than if leaders never asked for input at all. The team learns that their voice is performative, that dissent is invited but not actually welcomed.

Your team doesn't need you to be self-deprecating, Mike realized. They need you to be genuinely curious about your own blind spots.

The Default to Control Under Pressure

The third behavior was the most insidious because it was the most understandable. When quarterly numbers were under pressure, when regional HQ was asking hard questions, when the market was shifting faster than anyone had predicted—that's when all of them, Mike included, reverted to directive mode.

Tomo would say: "Just execute the plan." Hiroki would say: "I don't have time to explain right now." Even Vicky, with her "ask me anything" sessions, would say: "We'll discuss this after we hit target."

The message their teams received was clear: Trust and transparency are nice-to-haves. When it actually matters, we don't want your input. We just need your compliance.

Research shows that leaders are 5.3 times more likely to be trusted when they display vulnerability, especially under pressure. But the default in hierarchical cultures is the opposite: tighten control when uncertainty rises, become more directive when the path forward is unclear. This teaches teams that psychological safety evaporates exactly when they need it most.

Every time Mike had defaulted to "just tell them what to do" because he was under pressure, he'd been choosing speed over trust. Sometimes that's necessary—he understood that. But when it becomes the default pattern, you're not building capability. You're building dependence. And you're definitely not building engagement.

What Any Leader Can Start Tomorrow

Mike met with Tomo, Hiroki, and Vicky again two weeks later. "I've been thinking about something," he began. "We can't fix Japan's engagement scores in thirty days. I can't launch a corporate-wide trust initiative. But I can change what you three experience in our leadership meetings. And you can change what your teams experience in yours."

He shared what he'd learned about his own trust gaps. The 29% perception gap that exists between how leaders rate themselves and how teams experience them. The three dimensions of trust. The behavioral patterns he'd identified in himself—the avoidance of vulnerability, the performance of humility without genuine openness, the default to control under pressure.

"So here's what I'm committing to," Mike said. "I'm going to have confidential conversations with five people across the organization—not just you three, but people at different levels. I'm going to ask them three questions: Do you believe I'm transparent about the challenges we're facing? Do you believe I care about your development beyond immediate results? Do you feel you can disagree with me without career consequences?"

He paused. "Those answers will tell me which dimension of trust is weakest. Then I'm going to pick one specific behavior to change—and I'm going to explain to you why I'm changing it. Not as a program. As a person trying to lead better."

Mike looked at each of them. "I'm asking you to do the same. Pick one trust behavior you're going to change. Let's set one simple pulse question we track monthly with our teams: On a scale of one to five, I trust my leader is transparent with me. Not a comprehensive trust dashboard. Just one metric that matters."

Tomo was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "I think my gap is benevolence. My team trusts I know what I'm doing. They don't trust that I care about them beyond their productivity."

Hiroki nodded slowly. "Mine is integrity. I ask for input but I don't actually change course because of it. I need to stop performing consultation."

Vicky smiled. "Mine is consistency. When things get hard, I revert to command-and-control like everyone else. I say psychological safety matters, then I pull it away when we're behind on targets."

Six Months Later

The email Mike wanted to send to Regional HQ went like this:

"You asked for a plan to fix Japan's engagement scores. Here's what I learned: The scores aren't a 'Japan problem.' They're a trust problem. And trust doesn't get built by corporate initiatives or survey tools—though those help. Trust gets built in the space between what I promise and what I do. In whether I'm honest when things are uncertain. In whether my team believes I see them as people, not productivity units.

I can't control whether we ever get a trust dashboard. But I can control whether the people I lead experience me as someone who tells them the truth, admits when I don't know, and genuinely wants to hear when I'm wrong.

Our engagement scores moved from 9% to 16%. Three high performers who were planning to leave have stayed. Two people who never spoke in meetings are now challenging my assumptions. This didn't happen because I rolled out a program. It happened because I stopped waiting for the perfect corporate initiative and started measuring the only thing I truly control: whether my team trusts me."

The email Mike actually sent was more corporate in tone: "Here's our 30-day progress update and ongoing action plan. Will report monthly KPIs per your request. Early indicators are positive."

But what mattered wasn't the email. What mattered was that Mike had stopped treating trust as something that happens to his organization and started treating it as something that happens between him and his team, in every interaction, in every decision, in every moment where he chose transparency over polish, vulnerability over certainty, genuine curiosity over performed humility.

The Question That Remains

You can wait for your organization to measure trust. You can wait for the perfect tool, the right budget, the board mandate, the corporate initiative that makes trust everyone's priority.

Or you can ask yourself: What will your team say about your leadership in their next engagement survey?

Because that score—whether it's 9% or 49%—isn't measuring their happiness. It's not measuring their satisfaction with benefits or their opinion of the office space.

It's measuring whether they trust you enough to care.

What will they say about you?

For more conversation, reach out to Karin (karin.wellbrock@kaygroup-asia.com) 

Note: For a structured approach to assessing and improving trust with your team, a companion resource—"The Subsidiary Leader's 30-Day Trust Audit"—provides a framework for self-assessment, team feedback, and visible behavior change. This includes the specific questions to ask, how to interpret the responses, and how to translate insights into action.

*Gaman (我慢): A Japanese virtue of endurance and self-restraint, characterized by the stoic patience required to bear the unbearable with dignity and without complaint.

About the Author 

Karin Wellbrock is Partner and Head of Leadership Effectiveness at Kay Group K.K., a Tokyo-based leadership development firm. She works as an executive coach with C-suite leaders across Asia and Europe, specializing in developing intentional leaders who deliver high performance based on trust, psychological safety, and leadership effectiveness in complex cultural contexts.

References

Blakey, J. (2025). "If Trust Is So Important, Why Aren't We Measuring It?" Harvard Business Review. Published November 4, 2025.

Deloitte (2025). 2025 Global Human Capital Trends: Trust as a Strategic Asset. https://www2.deloitte.com/

Edelman (2025). 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer. https://www.edelman.com/trust/2025/trust-barometer

Gallup (2024). State of the Global Workplace Report 2024. Gallup, Inc.

Lencioni, P. (2002). The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). "An Integrative Model of Organizational Trust." Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 709-734.

Michael Page Japan (2025). 2025 Talent Trends Report: Japan Market Insights.

PwC (2025). The New Architecture of Trust: Building Trust in the Age of Disruption. https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/trust/

Qualtrics XM Institute (2025). 2025 Trust Indices: Measuring the Foundation of Employee Experience.

Schoorman, F. D., Mayer, R. C., & Davis, J. H. (2007). "An Integrative Model of Organizational Trust: Past, Present, and Future." Academy of Management Review, 32(2), 344-354.

Zak, P. J. (2017). "The Neuroscience of Trust." Harvard Business Review, 95(1), 84-90.